In sorting out ways to beef up promotional efforts and to take my artistry to the next level, it has become quite clear to me that I need to get serious about regularly adding video to my regimen. When I released a video for Annihilation Dance, which was a well-conceived edit I created from video source video not my own, it received raves and really alerted me to the fact that video is expected by fans, not just nice-to-have.

As an indie artist, my budget isn’t huge so instead of going into the pro realm for a camera, I looked at prosumer HD offerings. The number one thing I will not compromise on is video quality. Even though I plan to do a fair amount of color correction and effects, it’s still a matter of garbage in-garbage and it has to be fantastic going in.

I pegged my budget firmly at $1K and began my research for the best video that money would get me. I landed on the Cannon HF S21, which has a true cinematic quality and can record in native 24p. I then moved one notch up to the more recently offered HF S30, the only 2 real differences being compatibility with higher capacity SDXC memory cards (vs SDHC with the S21) and an improved powered image stabilization. Note, the image stabilization on the S21 was already considered one of the best in class.

I have a mother-in-law styled cottage on the rear of my property, basically a second house mainly used for storage and a makeshift gym. I am going to carve out half of the main room as a photo/video studio, including a light rig, green screen, and perhaps even stop-motion stage. It should suit me well for just about anything I would want to do for interior video work. Otherwise, the HF S30 is comfortably portable and I should be able to get gorgeous video from many different locations.

Here is a sample video from a user on youtube from the HF S21. I chose this example out of the many great samples on youtube because it is short and straight from the camera with no color correction or effects. The user employs manual focus to get depth of field. I am truly amazed at the quality of the video for this thing. It should arrive Wednesday and I can’t wait to do my own test footage with it before getting to the serious work of music video.