Ideas for camcorder for upcoming trip?

[amypooh]

My in-laws and myself are headed to Disney in 2 weeks and my wife informed me that she would like to take a camcorder. Our existing camcorder is 8 years old and is on its last legs, so looking for ideas.

We have a max budget of $300, I prefer to use tape, as studies have shown that they last much longer than DVDs, but would consider doing digital and then transferring to tape later.

Any recommendations on a $300 or less camcorder that would work well in a Disney (both high- and low-light) environment?

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

Can't recommend any but tape as a camcorder recording media is declining in popularity while High Def DVD or Flash Memory are increasing with popularity and decreasing in price as technology advances.

I also have an aging (Sony Hi 8) camcorder and at present cannot justify the outlay for my desired Panasonic model - so I treated myself to some more tapes for this Decembers trip instead

 

[slappy magoo]

For that price, how about an iflip? And if you bring a laptop with you, you can just transfer your files over every night. They're less than 200, easy to use. Maybe not pro quality, but perfect for memories.

 

[jjgoo]

We just bought the Canon ZR930 for about $240 (including shipping and tax) from J&R. We haven't used it a lot, but are happy so far. It has a great zoom. Most of the reviews I read said the only problem with it is in extremely low light, but it had way more positive reviews than negative.

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ProductCatIndexAct&fcategoryid=173

It uses a tape, but has a connector for your computer so you can transfer to your computer and make your own DVD or digital archieve.

Good luck!

 

[Craig & Lisa]

You might get a deal like I did, go to electronics stores and ask if they have any open box / displays for sale. I managed to get a 500.00 camera for less than 150.00, it was a display and all the wires were in the box still wrapped up. The only down side is that it's mini DV, which means the tapes are only an hour long and I have to carry around about 5 tapes to cover any extra taping. But in the long run the it turned out to be a very good buy.

 

[DormaNesbit]

In 2005 I got a sony handycam for my son's 8th grade graduation. It uses mini dvds and it fits in the palm of my hand. It fits in my pack when we go to Disney and it did a good job of recording POC on our last trip in 2006. I got it at BJ's for $260 and I feel it was worth every penny! Hope this helps.:wave:

 

[jessicaj]

I have borrowed a friends flip camera and love that it is small enough to even fit onto my purse or the diaper bag. It is inexpensive enough that I will not worry about it breaking but nice enough that it records the memories that I am looking for! It's size is also a plus for others around you because it is not distracting. Good luck on your search!

 

[350ceo]

The Cannon FS100. Very small, lightweight, 3+ hr battery life, records to SanDisks which can be had very cheaply these days, great Canon quality, and easy to use right out of the box. I own one with a 16 gb memory card and love it.

Shop around. I found it for under $300 with a quick Google search:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...cm_mmc_o=7BBTkwCjC-p8ByplCjCabTwyKbywgfCjCmH4

 

[GoofyDadKB]

The Flip camera is great, we love ours. They have just come out with a HD version for $229.

 

[marcriss]

As a video editor, I would encourage you to stick with your instincts and get a mini-DV. True that they are trending away from tapes, but you might get a great deal on a tape model. Panasonics have good picture, lousy customer service for consumer products. Having bought a Panasonic to replace my Sony, I'll never buy anything Panasonic again. Sony makes a solid product, excellent service, good picture quality. MiniDV tapes are 1 hour in length, but they're small and they're digital so the quality is high.

Every editor I've spoken with has the same concern about tapeless cameras, and that's camera/disk failure. I've had more DVD and disk failures than tape failures. If the camera eats the tape, there's still a good chance you can have it spliced together so it's not a total loss.

Buy the best camera in your price range, you don't have to spend a ton to get a good one. And as others have said, look at open box items or manufacturer refurbs. Just check on the warranty status before you buy.

Have fun!

 

[Todd L]

Maybe you can check out one of the small Sonys that use a Digital Tape/Dvc ? I picked one up during the holidays last year for $389 . I would imagine the price has dropped since then. Good Luck.

 

[Gig 'Em Mickey]

I use my p&s camera for video just got a big video card. Takes decent enough video to take a computer screen. Only complaint is you can't zoom in and out. I just decided I didn't want to lug a camcorder AND camera around all day. Mine is the size of a deck of cards so it fits easily in a pocket.

That being said I've always great experiences with the Sony camera products. Our camcorder is mini-dv. I'd prefer a flash just for the ease of use and size, but I trust sony's quality products. You pay for them though. They know they are selling they're name, but they also work hard to make sure that name doesn't get tarnished.

 

[Captain Disney]

I would check out Best Buy.com, they have almost every camcordere available, and the web site lets you read customer reviews on what acctual people said about the product. Every time my wife and i want to buy a piece of electronics we check out bestbuy.com and then make our choice. They are great to deal with. I would go with the new digital/hard drive camera's they are very small and light weight, i saw a very small camcorder no bigger than a camera the other day, I think it was made my sony or cannon. It looked cool.

 

[MDAY]

A Sony DV camcorder (yep its tape) is the best way to go. They are super cheap right now too. It is especially important if you want to edit your footage later. DVD format is not as good believe it or not. One plus for the hard drive/flash memory is that the downloading is much faster but that is really the only plus.

Definitely go Sony and get several dv tapes. They usually come three in a pack and we take 6 or more with us on each trip.

Heads up --- When you download to your computer it takes up alot of space. Video chews up tons and tons of space. Good luck and have a great trip.

 

[karl46]

The Cannon FS100. Very small, lightweight, 3+ hr battery life, records to SanDisks which can be had very cheaply these days, great Canon quality, and easy to use right out of the box. I own one with a 16 gb memory card and love it.

Shop around. I found it for under $300 with a quick Google search:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...cm_mmc_o=7BBTkwCjC-p8ByplCjCabTwyKbywgfCjCmH4

I am thinking about getting a panasonic cam corder that takes sd cards to but was worried that once i have filled up the memory card i am stuck. Is there anywhere in orlando that you can download the card onto dvd or something so that i can re use card or is it just a matter of taking several cards around?

 

[Deadmanwalking]

I think you are on the right track using miniDV tapes, while lots of people don't like them they provide the best quality with the least amount of compression. They are also easy to find and cheap. Our house is full of tech nuts, so we've had or have everything from tape, DVD, hard drive and solid state....

I would strongly recommend you NOT go for the iflip or other solid state camcorder. They tend to compress the signals more than any of the other types of camcorder... they will require you to have a computer with you to download the video or buy extra memory chips.... they also tend to have the poorest quality optics.

I've had good luck with JVC miniDV camcorders... I have not be happy with Sonys camcorders lately especially with a Sony miniDV camcorder which seems to have more signal loss and skips on a tape than any other camcorder I've ever used.

You wont have a lot of option at your budget, but I would strongly urge you to make sure that the camcorder you get has a way of allowing you to manually focus. You won't need this feature often but when you do low light video, manual focus is usually better because you'll often have autofocusing camcorder losing their mind and refocusing every few seconds.

 

[350ceo]

I am thinking about getting a panasonic cam corder that takes sd cards to but was worried that once i have filled up the memory card i am stuck. Is there anywhere in orlando that you can download the card onto dvd or something so that i can re use card or is it just a matter of taking several cards around?

I have a 16gb card and it holds almost 4 hours of video at the highest quality setting. You're probably only looking at shooting about an hour total a day unless you plan on experiencing your whole trip from behind a lense. Yes you might be able to buy a hard drive camera with tons of memory, but the camera battery would never allow you to shoot that much video in a day anyway. Additional sd cards are a lot cheaper then back-up batteries :animwink:

 

[DisneyDreamerK]

I bought the HD Flip cam for my Jan 2009 trip. It worked out PERFECTLY! I couldn't of asked for a better camera. It was small and very easy to use. It's ready as soon as you push the button. The HD quality it pretty good and the camera does well in low light situations!

Here is a movie I just made using the footage from my flip cam:

http://gallery.me.com/rubichi#100279

 

[RiversideBunny]

Consider getting a $300 point and shoot camera instead of a video recorder.
Most pictures made at WDW are single shots and the camera will also have video capability, just not quite like camcorder, but very good for those times at WDW when you need a short video.

IMHO