Going to Spain in summer ( Santana country :-)) ). This year I want to take a small camcorder instead of relying on the phone camera. Trouble is such a range and so ignorant of up to date technology. Could any kind soul point me in the right direction. Just general holiday videos ( sad I know but porbably last time all as family; kids then too old ). I have looked around and come down to Carl Zeiss lens if possible, removable record media ie no hard drive 25 or more optical zoom reasonable battery life not really bothered about too many toys on the camera providing it gives good results without too much mucking around control wise.
My grandfather is into all this sort of stuff (in a big way - he's even done major product reviews for magazines!) He swears by Sony camcorders and wouldn't buy anything else. The problem with the DVD ones are that it is difficult to edit the video once you have produced it, but if you don't edit - no problem! Personally if I was buying a new one right now I'd go for a hard drive model so that I can down load the stuff straight to my PC, edit it and then make a DVD. But then most of my stuff is just short family events and I put them straight onto my PC, edit them a bit and write a few DVD's for family and to keep myself - so I'm not bothered about having the original tapes lying around for years 'just in case', which is one of the main problems with the HDD models. The other main problem being the same as the card-only models....If you are happy with a card-only one then make sure you have enough spare cards with you, nothing more frustrating than running out of space just at the crucial moment!!
The only thing I would say is that having bought a 400-ish pound model a couple of years back, I'd save up a bit harder next time and spend 700+ on one to get a better picture quality, but it all depends on what you're after...I'm waiting for the HD (high definition) hard drive models to become more widely available and cheaper!
Agreed. I got a Sony Handycam last year. I was a bit ignorant of all the recording formats, and asked the guy in the shop if I could transfer the recordings to my PC (meaning mpeg/avi format), and he said I could - but in fact it recorded in DVD (VOB) format and I never got round to finding and getting the appropriate software to convert them. I wanted something where I could video (say) a bit of offroading foolishness and then post it to people like Martyn did with the unofficials. Sadly, doing that would have been more trouble than it was worth, and on eBay it went. I'm still looking.
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