What camcorder

[martyb]

I've got about £300 to spend on a camcorder, what do you recommend?
Cheer's

[gingaman]

Hi MartyB

Well I've got a Canon MVX200i that you can now get for £299 and I can recommend that, fab piece of kit, adequate optical zoom (14x), reasonable indoor/low light performance, fantastic daylight performance and very well built. If you don't need to backup your edited footage from your PC/Mac backto tape again then you won't need the 'i' model and you can find the MVX200 for about £240 which would also be good value IMO.

Maybe you could indicate a bit more about your needs though for people to give advice, ie indoor or outdoor only, family stuff etc, and whether you need the DV-In facility that I mentioned above ie the 'i' on Canon machines.

There are plenty of Panny and Sony users around here who I'm sure will also recommend their own machines

There should be a good few bargains around as many of the manufacturers announce their new models around this time of year, meaning the old stuff gets flogged off cheaply.

Cheers

Gingaman

[martyb]

I would prefer it to be good in low light condition's, for school show's.
Mostly use it for party's and day's out at the zoo etc.

[martyb]

I like the look of this one.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...369644-1101418

[gingaman]

The HC19 does look like a reasonable offering and I did consider the HC22 before I got my Canon MVX200i, if you search on this site you will people very happy with the HC19/HC22 machines from Sony, and some users reckon that it is very good indoors under normal room/lamp lights, but I have read other peoples reviews indicating that it is poor indoors - it is all a matter of opinion I guess and maybe some people just have higher expectations than others. At the end of the day all cameras perform worse indoors than they do outdoors because there is less light - the human eye and brain are very clever and manage to produce a good image for us thankfully but don't expect a Camcorder to give as good as that. Whenever possible you need to give the camera some extra help with extra lighting. The Low Light/Night modes on cameras are very poor in my opinion and I don't like using them because you need a very still subject to get a decent image otherwise it's just too jerky and false.

Good luck

Cheers

Gingaman

[joshua_bond]

I will go for the Sony Hc19e....and that not being bias. It is really good for indoors and especially good at night time (outdoors). A neat feature is infra-red. Absolutely brill for night filming and in complete darkness. I have tried that JVC 250 but was not up to scratch in low light. I have heard that you can get one in Argos for £200 - but forget that idea because it is a complete sell-out. Try Amazon for about £25more.