camcorder

[Tonyz]

Daughter is overseas shortly. She has a digital camera for 'shoys' but wants something that 'films' You can see we're very knowledgeable (?) about this.

So what do we look for without getting a bank loan and is Ebay worth the venture

[bsrlee]

A lot of digital 'still' cameras have a basic 'video' mode - no zoom and maybe mono sound - you just need to invest in a bigger memory card to store it on. The more expensive digital still cameras will now do zoom & have stereo sound too.

It depends on whether you want to make a video documentary or not, and how much skill/practice the user has had with video cameras. A basic video camera using tapes will cost around $500AU, a DVD based camera a hundred or two more (not my choice, personal use requirements) - both DVD and tape based cameras can record for 1/2 hr or so before needing to change tapes or disk, and can record many hours (weeks actually) before you need to recharge them - you'd never carry enough recording media to run the battery down in straight recording.

For around a $1000 (plus) you can get a hard drive, high definition video camera, but that needs a computer or DVD recorder for when the HD fills up. Recording time for all these is around 1/2 hr at their best quality, more record time with lower quality. More expensive HD cameras can record an hour or two before they need to be downloaded. The better ones also take reasonable quality stills, but not to as high a resolution as a dedicated still camera.

[davo453]

I Agree with bsrlee.

We did a trip around NZ recently and I abandoned the camcorder and just took a point and shoot camera.

The video mode on the new cameras is really not bad at all I used a Ricoh Capilo R5 (drooling over the new R6 at the moment) with a 2 gig memory card, it never failed me. It doesn't like videoing water with sun light reflecting off it though.

The video quality is more than acceptable on an ordinary (non high def) tv.

I was taking about 300 photo's a day and maybe 5-10 mins of video, then downloading in the evening to my laptop and although I had a spare camera battery and 2 gig card I never had to use them. Impressed wasn't the word.

Cheers



Dave

[davo453]

Forgot to say I bought the Ricoh via ebay and it was a good experiance, with several gifts thrown in to the deal and a very good price.

You just need do your research on the camera model before you shop.

Warranty is a worry I suppose but I've had no issues.


Dave

[Dean]

Not long ago I got a Panasonic mini DVD disc camcorder. Takes the 8cm DVD discs and each disc holds about 30 mins of video. The discs are small and relatively cheap ($6 each) and are re-writeable. The camcorder, while not the best int he world is very good for the price and takes pretty sharp video and records 5.1 sound (or something like that). Best part is you just copy the files from the DVD disc to your hard drive, rename the file and you have an instant DVD file ready for burning to standard sized DVD discs for storage and playback. Its a great sub $800 camcorder.