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Recommend me an HD Camcorder
saint2e
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello all,
Wedding/Honeymoon is coming up in 4 months, and me and the fiance will be heading to Australia/New Zealand for the honeymoon. We recently purchased a Canon T1i SLR camera, which does HD video, but I find it a bit cumbersome to keep focus, especially when moving around. On videos where the camera is focused on a target which does not move around much depth-wise, it's fine, but the focusing is slow and I'm not pleased really with the results.
So I'd like to get an HD camcorder for some behind-the-scenes video recording before/at the wedding, as well as have it with us when we go on our honeymoon.
Some of the things I'm looking for:
1) 1080p recording
2) Good optical zoom (is 20X asking too much?)
3) Lightweight
4) Flash/Removable Flash storage
Since I've already pledged my allegiance to Canon, I was looking at the Canon Vixia HF S10 or S20:
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-VIXIA-Flash-Memory-Camcorder/dp/B00322OP3Q/ref=dp_ob_title_ce
But the optical zoom is only 10X... I think I can do better, but Canon doesn't seem to make a camcorder with better zoom, so I'm open to suggestions.
As well, if you feel there's anything else I need/don't need, I'm open to those comments too.
Wedding/Honeymoon is coming up in 4 months, and me and the fiance will be heading to Australia/New Zealand for the honeymoon. We recently purchased a Canon T1i SLR camera, which does HD video, but I find it a bit cumbersome to keep focus, especially when moving around. On videos where the camera is focused on a target which does not move around much depth-wise, it's fine, but the focusing is slow and I'm not pleased really with the results.
So I'd like to get an HD camcorder for some behind-the-scenes video recording before/at the wedding, as well as have it with us when we go on our honeymoon.
Some of the things I'm looking for:
1) 1080p recording
2) Good optical zoom (is 20X asking too much?)
3) Lightweight
4) Flash/Removable Flash storage
Since I've already pledged my allegiance to Canon, I was looking at the Canon Vixia HF S10 or S20:
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-VIXIA-Flash-Memory-Camcorder/dp/B00322OP3Q/ref=dp_ob_title_ce
But the optical zoom is only 10X... I think I can do better, but Canon doesn't seem to make a camcorder with better zoom, so I'm open to suggestions.
As well, if you feel there's anything else I need/don't need, I'm open to those comments too.
saint2e on
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The HD Camcorder is not going to give you the same depth of field effect you get from a DSLR (everything filmed on the camcorder would be in focus 100% of the time), which will instantly give your recordings a poor quality "video" look, rather than a cinematic film style.
That one you linked too seems to be on the high end. I think the HF "S" models are very much on the "pro" side of the pro-sumer continuum. I really doubt that for what you want it to do, spending more on the HF S series is worth it. Stick with the regular HF series.
You can probably get by with something like this one, which is very similar in features and has a 15x zoom: http://www.amazon.com/Canon-VIXIA-Memory-Internal-Optical/dp/B001OI2YTC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1267802401&sr=8-1
I have a Canon HG20, which is very similar but has a 60GB hard drive and an flash memory slot. We pretty much just use it for the baby, but it is a great camcorder and I can tell it's going to serve us well for a long time. I think the Canon Vixia line is pretty great--very user-friendly but with lots of settings to fiddle with if you want to.
20X HD camcorder is going to be semi-pro. If you really need to be that long you can get a cam with a threaded barrel and pick up a 1.5-2.0x tele-converter; affixing a converter to the lens will always reduce the amount of light enterring, add some distortion, and some may impinge upon full use of the zoom. They can also interfere with the AF, so it's not a great solution, but it might work.
That said, Canon is awesome for affordable HD camcorders. Though be careful with non-Canon accessories*, I got a non-Canon charger and it fried my Canon battery. Also my non-Canon batteries do not tell the cam how much charge they have left. This has 15X, I have an earlier version with only 10X. If you need 20X, wait 12-18 months and stuff'll probably come out at the same pricepoint with 20X; obviously that doesn't help in your timeframe, but it's just the way it is right now. I think there are some non-Canon HD cams that do 20X, but I don't think they're 1080p.
If you follow that link, you should also be able to find a hotshoe light (the onboard flash on these things suck), hotshoe mic, and teleconverters.
*Edit: I'm speaking specifically of using non-Canon HD camcorder accessories. I haven't had any problems using knockoff accessories on my 10D.
I'm a pro video guy and I pretty much only shoot on my Canon 7D nowadays, which is the big brother of your cam, so feel free to ask me any questions about it.
Djeet, I'm basing my 20X requirement on the fact that I had a 10X Optical Zoom lens I had on my Canon Powershot S1 IS camera when travelling around Europe. Came in really handy, and as a result, bigger = better in my books. The 15X will help I'm sure.
Thanks so far for the tips, guys.
no problem. I love helping people out with nice cameras. One warning though is that if it's already dark when you get home, you probably won't get very good results with the tight iris. It's most useful in bright sunlight where you need to stop down the exposure anyways.
Good luck!