Hello,
My wife and I are expecting our first child and I would like to buy a camcorder to capture the memories. I would also like to include it with my wife’s Christmas presents. Are there certain brands that I should avoid or features that I should look for when considering such a purchase? I have no experience with them at all and would appreciate any suggestions or advice that you have.
Thanks,
Rich
I have had excellent luck with Canon. I would suggest that you only look at camcorders that:
Are HD
Really dumb to buy a standard definition camcorder theses days. Now, there is HD and HD. My cheapest Canon HD camcorder records an HD signal, but the actual image capture element is NOT HD. Look for one with a 5 megapixel imager if quality matters.
Uses SD cards
That is a memory standard. Most any computer has an SD card reader. If your computer lacks one, the USB cable to the will serve as an SD card reader. You do NOT want a hard drive camcorder, as they are much more failure prone and you will inevitably fill it up. You can get a second SD card most any place and will always be able to swap out.
Has actual controls
The current trend is to touch screens for most controls. Mega-dumb, getting fingerprints all over the screen you are looking at.
All that said, nearly any camcorder will work okay for family videos. Even the worst can be used to get decent results with a little education on how they work.
Basic tips?
[ul]
[li]If you are far away from the subject, get closer instead of zooming in.[/li][li]An external microphone will do wonders for the watchability of your videos.[/li][li]Ditto for a tripod. A real tripod, not one of those crap ones for still cameras.[/li][/ul]
Thanks Gaffa,
I’ll keep your suggestions in mind.
Rich
Who buys camcorders anymore? The last one I bought was about 4 years ago, and we’ve probably only used it about a dozen times. With the digital recording features and HD quality on regular cameras these days, it’s a lot easier to use those or the digital recording feature on your iphone than dig out the camcorder. We have two small kids and most of our recordings are not over a couple of minutes so just using the point and shoot camera is a lot easier and less to pack when you have so much to carry around for kids already.
I agree with Omar Little. We bought a family camcorder when my niece was born and no one ever uses it. Instead, my brother uses his Kodak Flip (which seem to be no longer produced but they have a different line of “pocket video cameras”). It is much easier to carry around and to have “ready to roll” than a full-sized camcorder. And I think it’s much easier to get the videos off and onto the Web - the Sony HD Camcorder we have, at least, was a bit of a pain in the ass to do anything with because of stupid proprietary file formats and stuff.