What Camera Was Used To Film "Cloverfield"?

Question

Well by the way it was filmed it was done using a light but extremely high quality camera. Im sure it wasnt one of those million dollar studio cameras or the portable big bulky news reporter cameras. Cos the way it was moved in the movie, you know like you couldnt do that with something bulky. Aniway it was HD aswell wasnt it? Well if anyone knows what type of camera was used let me know.

Answer 1

Even the low-end consumer HD cameras that can film at 1080i cost upwards of $2,000 ... the high-end studio grade portable HD cameras run anywhere from 25k-40k each.  You're going to want to look at professional lines of the Sony and Cannon camcorders (the Canon XL series and Sony HD-FX series are consumer products ... you want film industry non-consumer cameras)

Edit:  I will admit it appears JJ Abrams went with Panasonic for some of the shots in the movie, but I think you overlooked the fact he used Sony cameras for over 75% of the movie footage.  That having been said I don't think anything I stated in my post is "wrong" ... low-end consumer HD cameras that film at 1080i do start at around $2,000 and high end studio models start at around $25k.  That is a fact ... just because you think you have some tiny little tidbit of additional information doesn't make everything else "wrong."

Answer 2

Believe it or not, you are wrong.  The smallest camera they used were Panasonic HVX-200s, but those are not exactly small, and they were only used for a few shots.  Most of the footage came from Sony CineAlta F23s and also a Viper and a Genesis, and yes, these are very large, very heavy, million dollar cameras!  It was actually quite difficult for them to get the shaky camcorder look from these big professional movie cameras, but that's part of the movie magic.

Edit: When I said "You are wrong" I was referring to the asker's assumption that Cloverfield was filmed with a light cheap camera, which is wrong. (It was filmed mostly with big expensive cameras, and that is a fact.)

However, now that you mention it, pretty much everything in blursd2's answer is wrong as well.  There are plenty of 1080i HD camcorders available for under $1000 and some as low as $700.  For example, the under-$700 Canon HV20 which films 1080i and even 1080p24 is preferred by many indie filmmakers for its extremely high image quality (although mediocre manual controls and build quality).  It CERTAINLY qualifies as a low-end consumer HD camera (and I'd say way better than that).  Also, the Sony cameras used in Cloverfield were F23 CineAltas which are very expensive large movie cameras, not small consumer camcorders.  And finally blursd2, the original question asked only what cameras were used in Cloverfield, and was not asking for a camera recommendation or price comparison, so I don't see how your (factually incorrect) camera recommendation answer was in any way relevant to the question asked.