help with camcorder

[acorean]

My wife and i are having our first child and although I do still photography she wants a camcorder.

I'm sure I will get suckered into taking video but my wife will use it 75% of the time. I need something that is simple to use and gives good quality video at a reasonable price.

Can anyone recommend a "value" camera for this situation?

[Andrushka]

do you want HD? If yes, are you set on 1080? This will help narrow things down. Do you have a budget in mind?

[acorean]

do you want HD? If yes, are you set on 1080? This will help narrow things down. Do you have a budget in mind?

I guess at this point in time HD would be nice if it is priced right. 1080 seems like overkill though. I'd like to spend somewhere in the $300-500 range

[kimmylixx]

canon hv30 is excellent and can be had now for the 500.

[c2thew]

while the canon hv30 is still a value priced camcorder, it still uses DV tape, which in my opinion slows your workflow if you edit videos at home. i do expect the hv30 to continue to depreciate as dv tapes see less air time over hard drive/flash based camcorders.

[Andrushka]

my 2 cents is that i would avoid DV tapes at all cost - i have a Canon DV camcorder and it is decent quality but i never use it cause i know i will never bother transferring the footage to my pc... the worst camcorder is the one you don't use...

My mom just got an SX1 and took it to Tanzania and the 1080 HD video on it is really nice. (and obviously doubles as a decent p & s!) Another friend just got the SX20 which is probably a better value if you can live with 720 HD, cause its $200 cheaper and the video looks great anyway.

Thats one thought. Too bad the G11 doesnt do HD...

It may sound weird that i recommend looking at P&S's for video, but my wife and I got a little Sony DSC-20 P&S which does 720HD video pretty well to record our new baby girl's first months and it has been great. Unlike the DV camcorder that we have and never used, we use the little Sony all the time and its even convenient enough for my wife to carry around and actually use regularly. I'd have preferred a Canon SX but the Sony was a bit cheaper and that mattered at the time.

[thomasstuart]

Hi I am Thomas.
I am agree with Kimmylixx.
Canon hv30 is now for 500.

[acorean]

Thanks for the advice all. Based on the above I would also like to stay away from DV tapes and go with a harddrive/flash. The less I have to do the better. If I can teach my wife to plug the camera (or flash card) into her laptop and have it be easy to download/upload, etc. then life is good. If I have to do it.... not so much.

I will check out the units mentioned above and post further questions if needed.

Thanks again.

[JohnJH]

another vote for hv30

[maxsideburn]

another vote for the HV30. I use mine as a home movie camcorder and also professionally as a back-camera for events, in good lighting the footage actually looks better than what my expensive Sony produces.

[acorean]

any suggestions for cameras that don't use DV tapes?

[Trey T]

Try canon HG series, HG10 or HG20. Using tape sucks. I am glad we phased out of camcorder and completely get into vDSLR.

I just can't emphasize how important having vDSLR and able to shoot at low-light condition. I believe it's easier to use DSLR than regular camcorder. The IS on DSLR is a lot better than those thats on the camcorder.

[maxsideburn]

dv tape is the way to go. anything else is going to be compressed a LOT.