Mar
01
I have really been enjoying doing the video shorts I have been creating lately. They are actually easier to put together than full blown podcasts and are a lot of fun.
Unfortunately I am stuck with a crappy little digital camera and am really frustrated with the quality of video it produces. As you might expect, I am shopping for a new digital camcorder.
First, my key requirements. I want a MiniDV recorder, so if I am traveling or remote I can switch tapes, even if just to keep organized. So that crosses out the myriad of HDD recorders which do sound very nice and the boat load of DVD recorders, which I totally don’t get by the way, and luckily for me both of those cancel out my other requirement which is an external mic/line in.
Last night I seriously looked under the skirt of EVERY digital camcorder they had at Circuit City and only two had a mic input. Both of the cameras were also High Definition and both also were $1,000+.
I might end up with High Definition, but I certainly don’t need it. A quick rundown of my list of interesting cameras results in 4 manufacturers: at #1, Canon, followed by Panasonic, Sony and then JVC. Right now, it looks like I will settle with a Canon HV20 if I can find one, and if all fails there, I am still exploring a used Canon GL1 or XL1 although they come at considerable more expense.
So the point of this post is simply that digital camcorder manufacturers really seem to have lost their way. There seems to be little to no feature gap between $200-$500 cameras, again little improvement in the $600-$700 camp, then a light year to the $1000+ range. This leaves me in an odd position because a nice quality standard definition camera with a mic input is all that I need, I would even prefer the GL2, which is not High-Def, to the Canon HV20, but the GL2 is over twice as expensive!
If you are a video blogger, what are you using? What’s your setup? Mics, cameras, mixing boards if any….please tell me what you use and send a link to sample videos. I want to do things right, but I don’t want to blow the bank on a camera if I can help it.
I already have great mics and studio lighting, surely there is a nice camera I can use that will let me leverage them.
If you check very well, you may be able to find the Canon HV20. I’m sure those are somewhere waiting to be snapped up, it’s all about the money.
Jason,
You might want to take a look at the Canon ZR800. It shoots miniDV, has a microphone jack and is very inexpensive at around $250. I read about it in an article in PC Mag about being a YouTube superstar and this was on of the cameras that they recommended.