Which Camera/Camcorder to buy? Spoilt for choice!

CLLC

Hi MSE's :hello:

I need some help purchasing a new Camera (capable of recording video & sound in good quality & at HD) or a Camcorder of same expectations. I need it to make reviews of the latest Mobile phones.

My Budget is £200 - £250

I would prefer a 'normal' modern Camera that has quality video and audio recording. So I can basically have a Camera and a good camcorder compactly rolled into one. But if need be .... a camcorder it is

P.S Preferbly a camera that can take Panoramas easily too. Sorry, If thats too fussy

Thanks in advance

CLLC :beer:

ajuk

Get yourself a camcorder for £220 and with the change get an OM10

Sui_Generis

The Sanyo Xacti camcorders shoot surprisingly good HD video. I created a movie for the school at the end of last term where the whole school danced and we used 5 roving camcorders to capture the event, 2 Kodak Zi8 HDs (like Flip Mino HD) and 2 Xacti HDs and a Canon SD. I edited it all together and would say the Zi8 HD have good colour and image quality but have a fixed focus and its not good close up. The Xactis were good and with zoom etc proved the best, the Canon was poor quality by comparison.

I have a 720p model but the new C100 (1080) is now £150 on Amazon. What is surprising is how amazingly good the macro function is which would probably be useful for your reviews. Caveat: indoors isn't brilliant even on up to £500 HD camcorders. The still photos are also pretty good but obviously not up there with the 22MB RAW images I get from my DSLR.

As to panoramas, create them on your computer - there's lots of free software around.

HTH