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The totally unofficial HH camera camcorder buyers guide Nov. 2 update Attn Canadian buyers. November 1, 2008 I get a lot of people asking me what camera or what camcorder to buy round this time o year, and I always try my best to give you honest answers based on the many actual users I talk to and ya, what I read online. I surf most of the major camera/camcorder sites every day, so have a pretty good handle on what's available. While it's impossible for me to have a good idea on everything out there I have some basic thoughts I can pass along in regards to purchasing something you can use for both family and drag racing. Bottom line in almost all cases is that if you stick with the major brand names like Canon, Sony, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax & Panasonic you'd be hard pressed to get stuck with something really bad. Fuji, Kodak, HP are ok, but I don't see anything they make that is better than the what the bigger companies produce. And don't even consider the megapixel war. Anything 6mp and up is all
you'll need. Any salesperson who says otherwise is scamming you. Canon used to 'own' the high ISO DSLR market, but the recent Nikons have caught up, and in some people's minds (mine), even surpassed the legendary Canon silky smooth digital images. Rest assured however either brand makes DSLRs that are flat amazing at 1600 & up. CAMERAS: Pretty easy picks right now IMO. Point n shoot: I've also seen some great deals on some small Canons lately, well below $200 for those on a budget. DSLR: The new D300 is an awesome piece as is the D80 and D40X. Add on the wicked nice 18-200 Nikon VR zoom and it's all most of you will ever need short of the big, expensive pro glass. Forget the Sigmas & other off brand 18-200s for Canons, as this Nikon lens is as close to perfection for the average shooter as any lens ever built. If I were buying today it would not be Canon, I would choose a D300 over a 40D. Don't even bother with the Rebel any more, the low end Nikons kick it. As for the high end full frame stuff. Canon's was just recalled amid tons of focus problems and the new Nikon is so in demand that the average consumer can't even get one until all the pro orders are filled. That alone tells you how far Nikon has come in the past 18 months. CAMCORDERS: I went Hi Def this year with a JVC HC7 and learned many, many things. I'll be upgrading next year, but after a year of shooting all HD and editing all SD (standard definition) I'll never go back to 'just' SD. For most of you wanting a new camcorder for the holiday season I say get a Canon HV20. Period. Nothing else comes close for so many reasons. First you get as good a HD image as pro stuff worth more than ten times this little sub-$1000 gem. Second it uses tape. I found out all about hard drive and flash drive camcorders this past year since my JVC had both. Get the HV20 because you will be able to archive everything you shoot (and back up) on MiniDV tape and it will be in glorious high definition that you can play back on your new 58 inch HDTV through the HDMI in the HV20. You will be able to edit the footage with most newer consumer editing packages but if you wish to edit in the 'old' (SD) then dump it to DVD and send to friends and family or whatever, you can. Easily. Producing your own hi def DVDs is not quite there yet. Super geeks can do it, but really, just shoot in hi def, play around in SD and put that HD tape on the shelf for the near future when it gets easy. Stay away from Hard Drive camcorders if you want to shoot drag racing. None of them can handle the noise and vibration. NONE of them. They will shut down and you will loose footage. Flash based camcorders are all the rage, and aren't too bad, but none of them can produce an image even close to the HV20. Oh ya...What do you do once the flash drive or hard drive is full? Plan on buying extra hard drives, LOTS of extra hard drives. To be certain you have to back up everything you shoot on two sets of hard drives as one will surely die at some point. Tape is still the archive media of choice for most pros. I went the 'lots of hard drives' route and am actually considering going back to a tape-based camcorder, but I'm not sure yet. As for DVD camcorders. Fine if you DON'T want to edit anything as most have a weird file system that editing software hates. And again many have problems dealing with the noise of drag racing. If all you wanna do is shoot, throw it in the DVD player and watch once or twice fine. Beyond that, not recommended. Other issues to consider with hi def is the bad low light capability and small zooms. Plan on shooting in the daylight and getting close as few come with better than a 10x zoom and even the pro HD cams are nowhere near as good in low light as the old SD cams. That will change next year, but for now you have to live with these sometimes important limitations. So if you do alot of night racing or shoot lots of kids birthday parties with candle light, consider an SD camcorder. They really aren't that bad, it's just that once you see HD...you'll never settle for anything else again. The new stuff gets announced in January, so I always say at this time of year, if you can wait -wait...to about April or May in most cases when the stuff announced in January is actually available. This is especially true for HD camcorders. The mid-year 2008 cams should be a good notch or two over what's available today. The current stuff is good, but the next generation look to be much, much better. So that's about it, like usual I'm here for your questions. Larry |