Prosumer Camera Help

So yesterday night I got a call from a guy looking for me to film some lacrosse games over the next few days. I immediately called him back and everything was going great until I mentioned my only camcorder was a Canon Vixia HG20 which is a typical consumer camera. After I told him this he told me he would keep me on the short list of candidates, which I can not blame him, he wanted someone with a prosumer grade camera.

However this is why I take to the blog, as of right now I have no prosumer camera to my name (I sold my Sony HXR NX5U to trade up to a Canon 5D Mark III.) So I am looking for anyone out there to let me rent their camera. If anyone has a prosumer camera whether it takes HDV tapes or P2 cards or the Sony Cards let me know. You can email me at totonyproductions@gmail.com and please include rates for hourly rental as well as daily rental. I am just trying to find a good new connection to get access to a prosumer camera. Thanks so much in advance!

Random Movie Fact: In the 2010 film Monsters, the film was shot entirely on location: any settings featured in the film were real locations often used without permission, asked in advance, and all the films extras were just people who happened to be there at the time.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Farewell Sony HXR NX5U

Well it is an end to an era...or maybe the first era of my film career. Today I officially sold my Sony HXR NX5U camera for $3,000. It was hard but it was time to let go of the camera, mainly because it is just outdated. It was a glorious day when the camera arrived, I was so happy to have a great camera that was going to do so much for me and it did. The camera served me amazingly for about a year and a half. I used it for Gas Guzzlers and many of my student projects, for 2010 and 11 it was perfect. However the DSLR camera has really taken over the market and it beats my camera in several categories. For one it can run higher mbp/s which makes the HD much higher quality. If you compare the two the Canon T3I or 7D beats it every time. Also DSLR cameras give you an amazing depth of field that is much more cinematic than the HXR could ever be. It does suck though because I put out a lot of money for the Redrock Micro M3 adapter which I just got last summer and I should have never bought it. At that point I was just hanging onto the silly dream of making the HXR a cinematic camera, which it could be but the low data rate just makes the picture much muddier and then the grain from the adapter just doesn't look good at all. That is the next thing to sell, I hope I can at least get a 1,000 out of the adapter.


It has been fun HXR it really has but with the RED camera and Canon C300 on the market there really isn't room for you anymore. It is a new frontier and I hope to get out and make even better looking work in the future.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

The Hunt is Over

So in what feels like forever I have finally gotten things straightened out with my camera set up.

This morning I was super depressed because after all the research I put into a separate Digital Video Recorder for my HXR I found that it was not going to do all that I thought it could plus the HDMI output is very finnicky which can be a problem if I am doing any sort of movement with the camera.

After deciding not to go with that the next step was thinking that I would need a new camera, so I immediately starting looking into the Sony EX3 which a lot of broadcast people use and it was used to make the movie Monsters which I loved to death. However it is about a 9,000 dollar camera. At that point I was lost without a clue of what to do next.

It was on my mind all day and finally I talked to a professor of mine about it and he had made my situation a lot more managable. I told him the deal and also that I have access to a T3I which is when he said well just use the HXR as a high quality sound recorder and use it for a side angle, then just use the T3I as the main camera to shoot the film on. He said the only difference between a T3I and a EX3 is something an engineer would be able to see.

So now I am going to cut my losses and just use my HXR for sound only and then just use my T3I as my main camera, I already have a dolly and crane for it anyhow so now I feel a lot better. No more spending anymore money and I can have a high quality camera.

As much I may think school is pointless one on one I can really learn a lot, that is what school should be I tell ya, one on one interaction.

Thanks guys...I feel so much better,
Daniel Hess