Amature Camera?

1. Seed
   Member

   

    Hey Guys,

   I'm new to the whole camcorder world, and I am in a pinch to what camera will do the job for my type of stuff. I'm pretty much only goig to be doing home family videos. I don't need a professional grade camera. I just want to capture my family growing up. I talked to the guy at best buy and he told me HD is not the way to go just yet in the lower grade cameras. Because I was looking at the Cannon HF20 HD camera. He said for the price you really dont get alot such as zoom and such. So I want you guys to help me. Will the 15x zoom be more that enough for my type of videos. I will also be filming wrestling matches of my son also. He was trying to push me more toward the low end Sony which was $300 which had 60x zoom and he said it produces a image in 720p rather than 1080p. So what would you guys recommend for my situation.

   Posted 3 months ago # Login to Send PM

2. birdcat
   Moderator

   

   I would suggest you do three things:

   1) Do some research to find out about the features & functions that are available. (this website and others: CamcorderInfo.com, cNet.com are all good ones).

   2) Make a list (three actually) of the features you need, you want and would be nice to have.

   3) Set a price limit.

   Once you've done this, figure out what makes/models will give you most (if not all) of your "need" features for your price limit - then winnow it down going through your other lists.

   Don't forget to read both professional and customer reviews and see what message forums have to say (like this one).

   FWIW - I would only buy an HD camera at this point as you are looking to the future and don't want to replace it that soon.  If you're looking at place's like Best Buy, stay away from salesperson recommendations right now (they will try to sell you what they have, not what you need) but if you're looking at places like B&H Photo, salesperson recommendations can be helpful.

   Also, don't forget the editing/authoring software - Most of the major non-linear editors (Sony Vegas, Adobe Premier, etc...) have consumer versions - I use Sony Vegas Pro but they have a sub $100 version (Vegas Movie Studio) that will do most of what the pro package can do (you can download a 30 day fully functional free trial here: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/trials).

   Good luck.

   Bruce Paul
   7Squared Productions

   Posted 3 months ago # Login to Send PM

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