Camcorder Recommendations?

[JetsetBkk]

re. My previous thread about buying a new camera, I'm now thinking of getting a camcorder for videos and a separate camera with a good "Super Macro" mode for stills.

I would appreciate any recommendations from users of camcorders.

My requirements:

Good optical zoom (40x minimum)

Ability to take stills

Pocket sized (I have big pockets)

Flash memory card storage - don't like hard drive or DVD (or tape!)

Optical image stabilisation preferred, but not essential - digital OK

Wide screen video

Don't want High Definition, because it's a pain to edit - so I've heard

Any help gratefully received.

[Kan Win]

Now that model would really suit you, as you do 'stand out in a crowd' on ThaiVisaDotCom so to speak

Sony Japan has announced the DCR-SX41 DV cam which has an astonishing 60X of optical zoom. The camcorder will be made available in three colors silver, blue and red. It has 2.7 inch touchscreen and 8GB of internal memory which can be further expanded via the Duo slot. A 16GB Memory Stick can accommodate close to 4 hours of video recording in HQ mode. The unit measures 53×107×59mm and weighs 240 grams. It will be going on sale in Japan by end of March for 50,000 Yen ($ 550).

Yours truly,

Kan Win

[The Vulcan]

Just pray you never have to use the Sony service center over here. Service it ain't believe me. Just try and ring them or send an email and you'll see what I mean.

"I velly solly but all operator busy - please hold" - I held and held and bugger all. Gave up after 20 minutes - and that was 5 minutes after they opened!

In the end I cancelled my order for an A900 from them.

That was a week ago and they still haven't bothered to come back or question my cancellation.

Good luck.

[bojo]

I bought a Sony camcorder a couple of years ago and had problems with the software for downloading onto PC/laptop. Had to get to Tekkie friend to download a patch off the net to get it to work. What a palava. Apparently Sony's only like working with other Sony products. Bit of a rip really. However excellent quality pics.Susequently bought a Canon IXUS 901S a year ago for 14K at the time, excellent non-jerky video(the best I could find in the price range) and it had most of the requirements you need but Zoom much less obviousely and no such software problems.

Regards Bojo

[JetsetBkk]

Thanks Kan Win for the info. I didn't realise it was such a new model. I generally don't like to buy either top-of-the-range models or brand new models, whether it be cameras, cars, computers or whatever.

I'd much rather buy something that is "tried and tested" and had a bit of a track record with satisfied customers. So I might give this one a miss. I've not seen it in the shops here, but did see a DCR-SX40 for 12,990 baht (~US$400?) so I will do a feature comparison.

Thanks, too, Vulcan for your tale of woe! I can't remember when I last used a service centre in Thailand. When I buy, I assume it'll work OK for long enough to become out of date, and then I'll buy a new one. That's why I'm more interested in reliable products as I know service here isn't like farangland.

And thanks, bojo. I like Canon also and have an old (really small!) IXUS 30 which suffers from the "E18" problem which means the lens doesn't come out properly, doesn't auto-focus, and won't go back in unless you give it a tap while it is turning off.

The best feature of my IXUS 30 was the "Super Macro" mode - fantastic extreme close-ups that show the smallest detail in a bugs eye-ball! So I was already considering another Canon as my "Macro" camera, but as you say it doesn't have much zoom capability (3x optical) and I really want to take panoramic shots zooming into distant objects - boats, islands, etc - and then zooming out again.

Any other camcorder users out there? All comments welcome!

Edit:

Thanks Jockstar for moving this thread to the correct forum!

Edited April 28, 2009 by JetsetBkk

[astral]

Just pray you never have to use the Sony service center over here. Service it ain't believe me.

Strange I have never had any problems with the Sony Centre in Pattaya.

Some small repairs done on site within a day or so,

the longest wait has been when an item has to be sent to the main office in Bangkok.

[Lazy Sod]

Just pray you never have to use the Sony service center over here. Service it ain't believe me.

Strange I have never had any problems with the Sony Centre in Pattaya.

Some small repairs done on site within a day or so,

the longest wait has been when an item has to be sent to the main office in Bangkok.

The Sony service centre on Bangna Trad Road (nr Central Bangna) has always provided good service to myself and friends for about 10 years. In fact I tend to purchase Sony products these days because of this. The English ability is very basic, I wouldn't like to deal with them on over the phone, best to take it in for evaluation and repair.

[Magoomba]

Don't want High Definition, because it's a pain to edit - so I've heard

HD Editing is better than it was a while ago. I use Adobe Production Premium CS4. It is good and stable for editing HD, and the result is very good. The main thing is to make sure PP CS4 goes back to Adobe for all the updates.

Sometimes there can be a problem with the Codecs for the Sony Format, but apparently it will read the Canon format without an additional Codec. There is a really nice Canon HD Camcorder that would suit your requirements I think its either the HF 10 or the HG 10. You will find the results of HD will be a very pleasant surprise, particularly if you have a big LCD or Plasma TV.

[Bard]

I was a complete fan of the tapes until recently when I switched to SDHC recorder, that is convenient super small and take more punishment than I though was possible. Mine survived a motorcycle crash, mounted on motorcycle next to the engine for hours in burning heat (some plastic is actually melted) dropped it to the ground numerous times and so on, still works like a charm. Best of all SD cards, cheap to buy, easy to store and easy to transfer to your computer. Winwin I love it.

The one I bought was very cheap as I knew it would be living through hel_l so to avoid destroying an expensive camera I just picked up the smallest/cheapest I could find in the tax free.

However I am considering a better model, and if you don't need HD there is one I like a lot which is Canon FS 100, think it's selling for 17k baht or something. It is SDHC cards, small 48X optical zoom, takes stills, film natively in 16:9 and most importantly has microphone in, so you can upgrade the most important part of a video... Sound...

The HD version is HF 100 if you want more stunning video, but as you say it kills a lot of HDD space and is heavy to edit. The FS 100 looks like a winner to me, think you can get it at www.fotofile.net here is the specs and stuff for it http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controll...#ModelDetailAct

Good luck

[Sel]

External microphone would be good if the Fs 100 had a headphone imput as well and a acessory shoe. Without them it would be hard to get an improvement in sound with external mic.

sony sr11 is a great camera but not exactly pocket size but near enough. Footage from SD video cameras is really bad if you can't hold them very still.

[Bard]

Hmm on my old tape cam I never used the shoe for microphone but boom or clipon, and put it though a mixing board so also never used the headset outlet on it. But I guess that is handy to have for more versatility. Handholding video is almost always crap, tripod or a steadycam (home made is great and dead cheap) makes a huge difference, plug in a boom mic and it sounds great as well.

Nothing is more painful than watching handheld video or worse zooming, to make videos people actually enjoy watching is very hard. More than 4 minutes and they're bored, bobbing handheld makes them look away, and zooming just piss off people. So to make something usable is not easy...

Good luck

[fabianfred]

My first cam was the JVC everio mini DVD with 30 GB HDD.... OK

then i got the Panasonic HD -SD9 which is HD and uses the SD cards for storage.....

But now I don't think i would get another ...

I would rather get one of the new SLR or SLR like digi cam with HD movie capability....more useful...and if you get a camera with a big sensor...better quality too

[Magoomba]

sony sr11 is a great camera but not exactly pocket size but near enough. Footage from SD video cameras is really bad if you can't hold them very still.

I have a SR 12 and you really need to use a Tripod wherever possible, otherwise the HD images on a large LCD screen look awful. It is good having the external headphone jack, as the sound recorded by the microphone on the camera may not be what you expect.

The SR12 / SR11 unfortunately does not suit the OP's requirements as it has a Hard Disk Drive.

[Sel]

I like to tripod a lot as well but I find footage from hand holding the sr11 is very stable, though when I hand hold I concentrate a lot to keep steady.

I use an external ATR55 mic and find headphones a necessity for making sure you record the right lvl of sound.

[Bard]

If the level is wrong you can always boost or lower it with the software after. The main problem with the built in mic is the sound is not good, external mic solves it.

If you ever want to shot video and share it with others, as any pro video person will say, it's 50% sound and 50% image, sounds weird but when you go to a studio you clearly see this, for amateurs this is the most overseen issue. Then as anyone doing photography can testify the image is all about light, this is exactly the same for video. Hence video is far more difficult to make so anyone appreciate to view the end result than photography, as you need a lot of attention to sound, light, have a plot so it's not meaningless footage... you have to tell a story...

Easy tips of improving video is to never ever zoom when filming, use tripod, if you want to move around with the camera, use a steadycam. You can make a dedicated one easily, search the internet for a how2. Or you can keep the tripod attached not extended and use it as a counter balance that gives you a rudimentary steadycam. Use external microphone, worst case scenario attached to the camera. That should give you a good start, you need to zoom? stop filming frame it with the zoom and start filming or move the camera.

Before you shot, best is to plot what you will shoot, why do you shot, what's the purpose, what are you trying to tell others and so on. I do some videos, but they're simple as it's just footage of motorcycle riding, bolted to the bike. I tried making some travel vids and so on but found the task to daunting, to much editing after and to much hassle for unsuccessful results, as nobody was really enjoying them much (found it much better with photographs on slide show DVD), the bike vids are easier and the target audience (bikers) seems to enjoy them.

So whatever you go for enjoy it, but realize it's very very hard to make enjoyable home videos.

[Magoomba]

If the level is wrong you can always boost or lower it with the software after. The main problem with the built in mic is the sound is not good, external mic solves it.

If you ever want to shot video and share it with others, as any pro video person will say, it's 50% sound and 50% image, sounds weird but when you go to a studio you clearly see this, for amateurs this is the most overseen issue. Then as anyone doing photography can testify the image is all about light, this is exactly the same for video. Hence video is far more difficult to make so anyone appreciate to view the end result than photography, as you need a lot of attention to sound, light, have a plot so it's not meaningless footage... you have to tell a story...

Easy tips of improving video is to never ever zoom when filming, use tripod, if you want to move around with the camera, use a steadycam. You can make a dedicated one easily, search the internet for a how2. Or you can keep the tripod attached not extended and use it as a counter balance that gives you a rudimentary steadycam. Use external microphone, worst case scenario attached to the camera. That should give you a good start, you need to zoom? stop filming frame it with the zoom and start filming or move the camera.

Before you shot, best is to plot what you will shoot, why do you shot, what's the purpose, what are you trying to tell others and so on. I do some videos, but they're simple as it's just footage of motorcycle riding, bolted to the bike. I tried making some travel vids and so on but found the task to daunting, to much editing after and to much hassle for unsuccessful results, as nobody was really enjoying them much (found it much better with photographs on slide show DVD), the bike vids are easier and the target audience (bikers) seems to enjoy them.

So whatever you go for enjoy it, but realize it's very very hard to make enjoyable home videos.

So very true. Excellent post. The only thing I would add is also about Panning or Tilting, try to avoid that as much as possible as a general rule, without very thorough planning. Allow the movement to move in a fame rather than panning the camera. Also try not to make a single shot longer than a minute, do not make a shot less than 12 seconds it takes a normal person about that long to understand what they are looking at.