www.AdamTerrell.com

For video purposes, no tool is truly necessary except for the camera.  Sadly, this is my most outdated piece of equipment.  It shoots nasty interlaced footage; it has only one CCD; it uses MiniDV tapes; the body is mostly hollow; it has one 1/8" microphone input; the zoom function is audible to the microphone; worst of all, it records to DV which is 4:3 non-square pixel (this adds semi-complex math to editing.)  I am referring to my discontinued Panasonic AG-DVC7.

It is high time to upgrade if I wish to be any professional of consequence.  I have taken several weeks to do careful research and study (largely of technical terms I did not fully understand), and I have taken into careful consideration what I can afford to spend and what is most practical in a rapidly changing camera market.  I have landed upon an astonishingly small option basis.

The JVC GY-HM100U $2,995 (2,629)

The Panasonic AG-HMC40 $2,318 ($1,950)

The Panasonic AG-HMC80 $2,895 (?)

The Panasonic AG-HMC150 $4,035 ($2,929)

The Sony HXR-NX5U $4,950 ($3,899)

I charted out these cameras and assigned them numbers.  The higher the number, the worse it ranks.  Thus, the camera with the lowest score wins.  I do not take into account any of the features these cameras share in the rankings, since they would all tie on things like audio inputs and frame size, and the other qualities such as LCD size, weight, form factor (id est shoulder mount or handheld), power consumption, and lens dimensions are not particularly requirements of me.

The JVC GY-HM100U is relatively inexpensive, but it has one of the smallest lenses and the worst sensor which will result in the poorest image quality.  All other qualities that matter to me are neither best nor worst.

The Panasonic AG-HMC40 is the least espensive, but it has the smallest lens of all, though a slightly better sensor than the HM100U.  It also offers the least flexibility with framerates, though the options are more than good enough.

The Panasonic AG-HMC80 is equally as affordable to me as the previous cameras, and it ties with the HXR-NX5U and HM100U in framerate flexibility.  However, it ties with the HMC40 in its small sensor and lens and also will not be available until September.

The Panasonic AG-HMC150 is starting to be expensive, but it has the largest lens (more than 2.8" across) which is tied with the HXR-NX5U.  The framerate capabilities are tied with the HMC40, but it is still enough for my purposes.  Its sensors are as large as the HXR-NX5U, but they are CCDs.  The simplest and biggest differences between CCDs and CMOSs are that CMOSs work better in low light, but they introduce wobble from the rolling shutter.

The Sony HXR-NX5U it the best camera of the bunch aside from its high price.  It has the largest lens, the largest sensor, the widest variety of framerates and recordable media, and the option to record with the best chroma subsampling—4:2:2.

I am going to wait until the last possible second before I buy one.  There are always changes in technology with price drops being the most notable one.

I have placed a poll here, and I would be interested to see your camera pick now that you are as educated as I am (in an infinitesimally smaller amount of time) as to the pros and cons to each.  Just imagine that you had about $3,000 to make your decision with the option of waiting for more money.

In Christ,

Adam