video camera help

[dude_le_skibum]

ok.
i have been looking around for video cameras and i haven't found what i want.
i want quality of picture
changeable lens. to go from a fish eye to a wide angle, to... can you do that with camcorders ?
portability.

help me out. search was unhelpfull...

[Mcwop]

How much do you want to spend? And when you say changeable lense you have two choices:

• Whole lense comes out and you change with another (more $$ option)
• Lense converters (screw on a lense that converts lense to different aspect less $$)

[snow_slider]

As far as Mini DV goes, you're looking at the Canon XL1S and the Canon XL2 for swappable lenses. The difference between the two (besides price) is that he XL1S only accepts Canon XL lenses. The good news is that there are quite a few XL lens options.

The XL2 accepts canon XL video lenses, third-party cine lenses, or Canon's extensive range of photo lenses. It is a lot more expensive though.

The other possibility is to go with a camera that can accept a mount adapter and then there are are wide range of options - macro, fisheye, tele extender, wide angle.

I have a Panasonic PVDV951 and I use both a .45X wide angle and a 2.3X tele extender. Both just screw onto the camera.

[Schralper]

ok.
i have been looking around for video cameras and i haven't found what i want.
i want quality of picture
changeable lens. to go from a fish eye to a wide angle, to... can you do that with camcorders ?
portability.

help me out. search was unhelpfull...

You can get lmes attachments of all sort for most mini dv cams, stuff thats way less expensive that the hi end XL/GL models. Who TF wants to ski w/ one of those anyway? Kenko, Sunpak and Century optics along w/ the camera mfg make the adapters. .4 Wide angle to 2x tele. Though the WA is the one I've used most often. A .4 will give you an nice slight fish eye efffect.
I've been using a Sony PC-120( 1.5 mp) for 2.5 yrs now, steppin up PC-350 (3.5mp) in Jan. Both of these weigh <.8kg /1.5 lbs ready to shoot.

[Raps]

Yeah i've got a Sony vx2000 which i love. A little big but not as big as an XL1. They have a new model with some new features but pretty similar. It's a sick camera, 3CCD chip and i've got a fisheye that screws on as well as a .4x converter. Those are pretty much the only lens's you need. You don't really need separate lenses, the converters work pretty well. There are a ton of good options out there, some smaller like the Sony that was mentioned in a previous post. If you want quality make sure you go with a 3CCD chip and film away.