Maybe not "very inexpensive" but have you considered the Sony RX100 iii ?? Nice wide angle and great video.

The RX100 would be a good choice as it is able to be powered from an AC adaptor and has HDMI output to feed a switcher, whereas the action cameras do not normally have provision for external power feed, which would be most desirable in a studio situation.

And it is less than the price of the latest GoPro Hero 4. The only issue would be what standard the HDMI output was, I cannot seem to find any information on that.

Doesn't the sony rx100 iii have a wide angle?

We are not looking for wide angle... we are looking for 'normal' angle... which may be what... 45 degrees?

Thanks for any help.

RX100 iii has a limit on record time of about 30 min. Major drawback for me.

[I]'Doesn't the sony rx100 iii have a wide angle?'[/I]

The RX100 has a 24-70 zoom, so you can choose a field of view over a useful range.

[I]'RX100 iii has a limit on record time of about 30 min. Major drawback for me.'[/I]

The OP is talking about using the camera in a studio environment, in which case he most likely wants to use the HDMI output to feed a switcher, so recording time may not be an issue.

If the OP is talking about feeding a switcher the I doubt the Polaroid Cube would have been put up as an exemplar plus most studio switchers want HD-SDI.

To answer one of the OP's questions, the "normal" FOV is 90deg which equates to a 50mm lens. A slightly narrower FOV is considered more flattering hence an 85mm lens would work well.

If you can still find a BMPC at the discount price coupled with a cheap "C" mount adaptor and cheap lens that would be a cheap way to get a camera that'd suit the need.

Bob.

A Blackmagic ATEM Television Studio switcher has both SDI and HDMI inputs.

The BMPCC would be a bit more difficult to use in a studio situation as it does not have continuous auto-focus or exposure, you have to press the focus or iris button each time the scene changes.

I love my BMPCC, but it would be a PITA to operate in a live studio situation.

The BMPCC is not available any longer at the cheap price and has only got a HDMI output, so is in the same boat as the RX100.

We just got our third BMPC this week at the "special" price.
Ours are regularly rented out for a television show shot in a studio.

Studio != Television Studio.
In any case no television studio uses HDMI. If nothing else the distance from the studio floor to the control room is too long for HDMI.

From the OP's post I read he currently has one locked off camera shooting a talking head or two. He wants another locked off camera to have a different angle to cut to. The cameras are probably just set to record and not touched until the end of the session. That counts out the RX100. The only gotcha with the BMPC is battery life but in this scenario you just run it off the supplied mains adaptor as our client is doing. Before the session rolls, yes someone has to manually set the iris and focus, the old C Mount lenses are purely manual. The reason they went with the BMPC cameras and not the GoPro is for the same reason as the OP has rejected them, too wide a field of view.

For anyone thinking of going down this route, the main camera used for this shoot is a Sony F5. The BMPC is setup in Film Gamma and from what I've heard the two can be matched very well.

Bob.

Perhaps the OP can advise whether they want to record in camera or hook it directly into a switcher, that will influence advice given quite considerably.

He did say a 'small' studio, and there is no reason to rule out using a HDMI feed, as most of the low cost cameras available to low-budget operations do not have any form of SDI output. In a typical small studio, the distance from the camera to the switcher may be at little as 10 metres, and that is within the capability of good quality HDMI.

Further, if distance is a problem, then simply use a HDMI to SDI converter.

Of course if the only objection to using a GoPro is the fact that the lens angle is too wide, then another option is to buy a used Hero3 camera and add the Backbone Ribcage lens replacement modification. Then you can attach a bunch of C or CS mount lenses. Hero3 cameras are coming down in price quite quickly now the Hero4 is out. And they can be externally powered through the miniUSB port.

Geoff

Just as a side note, I couldn't get HDMI from the BMPCC to work reliably over greater than 2 metres of cable and instead employed a HDMI-SDI converter to feed a SDI cable. Possibly my HDMI extension wasn't of sufficient quality.

Not live. No switcher in this particular case.

Main cam records directly and also records directly to a studio's hard disk.

The alternate shot cam(s) can record directly to their own storage and run continuously during the shoot.

Then we will just copy their footage to the production computer and select various 'alternative' views as necessary to keep the the final production video from becoming to monotonous

And, since none of the alternate view footage will be on screen very long we hope any decrease in quality will not be significantly noticeable by a general audience.

So I guess we are looking for with a FOV of about 90 degrees... so we can keep most of the image area filled with the subject(s) while keeping the camera(s) a reasonable distance from their location in the studio or having to crop wide-angle footage and then blow it up so the resolution is unacceptable.

Regarding price... since we may buy several of these to capture a number of different points of view we were hoping to use something not more then double or triple the cost of the Polaroid Cube... or other such cameras... so that is $100 to $300 per camera... more or less.

Thanks again for any help.

There's no shortage of POV / dashcams in your price range and the better ones record a surprisingly good image, even in low light. I've noticed that within a space of a few months how there's suddenly a considerable selection available. I suspect this is driven by a new sensor becoming available to the Chinese manufacturers.

Unfortunately all of them have wide lenses because that absolves them of having to have a focusing mechanism, these class of cameras don't even have an iris. What some of them do have is a viewfinder of sorts which is a godsend to me.

Probably your best chance is something that GeeBax suggested, buy an older GoPro and swap the lens. You might have to futz around with the focus issue but once you have it set you can always use a tape measure and move the camera to focus it. The DOF will still be pretty deep so I don't see that as much of an issue. What I do see as an issue is the kits and lenses to modify the GoPro aren't all that cheap.

Bob.

Hey Bob, thanks for the reply.

I've considered the lens mod option but was hoping to just plunk down a few bucks :)

I'll keep poking around.

If anyone else has any suggestions or comments I'd like to hear them.

Thanks again.

Since I have a GH2 and several M4/3 lenses, I bought a new GF3 body for $125 off of Ebay. Next target purchase is a GH4 and a lens or two.

The GF3 footage does a great job with matching the GH2.

I have a couple of the Sony DSC-HX series CyberShot still cameras and they shoot much better video than they should for their price point. With some minor tweaking, they match up surprisingly well with my NX5 AVCHD camera. The DSC-HX300 is $399 and the newer DSC-HX400 is $469.

DSC-HX300 at the Sony Store.

On the original question: the normal FoV for portraiture is about 30 deg (horizontally) for nicely proportioned features (85mm lens on a full frame 35mm camera). The "standard" 50mm lens covers 40 degrees horizontally. 90 deg FoV will significantly distort perspective of a head shot, so I'm puzzled by the advice given. The other issue is that using a wide angle on secondary angle cameras makes it more difficult to keep extraneous stuff out of shot.