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Strange…it took nearly thirty years as a television news cameraman to reach a point where I said goodbye.
And now it’s taken only eight years to reach that same stage as a teacher.
This time it’s different. As I approached fifty, I found myself teetering on the edge many days…confused and wondering if my life had any significance. I examined each story for meaning and wondered why the hell I even bothered some days. Was it really worth the effort to do yet another sidebar on a far distant story or try to conceal the hidden agenda of producers sucking up to programming.
Now at sixty I find myself overwhelmed by massive changes in education and wonder if I can honestly call myself a teacher if all I am doing is running crowd control in a classroom of fifty students. This becomes especially difficult with thirteen editing stations (not to mention the computers are more than five years old and faltering themselves) and 18 school cameras (adding on the five or six I personally bought so students can borrow cameras for homework). Oh – and the fire marshall has rated my room’s capacity at 57. Sweet, but I also need room for the tables, computers AND room to shoot a daily program.
I LOVE my students. I love even the sneaky little scofflaws who sneak out and try not to work…but especially those who pick up a camera and tremble with excitement. I love when students sneak out and seemingly disappear and return to surprise me with their enthusiasm, proud of their efforts.
But the push for standardized robotic performance – all students will be clones learning the same thing at the same time despite their individuality – frightens me. The unbelievable budget cuts looming everywhere. My job is safe but my sanity teeters.
And I can’t (as usual) choose who the bad guys are. My union and school board are at a standoff. One side stuck with preserving the educational system without the support needed to do it all and the other side trying to preserve both a quality system and jobs.
Another issue that keeps nudging me…I miss shooting. I miss producing meaningful stories on a regular basis. My job keeps getting in the way of my love of storytelling.
Sigh.
Just another column which may or may not have a conclusion and may or may not be picked up and continued later…
…memory card camera. Got a bit of a shock shooting a choir competition yesterday. The LCD screen in my little HV20 is showing green and blue streaks. Camera still works like a dream, but I know I’ll have to make the choice between a repair bill or get a new camera. Plus my original personal camera – a JVC GY-DV300 has been sitting unused for a while. I love that camera, but prefer the portability of the Canon. Is it time to unload them and settle on a new camera? Thus the mulling begins…
…so it’s off to B & H to do some research. Warning…this posting may take a couple of days to find closure (9:03am on Sunday, May 9, 2010).
Fist thing to do is go to camcorders…then (ego booster)…professional and then sort by price, beginning with the lowest price. Hey I’m a teacher. I scroll through doing my initial scan and stop at the page for the Panasonic AG-HMC40. Wowsers. We have the mini-dv predecessor of this baby at school and I love its heft and performance. $2015.
Back to scanning.
Next up is the current version of my old JVC 300 – the GY-HM100u.
The body I grew to love but now shooting to memory card. Definitely on the list and surprisingly at about the same price I paid for its grandmother – $2795.
Pushing my upper budget is the Panasonic AG-HMC150 at $3430.
As I go higher up the food chain I begin to salivate and get giddy when I spot the JVC 700.
But reality hits hard and now to check out the high end prosumer gear.
At $3500 the Sony HDRAX200 will go on the list.
And now for the bottom of the food chain. Consumer cameras. Finding one of these with a mike will be fun.
Just as suspected – the grand daughter of my HV20 turns up with mike input – the VIXIA HF-S21 at $1400.
The Sony HDR-CX550V for $1200.
The Samsung HMX-S16 at $1200 and the JVC GZ-HM1 Everio
for about $1100. That’s it for first impressions. Need to check the specs next. (May 9, 2020 at 9:50am)
Note – when I go into the next stage of research I’ll be checking specifically for the following:
Cost of memory cards required by each camera
Mike inputs/are they mini-jack or xlr
Lens length
Size and number of chips
Manual controls
Ease of use of menu
And one minor item…does it shoot stills (not a necessity, but my HV20 has spoiled me)
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