Find the best video quality for under $200 - fun challenge

[kye]

5 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

I would think that peoples skill and creativity will be way more of a deciding factor that the negligible "improvement" 4K gives in a sub $200 camera.

You're probably right.  I compared a RAW still to a 1080 frame and saw a massive difference, but it will depend on bitrates.  Maybe for $200 you get good quality 1080 and rubbish 4K.  I guess we'll see!

[heart0less]

YouTube will destroy it all..

 

( :

Maybe we should watch the results like 90% of today's viewers do - on our phones?

[Andrew Reid]

8 hours ago, mercer said:

Okay, final two questions regarding rules...

1. I found a couple cameras that come with lenses but they’re over the $200 limit. If the lens could be sold for the difference, is that allowed?

2. Can we enter more than one video if we find multiple cameras?

Yeah, both things are fine by me.

Afterwards, where you explain what you bought, for what price, and so on... It'll be up to the people on the forum and me as a judge, to check whether it is within the spirit of the competition not just the rules. For example, if you find a total bargain but it costs £1000, and you sell the lens for £800, ending up with a fancy camera for £200... I'll score that very highly in the Treasure Hunt category, but maybe there will be a balancing category where people who only spent £100 on a camera body and used a £20 Russian lens but made it look amazing, out numbers your score in the Treasure Hunt. So key is to do well in all categories and be within the spirit of the cheap camera competition, not just to find the best bargain. Also, unless the lens is actually sold, until that happens you'd be outside the rules, always a temptation to hang onto the lens isn't there!!

6 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

Yeah, thats actually a smart way to get people to keep it reasonable. 
One can do everything imaginable to get that BMCC under $200 or slightly above. But if it comes of as "cheating" it might be last and "bye bye camera".

Ive always had my trusty old GM1 as my backup incase I don't have time to find something else. But when thinking about it.. I don't want to loose it  

Yeah, the deadly possibility of being morally obliged by all EOSHD forum users to post your camera to the winner is there to stop people getting too spendy!!

[heart0less]

49 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Yeah, the deadly possibility of being morally obliged by all EOSHD forum users to post your camera to the winner is there to stop people getting too spendy!!

That's why I'm putting my NX1 back on its shelf, where it's safely hidden from all those greedy hands just waiting for me to come in last..

?

 

[BTM_Pix]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Yeah, the deadly possibility of being morally obliged by all EOSHD forum users to post your camera to the winner is there to stop people getting too spendy!!

I was pondering getting one of these to deliberately finish last with and spite the winner !

But I then discovered that, shockingly, the money they change hands for wouldn't actually fit in the budget. 

Must be because they are CCD and not CMOS so ergo must have more mojo .

 

[noone]

4 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

 

Yeah, the deadly possibility of being morally obliged by all EOSHD forum users to post your camera to the winner is there to stop people getting too spendy!!

So you enter two, one to win and one to lose and you have to send a camera to yourself!

[kye]

9 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

I was pondering getting one of these to deliberately finish last with and spite the winner !

I was browsing ebay last night and found an old camcorder and was flicking thought the photos trying to see if it had a FullHD sticker on it and then I got to the side where you put the tape in!  Then I laughed and tried to remember if I still owned any miniDV tapes.  Then I wondered if the bitrate and codec on miniDV would be better than cheap cameras recording to SD cards..

[Andrew Reid]

Bonus points for people shooting on tape!

[BTM_Pix]

Just now, kye said:

I was browsing ebay last night and found an old camcorder and was flicking thought the photos trying to see if it had a FullHD sticker on it and then I got to the side where you put the tape in!  Then I laughed and tried to remember if I still owned any miniDV tapes.  Then I wondered if the bitrate and codec on miniDV would be better than cheap cameras recording to SD cards..

HDV 1080 was about 25Mbit/s.

Cameras like the Canon HV20/30 would still be relatively interesting as a really bargain basement option if they included one of the 35mm adapters with them. CCD mojo  

That Fisher Price camera that I posted above above actually records to cassette.

As in audio cassette.

So its less a case of a bit rate and more a case of a bit shit.

[webrunner5]

Most old camcorders recorded Interlaced more than Progressive back in the day, even Broadcast stuff, or if it was Progressive it was 24p, 25p only...

[kye]

I've got one of my cameras and have ordered the second one.  I'm pretty sure one of them will come last, but ce la vie!

[Andrew Reid]

8 hours ago, kye said:

I've got one of my cameras and have ordered the second one.  I'm pretty sure one of them will come last, but ce la vie!

I'm waiting for someone to spend $2000 on 10 entries

[noone]

Well you can always buy a receipt book and get someone to "sell" you "your" existing camera if "you" need to cheat!

 

[Snowfun]

Camera purchased. Seems slightly odd me buying a camera to send to someone else without even the politeness of asking what they’d like...

[kye]

14 hours ago, noone said:

Well you can always buy a receipt book and get someone to "sell" you "your" existing camera if "you" need to cheat!

I thought Andrew said we could use existing cameras as long as we could prove that we could have bought it for under the budget limit...  

1 hour ago, Snowfun said:

Camera purchased. Seems slightly odd me buying a camera to send to someone else without even the politeness of asking what they’d like...

If you come last then this truly will be an interesting challenge!

[Avenger 2.0]

Are you allowed to use more than one lens if you use prime lenses? I have a lot of cheap vintage prime lenses (m42), but only expensive zoom lenses.

[mercer]

59 minutes ago, Avenger 2.0 said:

Are you allowed to use more than one lens if you use prime lenses? I have a lot of cheap vintage prime lenses (m42), but only expensive zoom lenses.

I think the challenge is one cheap camera and one cheap lens.

[leslie]

i think you guys must be buying the cameras out from under me, i keep getting sniped.... lots of action in the $200 area. andrews probably single handedly buoyed the economies of several nations ?

[Andrew Reid]

3 hours ago, Avenger 2.0 said:

Are you allowed to use more than one lens if you use prime lenses? I have a lot of cheap vintage prime lenses (m42), but only expensive zoom lenses.

Maximum 2 cheap lenses, can be ones you already own. If you want to use a lens that cost $200 instead of $50 I am fine with that, but no $400+ modern stuff

[IronFilm]

If someone wants to try a really different tack to this challenge then video footage from a CCD sensor might be interesting? (as usually waaaay outside the budget if you're getting an ILC, needing to buy the likes of say a Sony F35)

As there are dirt dirt cheap P&S CCD from a long forgotten era to be snapped up for pennies with patience, such as the Panasonic LX3 which shoots HD video from its small CCD sensor. (not FHD though)