Re: Any Commercial Video to be produced from Railf

I am not familiar with the camera you mentioned, nor most of the consumer cameras. I use a Mini-DV format Sony at the moment, and I think most guys use that, or some use the newer HD cameras from Sony or Panasonic. The better ones run in the $3500-$5,000 range. The problem in HD right now is that there is no delivery system for the most part, and you have to dumb it down to regular DVD for folks to watch it. For that reason I am holding off. I bought a new digital editing system about a year ago, so we could output our own DVD's in-house, rather than outsourcing that. Now we master only DVD, and no more tape masters. However, tape is still the best way to store original materials. We normally burn 2-4 DVD of each program so we have back-ups. Editing of this and converting to mpg2 and all the nonsense associated is a necessary evil of this business. Sometimes I love it and sometimes I loath it! Sometimes I wish for the old film days, but then again, there is so much more you can do with digital video editing. In my newer system I can shrink and crop images for example, and this is nice for placing a map in a still image, or something like that.
Sorry to ramble on, but can only say that if you are happy with the equipment you have, then you are the only one you have to please, so thats a good thing! The technology sure is getting better all the time.
One factor a lot of guys used was getting 3-chip cameras and the bigger the chip size the better the quality normally. The better cameras also have better lenses, but as is usually the case quality in professional cameras increases about 10% for each level, which can cost about $5K more.
I sold my betacam SP, because with some exceptions a $5,000 camera could now make as good a picture as that $17K camera. And in some instances could do more, like longer battery life, and lower light shooting. I was able to shoot an Amtrak train at a station at midnight, and the old camera would have been worthless!!!
Main thing with photography and trains....Be there and capture the action to enjoy again later.
That doubles the fun!
Greg