Hi all, first time poster, long time lurker..

I'm going to live the dream in Indonesia early April (surf gland and the like). I'm a pro photographer (www.kirstinprisk.com) who has had his hobby turn into a job. I'm now looking to use my image making eye and have fun with moving image as a hobby. I was going with the XHA1 as the x20 zoom will be ace for surfing. But as I carry too much kit as it is, and for a hobbie it is a little expensive. I have decided to run with the HV20. Might get www.splwaterhousings.com to whip me up a water housing as well. I was just about to order the HV10, + $1300 worth of SPL housing even though I was gutted about the audio on the HV10, when I luckily noticed the April release.

My problem is this. I want to take indi film making as far as I can with this cam. I currently have a bunch of kit that will add flavour to the capture (B-Hague car mounts, lighting etc). I don't however have a clue about a few things. I was hoping you guy's could give me a clue.

As I leave for indo on the 8th April and want to take the gear with me, I need to know and prepare the following:

A) For the talent, what mic do i get? Wireless would be cool if poss.
b) What tapes do I buy and stick to.
c) Where to get all the equipment I need at a good price in the UK.
d) As I am editing on the trip, what laptop would be a good idea to get? I cureently have a 17" Vaio BX197XP and find it too big/heavy and very slow, dispite costing £1800 16 months ago. I am semi compitent in Adobe Premiere Pro 2. This is the program I would use unless you guys can suggest an easier alternative besides Mac.
e)Which light weight tripod/head to use? All on the cheap if possible!?!
f) Do I need to consider anything else? Wideangle lens is a must for the underwater/surf stuff. Will need one of those to.

Thanks for reading

Kirstin

c) Where to get all the equipment I need at a good price in the UK.As a matter of forum policy, we refer *all* where-to-buy questions to our trusted site sponsors only. In the UK it's Production Gear in Hertfordshire: http://www.productiongear.co.uk/ -- tell Simon that I sent you. Hope this helps,

Thanks Chris. I checked the site and they don't stock the camera.

Being sensitive to forum policy, I would like to ask for equipment recommendations only, such as what Microphone should I order? I'm thinking of ordering lots of those Sony
DVM-63HD 63-MNTS MINI-DV-HD TAPE 5-PK
is that a good choice for the HV20??????

Need to know now as I'm in Hawaii and they are cheaper...By a lot. The UK sucks!!!!

Hi Kirstin ,

my suggestion is, going in Indonesia, to buy a PAL version of HV20 in Singapore that for sure will cost less than in Europe.
HV20 should be ready to sell not before next April, so forget Hawaii to buy it,
also for the reason there will be sold only the NTSC version.

Regards
Enrico

I'm probably going to sound biased, but I used to edit on Premiere Pro 1.0 at work and Sony's Vegas 5 (now up to v7) at home, and with comparable system specifications, Vegas always ran much more smoothly for me. It just seemed to require less of my system resources than PP.

Of course, take into account, I have not used PP2, and also I have not edited HDV in either program.