Camera Recommendation for Work?

[Skookum]

I work for a small engineering consulting business. Occasionally I have to go out and record equipment tutorials for clients. (A contractor or sales rep will explain how their equipment is properly operated and that video is kept for the building owners records for their maintenance staff).

Our office uses a pretty bad camcorder from 2013 (JVC GZ-E306BU) My Samsung s8 has way better audio and video. 

 

I would like to propose a new camera to the owner.

Do you have any recommendations for a lower priced 4k video camera? The places we record in can get quite loud with whining pumps and loud motors. It would be nice if the camera had the ability to knock out droning background noises as well. Nothing fancy, I just want a crisp recording with minimal blur and decent auto-focus. Anything is better than this McDonald's happy meal toy. 

Thanks!

[Thanatopsis]

We use these JVC cameras to record break out rooms at conferences and while they can be a little challenging to focus when they are as wide as they get they are otherwise decent cameras that give you XLR inputs so you can mic up the speakers how ever you want.  Getting a good mic like a Sony wired lav or Shure/Sennheiser  wireless mics will help deal with the drone as that is something no camera is going to be able to help with.

[ThePointblank]

Ideally, you want a camera that can take external microphones, as no onboard audio solution would ever be able to compensate for lots of background noise.

 

I think your best bet is a Sony RX10 Mark IV bridge camera. Shoots 4k at 30fps, and has both a mic jack and a headphone jack. Good autofocus performance, and the lens has tons of reach. Not cheap though, at around $1600.

[extraCrispy]

The Black Magic Cinema 4K is a fairly priced 4k video camera. Its around $1300 for the body, and then you would need to buy a micro four-thirds lens, but it has external audio capabilities (@Thanatopsis is 100% right about a camera not being able to remove the drone for you) and a headphone jack.  It also will give you the ability to expand a bit in the future too since the lens system is interchangeable.  However, the Sony RX10 that @ThePointblank mentions is also a viable option that seems like it will meet your needs too, it's just not as purpose built as the Black Magic.

 

Hope that helps!

[LyondellBasell]

I don't know that you'll need any sort of super fancy camera to make the kind of videos you're talking about. 

You don't need to pay for a bunch of video-centric features that you won't use. If you're happy with the video quality of something like an S8, just stick with whatever reasonable camera fits your budget.

 

The above commenters are correct, in that fixing your sound problem IS important. You're definitely going to want to mic the person presenting in your videos. There is no solution that's going to beat a locally-placed microphone in terms of cutting down ambient noise and emphasising clear vocals.

 

BUT.

 

You don't need a fancy camera that accepts external audio to do this. You can use a powered audio recorder from brands like Zoom or Tascam to pick up the audio. Just clap to sync and you're good to go. This will let you avoid buying more video equipment than you need, and spend the money on better audio equipment instead. Just my 2c

[ThePointblank]

If you don't need 4k, but good 1080p, with the option of doing occasional 4k at a cheaper price, with a mic jack, the Canon EOS M50 is a good option. With the kit 15-45mm lens, it is $600 USD. Note that the 4k on the M50 is heavily cropped compared to the 1080p footage, is only 24 fps compared to 60 fps, and you go down to contrast AF, not the Dual Pixel AF that you get shooting at 1080p.

[Thanatopsis]

@extraCrispy  I would agree that the BMPCC 4K is a great camera (Im an owner of one ) but its really not a good entry point for what the OP suggested,  Its Auto focus is almost nonexistent and slow at that.  It has some amazing set of options for Cinematic use but its not a good option for corporate use and its not that cheep once you factor in things like needing fast media and having to buy lenses just to get started using it.

[Guest]

On 6/4/2019 at 3:48 PM, Skookum said:

I work for a small engineering consulting business. Occasionally I have to go out and record equipment tutorials for clients. (A contractor or sales rep will explain how their equipment is properly operated and that video is kept for the building owners records for their maintenance staff).

Our office uses a pretty bad camcorder from 2013 (JVC GZ-E306BU) My Samsung s8 has way better audio and video. 

 

I would like to propose a new camera to the owner.

Do you have any recommendations for a lower priced 4k video camera? The places we record in can get quite loud with whining pumps and loud motors. It would be nice if the camera had the ability to knock out droning background noises as well. Nothing fancy, I just want a crisp recording with minimal blur and decent auto-focus. Anything is better than this McDonald's happy meal toy. 

Thanks!

A good option is the Canon M50, or for a little more the 80D. Both very easy to use and low cost. If you do go this way then get a cheap external mic as it will enable far better sound recording which I would guess is quite important for you,