Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 3/8/2004, 6:27 PM
A great editing program. Cameras can always be rented. Editing is where the real action takes place. Having camera chops is more important than the camera quality, and knowing a great editor helps you develop great camera chops, because you learn what you need from the camera in the editing stage.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/8/2004, 6:43 PM
Not to sound stupid, but if you could afford a great camera ($10,000+ maybe?) then what would you consider a great NLE? Vegas is about $600. That's cheap! I consider that a great NLE. :)
munkee wrote on 3/8/2004, 6:59 PM
I would use the 1500-3000.00 budget for a camera. As opposed to a 400-600 dollar camera. I'm sure you can spend much more on Plugins for software editors.
BillyBoy wrote on 3/8/2004, 7:44 PM
Buying a really fancy camera is like buying a real fancy sports car. Sure the speedomter says it can go 230 MPH, are you going to drive that fast?

Don't buy the cheapest camera you can find, but its basically foolish to blow thousands on a camera if you'll rarely if ever use the high end features. If you sometimes need them, you can always rent.

Getting and LEARNING HOW TO USE a really good editing applicatrion like Vegas is like they say in those credit card commericals. Priceless.
pb wrote on 3/8/2004, 8:15 PM
Go for the Post capability unless you are doing a lot of Broadcast stuff. If you shoot for 5 days you'll likely edit for the next five or even 10 so you're better off buying something like a DSR PD 170 and renting the DSR 570 WS or whatever for higher budget shoots. Why? Well, the PD 170 will play back the tapes you shoot with the rented high end camera. (can you justify spending around 5,000$ on a DVCAM deck?). BTW, we need the 500's features and thus justified buying it and the decent lens.

Peter
filmy wrote on 3/8/2004, 9:41 PM
Excellent question!

I think I would go with the editing system because I look at myself as an editor more than a camera operator. I also feel with a computer based editing system you can upgrade away where as with a camera what you get is sort of what you have, I am talking body wise. You can always upgrade lenses but it isn't like a computer where you can just yank out things like the CPU, hard drives and so on and update them.