MIKE FIGGIS MAKES SOME CHEAP HOME MOVIES

The latest camcorders are very small and very cheap. But are they any good? The film director Mike Figgis tests them...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Winter 2008

The world of images--moving and still--is in a state of flux. Film as a recording medium is definitely on the way out; sound tape is on its last legs; soon everything recorded will be stored straight onto some kind of drive. Things are changing so quickly that “Digital Filmmaking”, a book I wrote only last year, is already--at least in terms of the technical equipment I discuss--out of date.

So it wasn’t a great surprise when, a short while ago, a friend of mine told me about his Flip--a pocket-size, digital camcorder that records onto its own internal drive, and has a built-in USB plug that flips outward (hence the name) for plugging straight into your computer and transferring material. Having used the Flip to record his video blog, he said it was extremely user-friendly, particularly in terms of getting material quickly onto the internet. Immediately I began speculating about other possibilities for the camera. In particular, I wondered if it was good enough to make small films.

The answer was to try. The Flip has two rivals in this new market, the Busbi, and Creative’s Vado, so over the course of a couple of days I put them to the test, setting up a simple series of shots that was identical for all three cameras, to compare picture quality, the stability of the images, and the sound quality. I then transferred the files to my Mac for playback and, I hoped, editing. But more about that later. First, the cameras.

Busbi has two versions currently on the market, both using external memory cards to record up to an hour’s worth of material: only the newer, more expensive one has a built-in USB plug, though, so it was this model that I tested. It is significantly--unnecessarily?--chunkier than either the Flip or the Creative, although the screen size is almost identical, and its shiny white looks make it a bit conspicuous should you want to be clandestine. But it has one major advantage: the screen can be folded outwards from the camera body, which means bloggers can see themselves in the frame. The controls--including a central red “record” button--were all simple and easy to understand.

In use, it became clear that the lens is slightly wider than the older Busbi model; it has a short zoom. The picture was bright (a little too bright perhaps) but not bad--it adjusted well to light changes--and the sound quality was good. On offer are two recording modes, longplay and high quality. I tried both and saw very little difference.

Pure Digital has released two Flips: the original Ultra, and the very attractive new Mino: smaller and sleeker in chrome and black, with five illuminated, touch-sensitive controls on its fascia, and a USB plug that pops out from the top, as opposed to flipping out from the side. This makes it easier than its parent to plug into the side of a lap top, but when you do so the screen faces downwards, so you can’t see what you’re doing--quite an oversight.

The screen size for both is the same, with an equally clear and sharp image while recording. The auto-focus works well on both, the exposure is good, and their lenses can do a small zoom (although with all the cameras I tried, the image quality seems to drop off at the front end of the zoom). On the original Flip, I liked the useful lock/unlock button on the base of the camera; on the Mino, I found the illuminated controls very useful in low light, while the fact that it takes three buttons to delete a file means accidentally erasing a file would be unlikely.

Finally, the Vado. This is very slim, with an attractive, metallic finish, and a clear, large screen--the largest of all, in fact. Its USB plug pulls out from the bottom of the camera on a short rubber strap--this makes it easier to plug into your computer, but the slimness, combined with the little tab you use to tug out the USB plug, means this is the only model that will not stand up by itself on a flat surface. The image quality is on a par with the other three cameras, though the sound quality is not so great, as the noise of using its controls gets picked up--the zoom is particularly noisy. Also, this was the only camera that didn’t have a big, central red “record” button for record--a small thing, but I missed the brazen scarlet.

Mike Figgis In every case, I really enjoyed the simplicity of these cameras. They were so easy to use compared to most digital camcorders, which are heavily over-designed and have too many options. But I was disappointed once it came to putting the results onto my Mac: none of the clips would open using the standard, free version of QuickTime, and couldn’t be edited with Mac’s iMovie software; in the end, I had to put them on a PC. Even then, I didn’t find a successful way of editing them, and the picture quality dropped right away: the images looked much better on the cameras little screens than they did on my laptop.

Still, I suspect that most people care less and less about the aesthetics of the image. We have been herded into a mobile-phone culture, where ease of use wins out over more delicate considerations. But it is early days for this kind of camera, and my guess--and hope--is that, within a short time, their quality will get a lot better.

Busbi BUS VP0010R from £70 (€88)
Flip Ultra around £100 (€111)
Flip Mino around £120 (€148)
Creative Vado around £79 (€99)

Picture Credit: Colin Crisford

(Mike Figgis has directed many films, including "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Internal Affairs", taken lots of photographs and written a few books, most recently "Digital Filmmaking")