Camcorders for chasing: 2019 edition

[Brett Roberts]

Can anyone comment on using video-focused DSLRs, mirrorless bodies, or even fixed-lens bodies outside the camcorder form factor? I'm thinking something like the Panasonic Lumix FZ1000, which appears to come with a superzoom (28-400 mm) lens and electronic zoom. It sounds like this, and similar options (including, perhaps, some DSLR bodies with the right superzoom lens attached), might mitigate a lot of my concern about dealing with manual settings (e.g., ISO) or manual zoom.

If you can spend $400-500 on one of these bulkier video-centric M43/crop sensor bodies, but get similar image quality to a $1500 camcorder, I'd seriously consider that route... as long as they can autofocus and auto-select exposure roughly as well as a consumer camcorder, anyway. The bulk, and even the physical lens extension during zoom, aren't big concerns to me.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I have read about DSLRs having overheating issues when shooting continuous 4K for extended periods. The a7 series cameras have had this problem mainly because they are so compact (limited heat dissipation capacity).

 

[Dean Baron]

Thanks for the info guys! It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at video cameras so I’m not real sure what specs I should be looking for in a camera for chasing. Any suggestions?

 

[Jeff Duda]

as long as they can autofocus and auto-select exposure roughly as well as a consumer camcorder, anyway. The bulk, and even the physical lens extension during zoom, aren't big concerns to me.

I'm curious why this is particularly important to you, Brett. I see way too many chase videos with autofocus on and either a rain drop hitting the lens, rapid camera movement, or just the lack of contrast for the autofocus mechanism to use to focus causes either blurred imagery or that flip between focused and out-of-focused. It drives me mad. You should always just manually focus and set to infinity unless you're trying to capture hail stones hitting your windshield or you plan to be inside a tornado. I wish everyone would understand this.

 

[Bill Hark]

Jeff, that's my biggest issue with DSLR video in a run and gun situation during rain, decreased light and poor contrast. A camcorder is very easy. Just put it on infinity. With current DSLR lenses, one can't just turn the focusing to infinity. They focus past infinity. One has to try to focus rapidly under poor conditions or maybe focus previously to some distant object and put marks on the lens or tape it to stay in place. There is always the possibility of bumping the lens or shifting the focus when zooming in our out and getting it off of infinity.

 

[Brett Roberts]

I'm curious why this is particularly important to you, Brett. I see way too many chase videos with autofocus on and either a rain drop hitting the lens, rapid camera movement, or just the lack of contrast for the autofocus mechanism to use to focus causes either blurred imagery or that flip between focused and out-of-focused. It drives me mad. You should always just manually focus and set to infinity unless you're trying to capture hail stones hitting your windshield or you plan to be inside a tornado. I wish everyone would understand this.

You're mainly correct that locking to infinity is appropriate 90% of the time when chasing. As such, autofocus isn't necessarily critical (caveat below), but an infinity lock (or at least easy access to infinity without any fuss) is probably quite critical for reasons Bill H. articulated above.

To get into the weeds just a bit, though: I *always* keep my camcorder on infinity lock. However, low-end consumer camcorders like mine have tiny sensors, which in turn have deep depth of field. The larger the sensor, the more you have to worry about shallow DOF. With shallow enough DOF, the infinity point changes appreciably between wide and tele zoom, introducing yet another complication I don't want to deal with on a video device. That's where autofocus might come in handy: say you zoom way in from 28 mm to 300 mm, then need to make sure you're still focused at infinity. It might be faster to AF on a distant object than any other method! At least, this is what happens to me on my DSLR when shooting stills with a tele lens.

Anyway, autofocus was less important on my list than reliable autoexposure of the same sort you'd get on a camcorder. I'm very open to using a larger body with a better sensor if it's cheaper than a camcorder with the same size sensor; I just have no interest in fiddling with ISO, aperture, etc. to get a decent exposure. I'm too busy doing that on my main DSLR for stills. I'd also strongly prefer electronic zoom, both for smoothness and for ergonomic reasons.

 

[Paul Knightley]

I still use my Panasonic 900 series HD camcorder and it works fine - gives me decent results, and I'm not sure buying a new one (as others have also mentioned in this thread) is going to give me much noticeable difference.
For stills, I use a Sony RX10 (first version) - https://www.wexphotovideo.com/sony-cyber-shot-rx10-digital-camera-1544413/

This also does nice video, with full manual control, and has a fairly decent zoom too - and is f/2.8 out to 200mm.

Sony are now onto the fourth iteration of this - but it costs rather more! https://www.wexphotovideo.com/sony-cyber-shot-rx10-iv-digital-camera-1639100/

This shoots 4K video, as well as being able to give you 4 seconds of 1000fps (or 7 in a different mode)! This can give some cool slow-mo lightning shots. It also has a 600mm zoom.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I posted above my reasons for preferring a DLSR that allows me to take both stills and video with the same piece of equipment. But after reading Jeff’s and Bill’s comments, I’m rethinking that; maybe I should look into returning to a small camcorder. It wouldn’t add all that much bulk in traveling out to the Plains, and I had noted the downside of the DLSR being a bit cumbersome to shoot video with and switch modes, so a separate camcorder would eliminate that issue.

 

[Bill Hark]

They finally got the Sony AX700 at the local Best Buy, and I had a chance to mess with it along with the smaller AX53. The AX700 is a bit large for a dashcam and might not be held steady on my mount. My biggest concern is ease of infinity focusing. Both can easily be set to manual focus and then a ring can be rotated until the infinity sign is present. Unfortunately, when focusing through a narrow view of the front window on either power lines across the parking lot or ?clouds, both cameras when zoomed in will focus past infinity. This is highly concerning because it would be too difficult to find infinity on the fly. I was hoping to just rotate the ring until the infinity sign appears and not worry about going past infinity as with autofocus lenses on DSLR's I can't tell if the same thing happens on wider views which would be more typical of chasing. It is possible the focusing is so exact that a power line on the other side of the parking lot is still not infinity, and I'd have to find a farther object (not possible with the current location of the display cameras.) With clouds, I am having a hard time seeing exact focus to make a determination. With my current HD setup, I just hit a button on either camcorder (Sony Z1, Canon HV20) and it goes immediately to infinity without any fuss. I would hate to purchase expensive camcorders only to later find out my footage is soft when I eventually get a 4K TV years later. I also post this as a warning to anyone who is using the Sony AX100, 700 or AX53. Try focusing on something in the far distance like power lines or an antenna first with automatic and then manually while looking at the screen. Then compare to blindly rotating the ring to and past infinity as would likely happen on a chase.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Best advice with focusing is to not using "continuous focus" but "focus lock." I use this setting during hurricane chases when I cannot manually focus the camera (it's in a water case) and I don't want the camera going in and out of focus, e.g., searching for a focus point. With focus lock, you can focus on a distant (or closer) object and the camera will stay in focus / infinity until the shutter button is partially depressed again. You can also use "peaking" if it's an option. With peaking, a blue (or other selected color) haze or highlight glows around the subject when it's in focus. This makes it easy to focus though the rear screen without looking though the viewfinder. I use Lumix cameras for both sills and video.

 

[Michael Snyder]

Manual focus is excellent on the AX700, and when you spin to infinity, its accurate at infinity focus. It's the sole reason why I have kept this camcorder.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Bill, I have the same issue on my JVC HM170, infinity is not the same through the zoom range. You can be at infinity with the lens at the wide end, then zoom in just a little, and the picture goes out of focus. On mine, for some unknown reason setting the focus ring at 100m and then keeping it on manual will maintain focus for just about anything in the zoom range except very distant objects. Obviously this isn't an ideal solution though, especially for storms. I have many ruined tornado shots on this camera due to the picture going out of focus when zooming in.

I am ready to replace this camera with something that doesn't have these problems, so will be doing some research in the coming weeks. Will post findings here.

 

[Ethan Schisler]

I have the AX100 and the AX53, the AX100 is my go-to camcorder for weather events. I just purchased an A7RIII and waiting on it to arrive, so curious to see how this stacks up against my AX100. I usually leave the 100 on manual focus though, the auto-focus is good, but I like to have control over my focus and not trust the auto-focus. My only advice is to get an external microphone, the on-board mic is decent, but I've noticed an external microphone makes a huge difference in audio quality. I don't use the AX53 that much, the image stabilization I've noticed is better on the AX53 than the 100, that is really my only observation on that.

 

[James K]

I too would like to find a decent camcorder, one that:
* Is not expensive (I do not need a bunch of features, mainly a decent optical zoom, auto-focus, and an infinity lock)
* Is not a massive beast - I searched a couple of the models mentioned here on eBay, and they looked like the beasts news-guys have .lol.
* Will actually work reasonably for night videoing,
* And (very important) doesn't take pic's/videos like the attached cell-phone image, if it encounters a 'real' light. (I believe this is the same issue that causes problems with lightning videoing?)
* Oh and 4k is not important to me, although I have a 4k TV, I have nothing computer/software wize that can handle it. So HD 1080P is what I'd be looking for
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I currently have a Panasonic HC-V180. I picked this one because of its 50x optical zoom, Stereo microphones (a requirement), price ($200, this is the range I'm looking for), and it had decent reviews.
For its daytime performance, I'm satisfied (same for audio). But for night I'm pretty disappointed, autofocus doesn't work, and manual focus is very difficult on the small screen it has (doesn't have an infinity-focus option), I found 2 somewhat solutions, depending on what I plan to video...
* I can while its light out auto-focus on what I want to video, go to manual focus & lock it at setting which it will remember even when turned off. Then go back at night, and video -- this works when for example I want to do Christmas lights during Holiday season.
* It has a HDMI port, so I can attach an external screen, (though the little USB-powered screen I got isn't great-not the camera's fault) -- this works _ok_ if I want to try recording lightning when I can't pre-set a manual focus... If I can get it focused, lightning seems to turn out ok - atleast for storms in the distance.

With peaking, a blue (or other selected color) haze or highlight glows around the subject when it's in focus. This makes it easy to focus though the rear screen without looking though the viewfinder.

Interesting. The camera mentioned above that I have does sometimes do a blue spotty thing around subjects when I was trying to manually focus. I thought it was some some sort of weird bug. I'm going to have to take it outside sometime & do some tests...

 

[Drew Terril]

I'm still using the Canon HF R70 that I picked up a few years ago for pretty cheap after the following year models came out. It's done fine for me as far as video quality, I just don't like how horribly light it is weight wise. It gets rocked on the tripod too easily (actually had a close call with it falling over at Minneola in May), and when shooting handheld I have trouble keeping something that light steady. So I'll be looking for something that has a little more mass to it (such as the XF100 that @Adam R Davis uses and has gotten some great shots on), and relegate the HF R70 to dash cam duty.