So Shocker Khan and I are in the market for a new camcorder and we’re looking to spend around $300-350. There seem to be a lot of decent cameras in this price range but it was hard to find any w/ enough reviews to make them relevant.
I don’t think we have any hard preferences. I’d like a strong optical/digital zoom feature but 60x/2000x seems pretty common in that price range. Not sure if we want a camera w/ a hard drive or one that uses flash memory. I think flash would work fine though.
I don’t think HD is necessary for what we want to do, which is mostly to make home movies of the kids and maybe edit them together later.
Any advice on what we should look for in a camera in this range, and also any advice on specific brands/models that you’ve used and liked?
A couple years ago I was in the same boat, and did lots of research which by now is outdated. However, I came to the conclusion that all I really needed was something that was easily transportable, easy to transfer to the laptop, and didn’t need lots of bells and whistles. Mainly, I needed to
I went Flip and didn’t look back. It’s a great little camera, about $129.
Flip Mino, specifically: http://www.theflip.com/en-us/Products/mino.aspx
My family has this Sony Handycam (with a hard drive) and while I haven’t done a ton with it yet, I like it. I’m a fan of Carl Zeiss lenses so I specifically looked for that. It’s very small, does great in all light, and holds a boatload of video.
Its still pictures aren’t that great, because there’s no flash. Probably would be fine to take stills outdoors, though.
The software that comes with it is not my favorite. I tend to just export to WMV (it does have an option for that) and edit in Windows Movie Maker.
My brother has a Kodak Zi6, which is one of those “flip” cameras (looks like an iPhone) and he takes a lot of videos of the baby and loooooves it. The stills from that thing are amazing, too. Here’s an article on the latest version.
Thanks for the info. I picked up the Sony Handycam that **ZipperJJ **recommended. Like it a lot so far. Seems to have a lot of bang for the buck.
Hey, someone took my recommendation!
HelloNinja, you are now my favorite Doper in the whole of Dopedom!
(Advice does not come with warranty)