Here at Echo we have been thinking of buying an HDV camera for a year or so now and throughout the year I have been going round in circles trying to decide which would be the best make, model, format etc. so I have decided to write my thoughts down to help anyone who might be in a similar position.

Why buy?

As with a lot of digital film makers, I started out filming in standard definition on mini-DV using cameras such as the Canon XM2, JVC GY 700 and the Panasonic AGX100. These were cameras that I knew inside and out and was always pleased with the quality of output. Despite this, running a production company means you need to keep up with the times and people expect you to be using the latest formats and HD buzz words on your website make you look good and sound impressive even if you aren't, it may be a shallow point which I don't agree with but it's amazing what people assume.

Whenever a client would specifically demanded that a project be filmed in HD we would always end up hiring a camera. Hiring cameras is all well and good but it is not the same as having your own camera. You need time to get to know a camera, to learn all the different settings and how to get the best out of it. Once you own a camera you can take it out at any time to test shoot and find out it's strengths and weaknesses. Not to mention the fact that whenever you hire a camera you have to spend about ten minutes adjusting the settings so you can use it plus there's nothing worse than turning up for a shoot and fiddling around trying to remember where the shutter speed is on a certain make of camera whilst the client is peering over your shoulder.

So, my business partner and I decided that buying was the best option, we settled on a budget and I went off to start my research.

Starting Out

When I first started looking I was amazed at the choice there was available. You could have HDV, DVC Pro, XDCam, HDCam and more recently AVCHD, and on top of that you have all the manufactures such as JVC, Sony, Panasonic and Canon to name the main ones.

With this in mind I decided it would be best to have a look at a few cameras in the flesh. HDV was the first format to spring to mind because it was the next step up and it was within our budget. Other points that made HDV attractive other than it being high definition is that you don't need a very expensive edit suite to work with, more on that later, the cameras are not very expensive compared to other HD formats such as XDCam or HDCam, they are not very bulky so they lend themselves to many different types of filming and the picture quality, even when shooting in DV mode is very good. The biggest advantage over SD is the ability to shoot in HD, the CCDs or CMOS sensors are widescreen sensors unlike most DV cameras which have 4:3 sensors but then stretch the image to widescreen which causes quality lose and they still use mini-dv tapes so the principles of capturing are the same as DV. I didn't look at HDCam because I knew it was way out of our budget, I also looked at XDCam EX which did interest me but more on this later.

Getting my hands on a camera

I visited a well know photography store and a very knowledgeable sales man showed me Canons XL-H1, a JCV GY HD201 and a Sony Z1. I had already used a Sony Z1 during some freelance work for another local Brighton based production company so I knew what to expect. There is a lot to be said for how a video camera looks especially when running a professional company. If you turn up with a cheap looking camera, the client is immediately thinking 'Well what the hell am I paying you for? I could have brought my handy cam from home!' And this is certainly the impression I get whenever using something like the Z1. It's light, and easy to throw around, but with it's fixed lens simple doesn't look that impressive. I had previously owned an older Canon camera so I was particularly interested in the XL-H1 but as soon as I picked it up I was fairly disappoi