Continuous record for the whole act, no chance to walk up and change anything mid-show, audio comes off the desk, and I am zoomed a long way in from the back row. Budget is about 1500 used and I already own a mirrorless body that I like for interviews. Everyone online tells me camcorders are dead, but nothing about my mirrorless setup feels built for this job.
For unattended long-form in a dark hall the camcorder still wins on the things that ruin recital footage: a proper servo zoom you can creep during a piece, built-in ND, XLR inputs, and relay recording across two cards so a card change is not a hole in the film. The smaller sensor gives you deep depth of field, which sounds like a downside until you are 30 metres back and a child steps forward and your fast prime hunts for focus. I shoot both and the mirrorless never leaves the bag for these.
Relay recording is exactly the thing I have been dreading. My current plan was 'hope the card is big enough' which is not a plan.
It is not just capacity, it is heat and battery too. Run the mirrorless for two hours in a warm hall and see what it does before you trust it with someone's daughter's solo.
Do not buy a consumer camcorder expecting these benefits, though — that is the trap. The features that matter live on the prosumer and broadcast-style bodies: a manual zoom and focus ring you can actually grip, XLRs with proper level control, real ND, and dual slots. A cheap handycam gives you a long lens, an autofocus you cannot override and a built-in mic you will never use. Used prosumer is where your budget goes furthest.
Seconding the audio point. Two XLRs with independent gain means you can take the desk feed on one channel and a safety mic on the other, which has saved shows for me when the desk output was hot.
Politely disagreeing with the mirrorless-is-hopeless framing. Recording limits are largely a thing of the past on current bodies, and a bigger sensor in a genuinely dark hall gives you cleaner images than a small-chip camcorder ever will. If you already own the body, the honest test is to record two hours of an empty room at the same settings with the same power and see whether it overheats or drops. If it survives, the money is better spent on a longer lens and a solid tripod head.
@cue_carla · last mo.
I shot a recital on a mirrorless and it stopped in the middle of the second act, warm to the touch, while I was pinned at the back of a full hall with no way to reach it. The parents were kind about it. I bought a used camcorder that week and have not had a single dropped show since.
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