Posted by Richard Crowley on 10/13/05 09:44

"reqluq" wrote ...
> folks...folks... *take my money* is in asterics with a smile...
> meaning I'm seeing them fo who they are.but am interested
> in what it takes to get off to a good start.

Maybe the simplest way to answer that is that if you have
to ask that question, perhaps you shouldn't spend your money
on all that stuff starting out. Absolutely no disrespect meant
to you. We all started somewhere/sometime. And you show
promising wisdom in questioning the advertising message.

A great deal of it depends on what/how you think you will
be shooting. For example, you probably need a decent
tripod/head (unless you are shooting exclusively hand-held.)
You likely need a good microphone and headphones to
monitor what you are picking up (unless you are just shooting
nature footage or "B-roll" or something.) You likely need
a filter or two (at minimum an IR filter to protect the lens,
etc.) but not sure if you need all those filters (especially
the square ones) unless you are shooting very carefully
staged film-style scenes.

And then there is the matter of lighting. Of course this
depends *greatly* on what/how you are shooting, but
decent lighting (vs. inadequate) makes a much bigger
difference between good video and lousy video than
almost anything on that list. Again *depending on what
you are shooting* you may be better off buying a decent
lighting kit. Or even assembling your own. One of my
sources on lighting...
http://www.bluesky-web.com/new-page6.html

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