Howdy From Arusha, Tanzania!!

[Abdi A. Jama]

Hi every one:

What a great group!! Messrs Lohman & Hurd are upto something greatT!!. Fantabolousin deed!!

I am a wildlife filmaker in East Africa. I have been shooting film for about 8 years on various arriflex cameras.

I am finding shooting film just so unwieldy and and awful expensive that I have to switch to video.

My problem is I am so illitrate about video I do not quite know where to start. That is why I am so happy with finding this forum.

I have been to a wildlife film makers' festival in Bristol England in October and the talk was that the future is video especially especially HD. So it is time to change to video.

I am reading a ton of great stuff on Chris Hurd's 'watchdog' about the new Canon XL2 DV camera.

This package seems to be in expensive and comes with 20x lens. So may be a good place to begin I thought.

I am trying to translate the capability of this lens to my Super 16 Zeiss 12-120MM, Nikon 600 (with 2x doubler) and 50-300 Canon lenses. I am wondering what other lenses would complement this lens so I am covered for long and wide shots.

While seemlingly decided on the XL2, I happen to come across the Forum's HD section which discusses a couple of Sony cameras. One is called HDR-FX1 (consumer) and the other is somewhat more professional.

I am thinking may be I should start with one of these 2 Sony HD cameras and forget the XL2. I am confused.

Any comments friends? This old dog definitely has a ton of new tricks to learn!!

Thanks a million folks!!

ABDI

[Rob Lohman]

Hello Abdi and welcome aboard DVInfo.net! Thank you for your kind
remarks. I have changed your complete post since everything was
in caps (CAPITAL LETTERS <- like that), which is considered
"shouting" on the internet.

The decision for a camera is certainly a difficult one, especially if
you get in the pro-sumer range. I always advise people to make
lists of the features they absolutely must have, features they
would like to have (wish) and bonus things etc. Include your
budget on these lists as well.

Then you can start to look at each camera and see which features
it does or doesn't have. It should be relative straight forward to
find the camera best suited for you if you do this. Also keep in
mind that if at all possible it would be good to check the camera
out in real-life before ordering it. So you can see how it feels in
your hands etc.

Depending on what you are going to use the camera for and the
equipment you already own you may need to budget in other
things as well (like tripods or lights etc.) which might lower the
amount of money you can spend on the camera.

Since you are coming from a film background it may be interesting
to know that you can get a full black & white CRT viewfinder for
the XL2 and a full manual lens (with manual zoom & iris controls
that accept a follow focus unit!). They also have a 3x wide angle
lens (non manual).

The XL2 also has an adapter (I think the Sony's have it as well
or might get it shortly, not sure) called the mini35 (costs $10000
without any lenses!) which allows you to mount your 35mm cine
and still photo lenses *and* retain the 35mm depth-of-field.

However, it won't work with the 16mm lenses and I have no idea
on how you could mount those to an XL2 if you where interested.

Browse and search around in our Open Discussion forum as well
as in the XL2 and HDV camera forums. There is a lot of talk in those
forums about which camera to buy etc.

Keep in mind with HD that you must have a use for it. For example,
I am in Europe (no HD here) and not going out to film. So HD is
pretty worthless to me at this point in time.

Do take your time to pick a camera and as I said above, make
lists to help you narrow down the choices.

Good luck and continue in the Open Discussion forum if you need
more assistance (after some research) on this matter.

All the best,