Video Camera for skiing

[McHardski]

This is a bit of a cross post from pistehors.com.
http://pistehors.com/news/forums/viewthread/172/

I,m looking for a Video camera for skiing, but not a headcam. My first Video Camera. I am no expert, or IT wiz, in fact i,m the oppsite.. Can anyone suggest something that fulfills my criteria below? If so many Thanks!

Entry-level is probably best, but if there is a real good one a bit more pricey, then maybe i can go up to ca. 400 GBP / 500 euro / 700 USD

Here is a list of things that are important (Thanks to Davidof):

* fast startup time
* small
* robust
* zoom
* image stabilization
* good battery life when cold
* possible to use with gloves
* colour viewfinder
* simple controls
* lens attachments
* uncompressed video recording

To that i would add: Simplicity of editing and using the images on a laptop, and general idiot-proofness.

also, i,m thinking of steering away from "HD", since apparently it is hard to edit.

I am no budding film director, and i have no intention of trying to be, but do want to be able to edit and put togther a video. so simplicity and ease and reliability etc are the key here.

thanks a lot

Al

[4-TEEF]

This is a bit of a cross post from pistehors.com.
http://pistehors.com/news/forums/viewthread/172/

I,m looking for a Video camera for skiing. Can anyone suggest something that fulfills my criteria below?

Here is a list of things that are important (Thanks to Davidof):

* fast startup time

This is sort of a moot point because you will want 5 secs + of "roll in" no matter what you are shooting. Having said that I'm guessing that a tape(MiniDV) based camera will start up slower than one that uses a memory card.

* small

Portability and stowability are nice but remember that the smaller and lighter the camera is the less stable it is and the more camera shake you will get, especially when zoomed in.

* robust

At your price point the cameras will not be robust. That doesn't mean that they will break but they will be almost entirely plastic.

* zoom

They all have it... If you mean a long zoom just be sure to remember that you will need the camera on a tripod or other stable platform to shoot much past the 1/2 way point of the zoom.

* image stabilization

I like the Optical Image Stabilization on the Panasonic cameras.

* good battery life when cold

I doubt you will find ANY camera shipping with a battery that lasts long enough. Budget to buy the BIGGEST aftermarket battery that you can find.

* possible to use with gloves

Possible but it gets harder the smaller the camera is and zooming smoothly can be very hard with gloves. Be ready for cold hands. :-)

* colour viewfinder

Pretty much a given on a consumer camera but you won't be using the viewfinder much. It's all about the LCD these days and the manufacturers are making the viewfinder more useless with every model.

* lens attachments

By this I think you mean that the lens has threads to attach a wide or tele adapter. Unfortunately many of the smaller cameras don't have these threads.

* uncompressed video recording

I could be wrong but I don't think you will find this on anything that isn't a tape based camera (MiniDV)

To that i would add: Simplicity of editing and using the images on a laptop, and general idiot-proofness.

Editing is software. I use a pro application but I'm sure that imovie on the Mac and Moviemaker on the PC will work fine.

also, i,m thinking of steering away from "HD", since apparently it is hard to edit.

It's not hard to edit it's just got way more data so you need a powerful computer to deal with it. Capture, editing and export will all be much slower working in HD.

Do you have an HD TV? If you don't then SD is fine. If you do then you might want HD.

I bought a Panasonic GS320 last year. It's a Standard Def MiniDV camera with 3CCD sensor and optical Image Stabalization. The image quality is very good but it is larger than many of today's "small" cameras.

The Youtube compression kills a lot of the detail of the video but you can see video shot with this camera at http://www.youtube.com/user/snowbirdskiresort

B&H has it for $500 HERE.

[Keegan]

Clearly... you should just splurge $2700 for the 5DMII...

[Tippster]

I bought a Panasonic GS320 last year.

Nice little camera. Shoots in 16/9 as well, so you can upconvert it rather easily to display well on an HDTV, especially if you have a 1080i upconverting DVD player.

[Deep Days]

Any recommendations for a largely ski-biased HD camera for under $1000 (not new, obviously). I think there is a slightly less sophisticated version of the Canon GL2 (is it the CL2? Not sure), but that's all I know about HD cameras. Learn me on where to look and what to look for, pleez...

(And this is not for me. My roommate is in the market).

[Atrain505]

Canon HV20 or 30.
Cheap, consumer HD cameras...with manual controls.

[4-TEEF]

Nice little camera. Shoots in 16/9 as well, so you can upconvert it rather easily to display well on an HDTV, especially if you have a 1080i upconverting DVD player.

Very true. I have not shot anything in 16:9 but the 4:3 footage still looks very nice when upconverted to my 50" plasma.

[bertrenolds]

I would say to stay away from hard drive camcorders, What do you do when the drive is full on the hill? Also avoid dvd recording cam's because they will skip, stick with dv tape camcorders! If you are thinking of getting a hddv camcorder you should know that mini hddv camcorders do not capture motion as well as standard mini dv camcorders as well as the fact that you will get more artifacts when using an hddv camcorder. HDDV also does not take to heavy editing as well as minidv does. I would say, save your self some money and stick with mini dv and start looking on ebay, I got my cam for $50 on there and it is a jvc GR-d371u, their is also a nice cam at sam's club if you live by one for like $200 or so I believe. Also their are plenty of good de-interlacers out their to make your video look great, you just wont get the same resolution as an hd camcorder but that really is not a big deal considering your probably not going to be making theater quality ski movies anyways. 1 more thing, I believe their are a few mini dv camcorders that do have threads and the capability of using filters on them, I think a few Sony's do, but I doubt you will ever really need to use them anyways, just put the camcorder on auto. And get a camcorder with Pass-Through just in case you decide to change your mind about getting a helmet cam, helmet cams are the sh*t!

4-Teef, that vid makes me wanna hit baldy right now! You should host your video on http://www.rip.tv/ Less compression and way better quality.

[4-TEEF]

4-Teef, that vid makes me wanna hit baldy right now! You should host your video on http://www.rip.tv/ Less compression and way better quality.

Yes YouTube sucks from a video quality standpoint but it's pretty much the best place to be from a marketing and PR standpoint. The massive amounts of videos, traffic and crosslinking are too big to ignore for my purposes.

Those vids are also hosted on www.snowbird.com in a higher res with less compression but they don't have the ability to be played at a larger size.