Anyone using Panasonic (AG-EZ50U or PV-DV953) for TRANSFER??

[tangent]

Curious if anyone has any experience using panasonic's 1/6" 3ccd cameras (AG-EZ50U or PV-DV953 or Japanese equivalent) for film to video transfer?

I've done alot of research and for my budget these cameras seems like a very good deal (around $1200) for a 3ccd camera w/ all manual controls. The biggest drawback that I've heard is that the low light performance is poor. I think this is because of the 1/6" CCDs (small).

My concern is that low light performance is important for film transfer, because obviously you've only got one light source (projector bulb), no way to increase lighting (as I would do if shooting w/ one regular).

Any comments? Should I purchase one of these cameras?

Thanks -
Josh Toole

[pvanscherpe]

I can not speak to film transfer using an AG-EZ50 but I do own one. The low light issue is due to the small lens. At a look at the larger model panansonic unit and you will see that thier lens are over twice as large. My issue with the panasonic is that the tape loads from the bottom and you do not have professional audio imputs. If you get a BeachTec box which is very good it attaches to the bottom and then you will want to mounth this on a tripod.... You can see that when you want to change tapes you have to dissemble everything. I have found the camera to be very nice other than this. If you plan on taking it to birthday parties it would be great. It is small and will not make people take notice of you and the large LCD display is great. I would recommend this unit on that alone. If you would like to discusses this camera in greater detail drop me a line.

Peter Van Scherpe

[tangent]

Thanks for the info - thats all consistent w/ what I've heard so far about the ag-ez50u... Apparently the pv-dv953 is almost the exact same camera (ccd system, lens, controls), but its top loading instead of bottom loading and has some extra 'consumer' features (mpeg4 encoding to SD cards for example...). Unless I found something negative out, I think I'm leading in that direction... bhphoto has them both for the same price.

Anyone else have any thoughts about using these for film to video transfer?