Camcorder- Any suggestions?

jasons_2

Want to buy my 1st camcorder in the next couple of weeks- not really sure what to buy- I was thinking digital but apart from that not sure!

I noticed in Argos that they do a dvd camcorder for around the £300 mark- but that would be the top top of my budget.

It will be used for the kids/birthdays/ holidays etc- not looking for broadcast quality, but if anyone had any suggestions or reccomendations I'd be more than grateful.

Thanks,

Jason

Cat72

Have a look at the website www.simplydv.com for some decent advice. Have a look at the "choosing your first camcorder" ,

stressedoutmum

Hiya. I wanted a camcorder just for the reasons you did. After recommendation I bought the Sony DCR-HC22E from Dixons. It cost around £300 but I got 9 month interest free credit. The Sony Centre (if theres one near you) was dearer but would price match and guarantee it for 3 years. However they had none in stock and I needed asap. Its brilliant, really easy to use and compact. HTH

Kentish

There have been a few threads on cheap camcorders recently; here are two of the more recent ones which you may find helpful:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=149896
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=150989

In brief, you only need to spend ~£200 and you'll have a good digital camcorder for casual use.

The important things to look out for are:

Optics: the better the lens the better the picture quality - go for a well-known make like Canon, JVC, Sony etc, because they generally have better lenses.

Recording media: you can choose between models which use mini-DV, DVD, or flash media, hard drive. I would choose mini-DV because it's a tried and trusted technology and less sensitive to knocks than DVD and hard drive. And because it is the most established medium, the camcorders are generally cheaper too.

Zoom: as with digital cameras, look only at the optical zoom (and not the digital zoom). Most entry-level models have at least 10x but some go to 25x and beyond. Any zoom from 10x upwards is good enough, in all honesty. And the greater the zoom, the more likely you'll notice the camcorder-shake - unless you use a tripod.

Taking still pictures: most have this capacity but a few don't (eg, Canon MV800). I really don't care for this in a camcorder - the picture quality is generally poor so I'd prefer to use a camera for that instead.

Low light performance: this is a problem for most camcorders and there probably isn't much to choose between models. Don't be seduced by advertising which states "0 lux" which implies it can film without any light at all - it may be able to give you a picture but it might not be a very interesting one to look at. If you want objective comparisons, then I usually go to a review site like Camcorder Info to see if there is a review of the specific model. They perform tests under standardized lighting conditions so you can start to compare like with like - only problem is that they don't always have the camcorder you want and because it is a US site, you may have to decipher which US model is the same as which UK model.

Good luck!