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Not for me but for a friend - he needs to capture road race finishes with 60+ riders streaming over the finish line in close succession (sometimes in the semi-darkness of an evening crit).
Money not especially an issue, he's willing to spend up to about £2000 if necessary. It needs to have playback via TV and it needs to shoot as fast as possible (Full HD and 60fps ideally). I know far more about still cameras than camcorders, in fact I've done photo-finish work on stills in the past but I think I need the help and advice of the all-knowing STW Forum on this one.
So, what camcorders out there fulfil these criteria, where's the best place to buy etc etc?
Thanks!
light is going to be your problem, you need LOTS of light for high speed video capture. 60fps isn't really that high speed but even a pro camera is going to struggle in anything but the best light at that frame rate. I suspect there are computer based 'burst capture' cameras for scientific use which will be your best place to start.
a quick google gives
http://www.dcviews.com/press/samsung-tl350.htm
http://www.fastecimaging.com/indust_cams.html
[i]light is going to be your problem, you need LOTS of light for high speed video capture.[/i]
He has spotlights set up on the finish line but even then, light can sometimes be a problem with his current tape camcorder. I was wondering if any of them have expandable ISO in the same way that my DSLR does?
Not really sure what I should be looking for on Google, as mentioned I know far more about still photography... I think he's asked me on the basis that "I have a camera" and therefore know everything... (he's sadly mistaken!)
it'd be called Gain on a video camera, the more gain you put in, the worse the quality gets. Pro camera have 'hyper gain' which is something like +96dB but you get a very poor output (just like high ISO really).
black and white would be better if it's feasible.
High speed cameras of that sort of nature are expensive, your 2K limit is fairly low in this field. I used to work with a camera that would catch ~60fps in black and white in "normal" lighting at 1024x768 and that came in at £1600 about 10 years ago, a quick browse through their catalogue reveals current costs of around 2.5K for a colour equiv, and thats no bells and whistles, or lens, just the sensor block and a firewire link to a host computer to control it. I suspect you're looking at pro cameras or machine vision cameras, neither of which I'd expect to fall into the 2K bracket.
Can't some SLRs do this kind of thing these days? I know the Panasonic GH1 does 60 fps 720p HD with full control over ISO etc
Kit is about a grand with the lens
Go pro HD will do 60fps (at a reduced resolution i'd guess)
an alternative is to go for lot's more lighting and a HD camcorder capable of 60fps.
trouble is if he's thinking he'll get a 1920x1080 pixel picture every 1/60th of a second he's a bit mistaken. once compressed, at that frame rate an individual 'frame' will be pretty poor when viewed still. The main problem with high speed is the sheer amount of data you need to capture.