What are some great camcorders to pair with a Nikon D3200?
My main skill is videography and I have a Nikon D3200 which has worked well for me as far as taking pictures and nicer quality video. I working toward doing media professionally, and I'm leaning toward getting a better camcorder to use with my SLR.
What I'm looking and hoping for is a camcorder that takes really fine video and pictures, such that when I start a shoot with my Nikon and finish with the camcorder and later video edit and put the two sources together, the camcorder footage is great enough to be almost indistinguishable from the footage shot by the SLR.
I have an older SONY camcorder that I use right now, but I'm hoping for a better camcorder quality wise and Wi-Fi would be great also.
Any suggestions on a great camcorder to pair with the Nikon 3200?
My suggestion is, don't.
I did a career in broadcast television videography and I can tell you that one of the most important parts of production is identical cameras… If you need two at all. If you mix them you're going to find a major difference in the look because they're completely different cameras - your Nikon and a camcorder… They do not look the same at all. Editing can't fix this either.
So if you must have two cameras, which to me really isn't necessary, buy another 3200 or buy two camcorders of the same model and then either way shoot and compare the look. If the look is different trust me it will show up in your edits.
You can try using a camcorder as a second camera. You can certainly find them for under $300 which can shoot Full HD and have over a 30x optical zoom lens. JVC, Panasonic, Sony and Canon make such cameras, but do not be surprised when the quality of the two videos differ and when you find syncing them when making cuts becomes problematic.
The key to using two video cameras is what is feature called "genlock". This syncs multiple cameras so that when the video goes into the edit mode, you can easily match your cuts from camera to camera.
Genlock is only available in cameras designed to be used by professional users, so cost from $2,500 and up.
You have found yourself falling into the marketing trap of assuming that a dSLR can do everything that a proper video camera can.
When using two cameras to shoot video, you need to use the same camera brand and model.
Why?
When shooting a film using a 35 mm ARRI camera, the film stock needs to be identical so that the viewer is not shocked if different film stocks are used and the dynamic range, granular structure of the film and other issues arise because the director of photography used different film stock.
The same is true when shooting video. Switching cameras with different sensor types, becomes very noticeable as you cut between camera takes.
Here is what a proper video camera has that a dSLR does not.
* 3-CCD's
* Built-in and filters
* Genlock
* 10-bit, 4:2:2 recording in Full HD
* A built-in SMPTE time code generator/reader
* 48kHz/16-bit 4-channel digital audio
There are of course more features that such a video camera has, including interchangeable cine lenses.
