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To capture video we have the Panasonic NV-DS11B, our requirements were high performance, low price and a firewire or iLink output. This camera has been amazing, we were particularly impressed with the quality of digital video in general, it is really excellent. The camcorder have been great at our wedding and holiday or just for local video.
This camera is not the smallest on the market but is the best I found for under £600.
There is a general issue with European camcorders and the MAC free video editing software, not many European cameras are supported. I currently use the excellent EditDV Unplugged software (free for the MAC) and the free cut down version of Media Cleaner for the codec conversion for web streaming.
The EditDV software is very powerful, much more flexible than the iMoves software, as it is based on a true production software not a glossy simple tools for the average user like iMovie.
As video footage takes up a lot of room at full quality, 30mintes about 10Gb, I like to store my final footage back onto miniDV tape in the camera as it is a lossless process. This initially is a problem as many cameras do not have DVin due to the European tax laws, fortunately there is a simple small piece of software called Pana Widget, you can purchase for about £40 and this rewrites the software in the camera to simple allow DVin. This software works great and no I have a DVin/out camcorder.
This is probably the worlds smallest digital camera. I was looking for a digital camera to take pictures to put on the web site, it had to be under £100, small, light, and easy to use, I found the SPYZ camera from Chee-ze. I did a lot of searching on the www and there are about four credit size cameras, but these are quite expansive, there are only two this size but this camera far out performs all the competition. It has VGA quality 640x480 which is perfect for Web pictures, what impressed me the most was the size and quality of the lense. Usually with small lenses you get dark corners at the edge of the picture or strange color finges at the edge of objects but not with this camera.
It is about the size of a small matchbox, quite robust construction, and you can take it anywhere. The main disadvantage most cameras is that you never have it with you when you see a good shot. I carry this camera everywhere so I can get the shots I need.
The only disadvantage is low light use due to no flash, but this is a trait of many digital cameras. Oh I forgot to mention is also acts as an excellent web cam and video cam. The drivers for MAC and Windows are great with true plug and play via built in USB port. What more could you ask for ?
You have to import it from Hong Kong, but really this is no problem, the company is very professional, answered all my technical questions in hours, and when ordered I received it in the UK in three working days. Checkout their web site for more details.
Here are some pictures I took the other day, click on them for see the raw full size image.
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I used to do a lot of photography and darkroom printing, I do not have so much time as I designing web sites and editing digital video.
My favorite camera is my Cannon EOS 5D, a truly ground breaking camera with a 12Mp full frame sensor.
I have a large selection of lenses mainsigma EX range, but not quire as many as the lense picture below.
I have a manfrotto tripod see pictures below, there are not many products you can buy today that will last a lifetime, but this is one of them. The build quality of these tripods is worldclass and will last the most demanding user for their whole career.
I also used to use medium format film, standard film is a 35mm negative, medium format is 120mm negative so you get a massive increase in quality. The problem with medium format is that its expensive, a good quality camera is about £8000. So how can the average user get intro this area. The answer is the old and second hand market. I picked up a Yashica 124G Twin lense reflex camera for £80. Although this camera is very old it takes excellent pictures.
