HD Video Camera Suggestions?

[PeterM]

Hi All

Please could you offer any advice on getting a HD video camera?

Looking for the obvious - something small (ish), good battery life, reasonable price (I guessed around £500???), easy to upload to a PC and practical for just arseing around with.

Not sure if a built in hard drive with 5.1 sound is necessary but sounds good, so I looked at the Sony HDRXR200VE for around £650+ but haven't got a clue if that's the one to go for.

Open to all suggestions, advice and general abuse :)

[Saint-Just]

When I went through the same thing 3/4 months ago I did a lot of internet searching and ended up with a Canon HF100.
Was slightly disappointed when it arrived, smaller than a can of Coke...


It is absolutely brilliant. Even SWMBO can use it, and the quality is outstanding.
These might help:
http://www.camcorderinfo.co.uk/d/Review ... c=All.htm#
http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-camcord ... mncol;psum
http://www.camcorderinfo.co.uk/content/ ... Format.htm


And if you go for a Canon, get it from him as a refurbished. Look around in history and for a few days, and set your price. Then snipe and you'll get a great deal

[PeterM]

Cheers for that.

Very in-depth too :)

[seadog1408]

jvc everio with built in hard drive. good little machine, and even i can work it. :lol:

[deano42]

Hi

I was in the same situ over the summer, spent ages on the net and looking around and ended up with a HF100.

Its a winner.!

Thanks
deano

[r.dawson]

I bought one just last week. went for this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 1023342-21

newer version out:

http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/produc ... C-SD10EB-K

I work for Comet so have a fair knowledge of electricals. the Canon is also a good product

[NikosF]

We have two HD video cameras. A 900 pound Sony 1080i HD camera, and a 140 pound Flip HD 720p camera.

The Sony blows the Flip out the water when it comes to picture quality. On the other hand the Flip blows the Sony out of the water in ease of use, portability, transfering videos, charging (just stick it in the USB port). I would say 95% of our shooting is now with the Flip.

So - depends what you want it for. I highly recommend the Flip. http://www.theflip.com/

[vaizki]

Went for the Canon here half a year ago (harddisk model though), picture quality is great but I'm pissed off with cams dropping firewire now that they have random access media (flash & harddisk) instead of tape.. FW is so much better especially with a Mac.

[PeterM]

Thank you all.

Like everything in life it's easy to complicate these decisions, so I'm still pondering the alternatives :)

[tredders]

One piece of advice - go and physically handle whichever camera you decide on. The reason I say this is about 12 months ago, I did a ton of research and bought an award winning Canon HD camcorder, which had come top in just about all of the tests and magazine reviews. It came, I used it for a holiday, and then realised that it was a pretty chunky piece of kit. Long and short of it is, it got very little use, since it was too big just to chuck in a jacket pocket, so I flogged it. The quality was great, but it was just a bit too big to carry around.

6 months ago, I bought a Sony camcorder after handling one in duty free at an airport. It's this model: http://www.sony.co.uk/product/cam-high- ... k/hdr-tg3e and it's absolutely fantastic. It's small enough to fit in your jeans pocket, takes stunning quality footage, and actually has a better battery than the Canon it replaced. Because it's so small, I find I carry it around a lot, so have it with me far more than if it was bigger.

Mark.

[PeterM]

Cheers for that Mark.

Shame we don't do that with our watches very often. Actually saying that, Sales Corner would be deserted without people buying watches only to find they don't like them when they arrive :lol:

[tredders]

Peter,

Might be worth a look? viewtopic.php?f=3&t=92197

Mark.

[Narwhal]

As far as I know, Panasonic is the only brand that offers a leica lens on their cameras. That alone puts them well above anyone else.