[technoman_1]

Hi
Can anyone suggest which might be the best option HD camcorder to film a family wedding and to use on holiday in April when we will be going to the Grand Canyon in USA. I was going to buy a sony HDR-SR8 but they just ran out of stock as the price was £430. I have been considering the the Canon HG10 as an alternative (any thought on this option). I get confused when i see on the camera 6.1MP on the Sony and 3.1 on the Canon Mega Pixels. Does thisjust relate to still image quality? What should i look for that determines the best valuefor money on the Video image in HD. If there is a better option than the sony or canon then please suggest an alternative, i do however want full HD quality. Many thanks
David

[chrishull3]

Originally Posted by technoman_1

Hi
Can anyone suggest which might be the best option HD camcorder to film a family wedding and to use on holiday in April when we will be going to the Grand Canyon in USA. I was going to buy a sony HDR-SR8 but they just ran out of stock as the price was £430. I have been considering the the Canon HG10 as an alternative (any thought on this option). I get confused when i see on the camera 6.1MP on the Sony and 3.1 on the Canon Mega Pixels. Does thisjust relate to still image quality? What should i look for that determines the best valuefor money on the Video image in HD. If there is a better option than the sony or canon then please suggest an alternative, i do however want full HD quality. Many thanks
David

No one is going to agree on which is the best camcorders ie sony or canon,it also depends how much you want to spend, whether you want avchd hd hard drive +card cams or card only,there are a lot of options now in tapeless cams, if i said thid model is the best spmone else will give another. the top canon sony cams are all good.if i were bying a new cam now it would be a sony hdr-xr 500/520 or canon hv 21.above your budget though.
the 6.1 mega pixels refers to still pictures.

[A n d r e w]

HG10 or Canon HF100. My preference would be the HF100, though it's a little above your budget.

[senu]

Im sure the family wedding will cost more than £450. ! " Best HD camcorder for £450 family wedding"
!il just edit the title....
I agree with all the above
There is no Best
Full HD 1920x 1080 does seem to be the standard now however the mere provisin of these pixels say not much about perceived definition
A lot of that is down to hardware and firmware/ software processing.. Canon, Sony Panasonic all make decent models
In short
Your budget, preference for SD card or HDD drive and perhaps current or recent model determine what you get
As for "wedding use" the only caveat is that indoor situations where lighting is never quite optimal challenge all camcorders and most consumer models will need to be used with these limitations in mind
I have used the HG10 and quite like like but think the HF100 is better
You might want to suggest other models for comment

[technoman_1]

Hi
Thanks for all the replies so far. Today i went in the shops and had another look at the camcorders. I would not normally consider Samsung as a camcorder manufacturer but i looked at the Samsung HX20 full HD camcorder.
This can record in 1920X1080P x25 and 1920x1080Ix50 or in standard definition on Sd card or the the 8GB flash memory on the camera. Bear in mind the price is reduced from £500 to £299. Any thought on this as opposed to Canon or Sony.One other thing is the ouput is Mpeg 4 for editing.
Thanks

[senu]

Originally Posted by technoman_1

Hi
Thanks for all the replies so far. Today i went in the shops and had another look at the camcorders. I would not normally consider Samsung as a camcorder manufacturer but i looked at the Samsung HX20 full HD camcorder.
This can record in 1920X1080P x25 and 1920x1080Ix50 or in standard definition on Sd card or the the 8GB flash memory on the camera. Bear in mind the price is reduced from £500 to £299. Any thought on this as opposed to Canon or Sony.One other thing is the ouput is Mpeg 4 for editing.
Thanks

You mean the HMX 20. Its true it records a Hi def variant of H.264 not quite AVCHD unlike the Canon and Sony ( AVCHD itself is an mpeg4 variant )
It is a good camcorder for the money. In fact I would say it is Samsung first camcorder Ive been impressed with
Unfortunately I have only had a 30min/1 hr play with it : not long enough to say very much
I did a small write up on its SD sibling MX20 ( in the sticky)
I did like it on first impressions though and its actually video output was impressive( I still have them on my HDD) and found them not dissimilar to AVCHD footage from the Sony SR 12 and Canon HG 10 which Ive also used
Its low light performance is actually good ( its CMOS sensor is " bigger" than average")
It does lack a few whistles and bells though it has a few of its own but whatever it lacks, it takes good video