Lipstick cams vary greatly in size, quality and resolution — from way below standard definition to high definition. Many have interchangeable lenses, and many offer more “professional” image processing controls on their CCUs. It all depends on your point of view, and what your production goals are. One common factor, however, is that lipstick cams are fixed in place, and once mounted, the cam ain’t going anywhere soon. This is why many staging professionals have opted to take one step up — to a more versatile remote-controlled pan/tilt/zoom camera such as the Sony BRC-300 or the Panasonic AW-HE100. They’re not stealthy, and you can’t mount them on a guitar neck. However, they’re still quite small and compact, and once mounted in the truss or down at stage level, you’ve got 1000 camera angles at your fingertips, rather than just one.
From “Video World” by Paul Berliner, PLSN, August 2009
