Help me find a good camcorder

[strongbad]

I don't know why, but I've been obsessed with making short films with my brother and then editing them for a decent product. They all suck, so I won't upload any, but I enjoy making them. I've been using my dad's Casio Exilim Camera, which sucks and is horrible at capturing light. I know what I'm doing, since I've taken multiple classes at school for digital photography, video capturing/editing, and this camera doesn't cut it.
I'm looking for something to put on my christmas list, and my mom is leaving to portland (lol no tax) to go shopping in a couple weeks so I'm working on my list now. I want something that uses SD cards, since I have about a million of them, something that's small in size, and something that takes decent quality videos. My price range is around $200, but I could probably go up to $250. I know that isn't enough for a camcorder, but I can work with what I get.

So yeah suggestions please.

[Staplerlock]

Tomorrow I'll provide with a decent answer, its my little sisters birthday and shes getting a camcorder. My family is very tech savvy so I'm sure whatever camera she gets will be top of the line. Weird to put such things in the hand of a 11 year old.

Don't get the Flip. Its like a cell phone camera on its own and costs $100.

[russell]

The best consumer camcorders in that price range are Sony miniDV Handicams. Camcorder basics:

1. Digital zoom doesn't matter, and you should never use it. When looking at specs, only optical zoom should concern you.

2. Do not even consider a camera that isn't miniDV. If you're unaware, miniDV is those little tapes. The reason these little tapes are superior is because when the camera records to it the video is analog and thus uncompressed, and therefore superior. With a hard drive, disc, or memory card camera, the video is compressed as soon as you record it.

3. Touch screen, zoom, other features are secondary to CCD quality. CCD is the image sensor.


So get yourself a Sony miniDV Handicam and a firewire cable, and you'll be good to go. The model names are typically "Sony DCR-HCxx", where xx is a number; the higher the number the better. If I remember correctly the DCR-HC32 is around $250 and a very nice camera.

[strongbad]

With the miniDV tapes, do I need a special adapter for my computer, or does the cable connect directly to the camera to the computer?
And yeah digital zoom sucks dick

I'll go a bit of browsing around Best Buy's webside and Fry's site and see what I can find.

[superclucky]

i thought you needed to buy those little thingies to connect to the computer for Dvtapes

usb just ruined the quality ;_;

[russell]

With the miniDV tapes, do I need a special adapter for my computer, or does the cable connect directly to the camera to the computer?
And yeah digital zoom sucks dick

I'll go a bit of browsing around Best Buy's webside and Fry's site and see what I can find.

If you have a Mac, it's really simple, you just get a FireWire cable and plug one end into the Mac, one end into the camera. Open iMovie, import from camera, it's easy.

If you have a PC and you happen to have an I/O card with the big version of FireWire (I forget what its real name is, 10-pin  maybe?), then same process. If you have the small version, then just get an adapter to stick on the end of the cable. If you only have USB, then I think IEEE1394 (FireWire) to USB cords exist. The transfer will just be slower.