Video Camera advice

[erdvm1]

I am looking for a small good quality digital video camera for around $600 does anyone have advice on which one to buy????

[erdvm1]

any help ?

[yourrealdad]

Panasonic PVGS300 is what I think it is called. MiniDV 3CCD and it is small and shoots great footage. I think I found mine on the internet for about 500 or 600 bucks

[b dash rian]

ya, 3CCD is the thing to look for in any camera, it takes super good video, really clear

[KSC]

There's a sickening array of options. My opinion - stick with miniDV camcorder right now. They're significantly cheaper, better quality, and it solves your problem of storing & archiving 0all your video. Only drawback is no random access and carrying tapes. These are actually becoming harder to find because all the development is going into HD (out of your price range) and hard drive/DVD/flash based devices.

In your price range I'd probably point to Panasonic GS320 (you probably won't find GS300 anymore) or Sony HC96. Main points to consider are: GS320 has no microphone input. If you care about getting sound quality this could be a deal breaker. HC96 also has no mic input, but there's a hot shoe accessory you can buy (for now) and they have some Sony brand only mic accessories that fit on the hotshoe. Also the HC96 will do better in low light. Panasonic has optical image stabilization, which is better than the electronic stabilization on HC96. Panasonic has 3 CCDs which means it will probably represent color better in bright light. I wouldn't get that hung up on 3 CCDs in this price range though - they have make to CCDs small, which offsets some of the advantages you get from 3 vs. 1.

So if getting good sound and/or low light performance is very important I'd go Hc96 else GS320. Hope that helps. One other option might be the Canon Elura line. I think the picture quality will not be quite as good as the 2 above but the price is lower and it has a good feature set.

[tuberslickmysweatyballs]

yeah, if your total budget is $600 then give the canon elura 100 a look. when you get done buying extra batteries, a 1-2 year mack warranty,external mic, adobe premier elements,ect you'll be close or well over. you'll only be able to find refurbs or used ones on places like ebay but it's a small,well featured camera with very good image quality plus has a mic input which is rare even in more $ cameras. it was 2006 camera of the year.

I picked a up elura 100 a couple months ago to see if video was something I wanted to mess around with. pretty fun. very happy with the quality.

the big drawback to small cameras especially the elura is motor noise that gets picked up by the on camera mic. I use a $35 external mic when audio matters. big improvement but a little bit of a pain in the ass too.

go to camcorderinfo.com too. great resource.

Also,do yourself a favor and edit with adobe premiere elements.very stable. picked up the 2.0 version on ebay for $50. works great.