In the first post of this series, we talked about the right kind of computer system for basic video editing for your church, school, or organization.  The second post discussed the need to have plenty of hard drive space to digitize, edit, and store your video.  In this post we will look at video camera basics and lay a foundation for selecting the right camera for your needs.

Video camera’s come in three basic classifications, consumer, prosumer and professional.  The differences between these classifications is significant in both features and price.  The budget video editor has to weigh these two in order to determine which camera best fits his/her needs.  If you are going to use it to take on mission trips and let the youth gather the video you may have a different set of criteria than if you are planning on starting a television ministry.  Considering exactly what you are intending to do with your editing system and video equipment plays heavily in what camera to purchase.

The consumer grade camera is what you might find at your local department store or big box store.  They are hand-held, palm size cameras that record to tape, disc, or hard drive.  They rarely have many manual features, although higher end consumer cameras will allow you to manually focus and adjust iris, for example.  They generally range in price from $300 to $1,200.

The prosumer grade camera is not found at your local department store and generally have to ordered from specialty stores.  They range in size from handheld to shoulder mounted and record to tape, disc, or hard drive.  They have a wide range of manual and automatic features that allow a camera operator to have significant control over image quality.  They range in price from $1,500 to $10,000.  The price range is quite large but the higher in price you go the closer to a professional camera you get.  The old saying “you get what you pay for” can hold true in this class of camera.

The Professional grad camera is a truly specialty item.  These can only be purchased from specialty stores.  These cameras are large, heavy shoulder mounted cameras that capture the best possible picture.  They offer a full array of manual features, allowing the camera operator full control over the image.  Their price usually begins around $15,000 to $20,000 and go up to over $100,000 per camera.  These pieces of equipment are designed for high-end productions and are generally used for television or theatrical productions.

For most church, school or non-profit organizations, a good quality consumer or prosumer grade camera will be sufficient.  They allow you to capture quality images at an affordable price.  It is the consumer/prosumer grade camera that fits in the low/mid budget. 

In the next post, we will look at few cameras that you should seriously consider.  They will range from high end consumer cameras to mid range prosumer cameras.  Stay tuned for more on the budget video editing system.