I’d like a video camera primarily for shooting mountain bike freeride videos, and secondary as a reasonably nice image camera for general life, holidays, etc.

I’m not a fan of 1st person gopro footage and I can’t get anywhere near the quality I want from a modern phone camera.

I’m completely clueless on what to look for. My budget would be circa 500 quid potentially stretching to a few hundred more if it’s worth it. Buying used is preferred if it gets me more for my money.

I used to have a dslr as a teenager and liked using a wide angle lens for shooting bmx photos. I assume I’d still like a wideangle lens now but a longer lens as well.

If you could point me in the right direction that would be great. Also if it’s worth buying a few years old or if the tech has significantly moved on and things like that.

Also interested as I’ve been meaning to buy one for a few years now. I go to lots of events, mostly motor sport, rallying, motocross etc. It would be nice to have one that I could wave around and also teach my girlfriend to use.

The hard part of course, is doing anything useful or productive with the footage afterwards.

I’d personally go the DSLR route, particularly if you are thinking second hand. I’m a Canon man so I can only advise you on Canon cameras, but for your budget you should be able to get a Canon 650D or 700D plus a couple of lenses.For the lenses the standard Canon 18-55mm kit lens is actually not bad, so thats your W/A covered then a Sigma/Tamoron or Tokina 70-200mm ish, would be a good starter kit.The cheaper cameras aren’t full frame so 200mm is quite tight, certainly more than enough. Once you are settled with a small kit there are lots of Chinese copies of batteries etc to add to your kit, then you can start to think about tripods, mics, a small monitor etc, etc. Believe me the list can go on and on.

I’d have a look at mirrorless options too – Panasonic’s Lumix range has some really nice kit designed primarily for video. You should be able to get something like a GX-80 with kit lens plus a 20mm prime in your budget. It’ll be a lot smaller than a DSLR, and (given that the 650D and 700D are a good few years old now) should give you a better range of video options too – including 4k if that floats your boat. Doesn’t really do high speed (1080/60 is the limit I think) but apart from that it’s a pretty decent package.

It’s also pretty nifty for photos, but most cameras will be.

There might be better mirrorless options out there, but that’s what I have so I haven’t really followed the market for a couple of years.

+1 for mirrorless. They are often better for video than DSLRs.
If you are going to be filming handheld, look for something with decent image stabilisation.
Also consider audio. Something like a Rode VideoMic can give you better quality than the built in microphone. So look for a camera with an audio in socket.

Also +1 for a Lumix Micro 4/3. Lumix G7 is a decent option, kind of chunky grip is nice to hold. And has a microphone input. The kit lens is pretty decent, and plenty of options for more lenses if you want.

My son does filming with DSLR’s and Rode Mics.

He also has a DJI OSMO which has fab quality video.

As with everything in life there’s swings and roundabouts to DSLR video.

Just as a starter for 10, photography lenses have stops on the aperture, which means when filming you’re stuck with whatever appeture you picked to start with. But then for £500 in a video camera you probably wont get aperture control anyway.

I can’t get anywhere near the quality I want from a modern phone camera.

You might be surprised. Have you tried putting the phone in a proper cage with handles? Almost any camera will give better results if you mount it in an appropriate frame/cage.

He also has a DJI OSMO which has fab quality video.

They’ve discontinued the ‘OSMO’ as a gimbal camera, it’s now either a Go-Pro style camera or a gimbal for a mobile phone, you can still pick them up online though.

The old Osmo is a brilliant bit of kit though, you can give it to a runner and they’ll come back with useable footage! The only downside is being a gimbal there’s a knack to using it and getting the shots you want isn’t as easy as just pointing a camera.

You might be surprised. Have you tried putting the phone in a proper cage with handles? Almost any camera will give better results if you mount it in an appropriate frame/cage.

I haven’t tried anything other than a clip over wide angle lens which was unusable. I’ve seen a few youtube videos from amateur film makers which demonstrate the capability of phones by making short films with an iphone, tripods, gimbals, lights, etc.

Perhaps I could get better results by buying some of those accessory items rather than just a nice camera?

A camera I see very often used on YouTube vlogs etc is the Canon M50, which is within the OPs budget if bought used on e-bay. No personal experience to contribute 🙂

Perhaps I could get better results by buying some of those accessory items rather than just a nice camera?

Some of those lenses are probably better than others. Ive seen people using some quite expensive ones and the results looked pretty good. I don’t have any specific recommendations though but inevitably anything plastic is going to produce a horrible image.

We use quite a lot of these, way over budget but shows that it really is all about the glass and mounting options.

$900 moded GoPro , and for that price you don’t actually get an extra lenses, just a GoPro with a c-mount lens thread and a frame to mount it on a tripod!

H7PRO – MODIFIED HERO7 BLACK

Probably makes sense to start playing around with your phone (what phone do you have by the way? I get some pretty good footage from my Mate 10 Pro, but if you’re using something older and budget that might be a bit different) before investing a load of money. Will you be shooting on ‘proper’ rides or is it more a case of parking by the woods and sessioning? As that will affect how much you want to carry.

I’d start off with a cheap tripod and adapter and work from there. Also read up on filming and editing techniques, with a bit of creativity you can put together something pretty decent with a phone.

Naturally, i’ve been getting caught up in the whole ‘for only a couple hundred more you can get…’ thought loop for the last few days and now i’m looking at spending around a grand. Currently looking at the Sony A6500 and Fujifilm XT30 which can each be bought used from CEX with a 2 year warranty.

Yes, but fundamentally they won’t improve the squishy bit doing the pre production, holding the camera, directing, recording sound, and editing though.

A £50 cage/handle for your phone or GoPro will at least give you an idea whether you have the patience to make videos. Then you can start upgrading as necessary (and may well decide it’s the PC your editing on, or sound recording that are by far the biggest linitations, not the camera).

And you’re into 2nd hand xf305 money.

What I’m saying is, don’t underestimate the work and skill involved in making decent videos. And there are a lot of skills you’re going to have to learn! Production, direction, photography, camera op, sound recording, editing. And there’s not much overlap in the roles! I know good documentary PD’s (so have to do all those roles) who have been described as “but couldn’t edit their way out of a paper bag” 😂 . Similarly I know a few that are utterly technically inept and need their cameras switching on for them but produce amazing results. At least starting with basic simple kit like a GoPro or camera phone will give you the practice with everything other than operating a specific camera.

PC and sound won’t be a problem. I have a fully kitted out home recording studio with an array of microphones. I’m sure there will be a lot of parallels between recording music and recording film with regards to the editing and patience required, but also many differences and a lot of new skills to learn!

I’ll see what I can do with the phone 1st anyway