Video help, where do I begin

marike6 wrote:

MOV will be the easiest to deal with in the edit stage as AVCHD often need to be converted to MOV to work in popular editors like Final Cut Pro. MOV also features the highest bitrate (72 mbps) it should provide the best quality, theoretically.

As far as frame rates, most of the time you are going to want 1080p24 (or p25 in Europe/Asia). This will give you the most natural motion and cinematic footage (30p in contrast looks too smooth, and slightly unnatural). However, if you think you might want to render a given clip in slow-mo in post (for example a bird flying or some action sequence) you should use 1080p60. Then in post you convert it to 30p and you have instant slow motion. Very nice.

The most useful site for learning DSLR video for me has been Vimeo Video School. It's free, and there are tons of informative video tutorials from shooting, gear, and editing. Good luck.