New Camera for Documentary

David Marker · December 14th, 2008, 02:05 PM

I can only speak for the XH-A1. I shot a feature length "run and gun" documentary on this thing over the summer and the camera was great. Other than the lack of a dedicated image stabilizer button (which is supposedly fixed for the S model) I have hardy any complaints about the camera and if I had to re-do the project I would pick the same camera. I flew the camera to Europe and took trains, cars, boats, and motor scooters all with the camera in my Kata 205 backpack. I shot in cities, farms, on tops of mountains, in extreme heat, weird lighting situations etc and the camera always performed well.

I love the image quality that I was able to get. My project is still in post, but everyone that has seen the raw footage says it looks like something from discovery HD. Just make sure you spend time to calibrate it properly using color charts and skin tone tests. You'll have to hook it up to an external monitor (preferably a broadcast monitor) as the Camera LCD is kind of crappy.

December 14th, 2008, 02:05 PM	#16
David Marker New Boot Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Kansas City, MO Posts: 19	I can only speak for the XH-A1. I shot a feature length "run and gun" documentary on this thing over the summer and the camera was great. Other than the lack of a dedicated image stabilizer button (which is supposedly fixed for the S model) I have hardy any complaints about the camera and if I had to re-do the project I would pick the same camera. I flew the camera to Europe and took trains, cars, boats, and motor scooters all with the camera in my Kata 205 backpack. I shot in cities, farms, on tops of mountains, in extreme heat, weird lighting situations etc and the camera always performed well. I love the image quality that I was able to get. My project is still in post, but everyone that has seen the raw footage says it looks like something from discovery HD. Just make sure you spend time to calibrate it properly using color charts and skin tone tests. You'll have to hook it up to an external monitor (preferably a broadcast monitor) as the Camera LCD is kind of crappy.