How much would a good video camera cost?

How much does a movie style video camera cost?

• I want to be a director when i grow up, and I was wondering how much a video camera costs? I'm sure it's in the thousands, and I'm middle/low class, and I'm not pulling that money out of anywhere. I'm curious as to how much they cost.

• Answer:

  For true film style quality figure $80,000+. You can however get a semi-professional video camera and give it a film look in post production (this is actually what the TV show "The Office" does). If you do that figure $5,000 - $10,000 for a semi-professional video camera. I'd look into the Sony EX series in that price range. They are very common among HD TV stations as they are cheap and do broadcast quality fairly well. If you really want film style pair a video camera with a depth of field adapter, to simulate the film look. At work, I shoot on an HD production camera (Sony HDW-F900R) with a $16,000 lens, and as far as movie style video cameras there are few better. Here is an example of a sony EX series camcorder and a DOF adapter being used to create a film look. It looks nice, however is not a true film look. People who have never worked with film often over-exaggerate the look give the final product more of a music video look than film. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uC3a76Zpw&feature=related