Gadgetory

now top of the stack is this old warhorse the Panasonic HD X 900 the 900 this is a pro camera it's a pro news camera technically speaking and pro means expensive the body of the camera the camcorder part is about $30,000 lenses like this fujinon zoom lens can push 30,000 dollars pretty easily that doesn't include battery pack wireless audio receiver you've got your choices of view finders this is the real deal those pro view finders by the way are almost always black and white because the pros know that critical focus is easier to eyeball without color now as I mentioned this guy is a camcorder so it's got a tape deck over here you can run a dvcpro HD tape in there we only use that for backup instead for primary we have what's called a samurai these days it mounts on top of the camera and that's got a built-in hard drive for full res capture and also a touch screen for control of recording as well as being a built-in preview and playback monitor you really can't say too much about this camera it has a beautiful image however with its roots as a news camera an Eng camera it's not given to the shallow depth of field effects everybody likes and it's a handful to lug around this is why Charlie's vertebra all make noise when he moves these days he's been lugging this in cars for a long time oh and when you're out using one of these someone always seems to ask you through the comment now next down the stack is this guy the panasonic hv x 200 this is our favourite run-and-gun cam you can see it's a lot more compact and it's way cheaper than a 900 this guy costs them several thousand dollars a fraction the price of the big boy notice a few differentiating features from the 900 though this zoom lens is fixed to the camera it's permanently mounted you can't change it out as a result we often use this giant pro quality wide-angle adapter that screws onto the front of the lens like so but it weighs almost as much as the camera itself but with this adapter on there this guy is really wide and a wide lens is also very stable so this is a great lens for shooting those interior the cars you often seen or just running around without a tripod grabbing details on the outside of the car because wide angles take out shake now in the back of the camera you'll see one of the key features these are p2 memory cards we record - they're kind of like a very expensive version of an SD card but these allow you to get the video on here in really high res and then transfer quickly to your edit machine without having to dig in a tape which this does record - we just never use it and lastly like the 900 this guy's sensor design lends it to getting everything in focus or a lot of the field and focus it doesn't really like to do short shallow depth of field now of course everyone's in love with the shallow depth of field look these days and two cameras we use at nail that are this sony fs100 this kind of odd box looking body here and of course the Canon DSLRs 5d Mark 3 is the one everyone's in love with what's interesting about these cameras is they have sensors that allow you to use lens and sensor combos that give you very shallow depth of field or shallow depth of focus if that's the look you're trying to achieve and just about everybody is these days you can also use a wide variety of pretty affordable lenses both zoom lenses that are basically still lenses as well as prime lenses like this one it's actually a cine lens and prime lenses are interesting because they're very fast they gather light really well because they're very simple and that lets you use aperture more creatively to handle focus and composition and not just exposure look at this same shot done with our 900 and a DSLR because we can do such tight selective focus we can really call your attention to one part of a busy scene with the DSLR on the other hand working with shallow focus can be very picky especially for something that moves like a car and you need to use the look sparingly since everybody's doing it and overdoing next up is the action cameras this might be the biggest accessible revolution in HD video in the last couple of years and we of course use a slew of them now the best-known of them all partly because they throw money at marketing is GoPro they have several models of these right now they're all kind of in this cube shape and these are great cameras they have an amazing array of video settings and types they can capture and generally really good image quality the thing I don't like about them is the ergonomics you got to work with this clearcase to get a tripod mount which isn't the only camera like that but once you get it in there and start to fiddle with these buttons on the top and the bottom I find it's a real pain to access the one you want and this included mount always swivels in every way except the way you need it to which brings me to the contour camera I like the simplicity of these guys we're of a bullet shape than a square cube in the air simple big old switch here that tells it to start rolling or to stop and the other cool feature about this guy is it's got a rotating objective on the front you can rotate this almost all the way around the compass so no matter which way the camera is pointing the lens can be lined up the way you want it without worrying about critical alignment of the body of the camera now couple that with a nice pan of ice mount with a ball joint on the top and you've got unlimited flexibility on top of unlimited flexibility just as long as you get this thing stuck somewhere the cameras gonna follow and eventually get lined up the way you want it either through the objective lens or moving the body around this is really convenient for a fast setup now new on the scene and I'm really big on these are Sony's AF 10 and AAS 15 these cameras are noted for really good optics they got that typical Sony Zeiss lens the 10 is the basic model the 15 here has this Wi-Fi ability which I find is a waste of money it's cumbersome to deal with and doesn't really get you very far but if you want to be able to frame this thing up and start and stop it from your smartphone you have that option I pass on that get the a s10 and step by the way both of these have really good image stabilization which is important with a camera like this that's going to be on a car getting lots of vibration instead of getting the Wi-Fi model spend your bucks on this optional LCD case for either model when you dock that guy in there you've now got the option of a traditional flaming LCD that you can also turn around to face yourself and it also gives you a tripod not which the camera itself does not have on it kind of like a GoPro action cameras can get the shot easily from places you could never mount a camera before they all run real wide so vibration is minimized as well as the need for critical composition on the downside they often shoot at fisheye angles which can kill detail in composition here's an odd little camera I use from time to time it can be a lifesaver it's a samsung DV 300 what's interesting about it is it's got a front-facing flamin monitor see that one right there it's actually in the panel of the camera that's great when you're using it and you have to frame yourself up in the car thank you on the driving read all the way through you can actually see what you're pointing at which is tricky on this one because you typically use it zoomed a little bit that's its advantage over the typical action camera so when it's zoomed you've got to make sure it's pointing the right way and that little monitor helps you plus having that zoom lens means you can use it for detail work if you see a shot of a gauge or an instrument doing something while the car is driving you couldn't get that with a contour a GoPro it's too wide a camera like this can nail it on the other hand when it's zoomed in you've got a manage vibration because it gets real shaky now by the way regardless what the manufacturers will tell you all those action cameras sound like hell they have lousy built-in mics you can connect an external mic that's really cumbersome with what is supposed to be a very easy to use stick and go camera so when I'm using an action camera I always capture sync audio on a portable recorder I like this one a lot does the tascam dr-05 tried a lot of these this one is my favorite partly because it has two articulated and very good quality microphones here on the top now of course these mics need to be covered with these little wind screens almost every situation or they pick up a lot of wind noise in a moving car but they work really well also I like to use a little foam boot like this whenever I'm mounting it on the car whether it's taped or up in the windshield visor which I do a lot that isolates the body from vibration which would be picked up by the mic and in those cases where we have a car with a great-sounding exhaust we want to record that sound we use the unfortunately named dead kitten which slides over the top here it's a small version of what's been known in the business forever as a dead cat and this fluffy thing blocks wind noise outside the car amazingly well you will pick up exhaust sound well and almost no wind if you've seen the time-lapse we run during the credits on SEANET on cars that's done with a brenno 200 time lapse camera it has an articulated lens that makes it easy to frame and it seems to run forever on for doublea's I don't think I've ever replaced them coupled with a magnetic Gorillapod you can make this thing a fly-on-the-wall almost anywhere so there you go a look at the tools we've learned to love in almost a decade of shooting cars here at CNN and it matters less than you would think if your camera cost 200 bucks or 60 grand if it gets the shot you need to tell the story and the video quality is good enough to not call attention to the camera you used you're in pretty good shape all right good deal