Ok so I have started looking at camera gear for self filming my hunts. I'm looking for a good setup for stand whitetail hunting. I've looked at some of the cheaper packages from Campbell Cameras being that i'm on a budget and so far not quite sure if I should be going for the cheap gear. How bad are they? Are the $2000+ setups a must for good footage? I definitely want to try to stay under $1000. Just any past experiences or recommendations are welcome. Thanks!
The best bang for your buck would be this imo. Refurbished Canon HFG30 Rode videomic Vairzoom stealth Muddy outfitter camera arm Manfrotto fluid head This setup should set you back roughly $1200-1300 but will produce excellent footage. Canon was selling refurbished g30's for 739+ tax but for some reason they increased their asking price to $1100 this week. Just wait for that to go back down and snag one. They are amazing cameras for how small and inexpensive they are.
Thanks, ya i actually saw that, sucks that they brought it up but I got all summer to hopefully find that deal again, so that's good I guess.
Before going too gung ho, I'd recommend getting something simple to start out with. Although it can be fun or a long term goal to self film hunts, it's no walk in the park either. I have a Canon Handycam, a screw-in camera arm, and a little homemade "GoPro" from an old digital camera that takes video that I can either mount to my bow or to my stand for a different angle. Make sure it's what you really want to do before spending too much money.
Looks like they are down to $832 now. Still a pretty good deal. I would agree that this would be a great setup to get started with.
Yea I think if you have the money readily available that this would be the best way to start. I started out cheap and quickly realized I should have saved my money and bought better gear. A nice fluid head and lanc remote makes a huge difference in video quality as well as a tree arm with little bounce. I paid roughly $500 for my basic "beginners" gear and wish I had that $500 back. To each their own though. **Side note- If you end up not liking fliming your own hunts, all of that gear on my list has excellent resale value. You would be able to get most of your money back
Haha, I pretty much typed up the whole deal about resale value of those items, but then deleted it. But, you are correct. I also started out with a Hanycam, then moved to a DSLR, then moved the a Canon XHA1S, and now to the Sony PXW-X70. I still have the hanydcam, because there's really not much of a resale market on it. Alot of guys natural progression is to go from the handycam, or even the G20 and XA10 to a camera like the G30, so there's a pretty good market in resale on them.
How do you like the X-70 btw? Is the clear image zoom pretty good? I was looking at that cam but decided to go with the g30 due to the great deal on Canon's site
It's a great camera. The 24X clear image zoom is pretty much a loss-less zoom because at 1080, they are cropping the sensor. When you use the clear image zoom, you are actually gaining the zoom by the way it is using more of the sensor. Way too technical for my understanding, but it's almost indistinguishable from the optical zoom. I going to order the 4K upgrade here pretty soon so I will have that to play with as well. Here's a video I put together right after I got the camera last Sept/October. All the zooms are using the full 24X clear image zoom.
Awesome, thanks! How much is the 4k upgrade? Is it downloadable or do you have to purchase a new camera?
Well, It's $500 bucks, but they have a rebate for Anyone that payed the full retail price. They dropped the price of the camera to $2000 from $2300 back in March. All of us that payed $2300 will get a $300 rebate. So no matter when you bought the camera, it's $2500 with the 4k upgrade. Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk
