Budget camcorder (~£100). Thinking Kodak Zi8.

Uncle_Balsamic

I'm looking to buy a budget camcorder for daytime use outdoors with a tripod.
I want the best quality video I can get with about £100 to spend; the quality of the audio is not important.

At the moment I'm leaning towards the Kodak Zi8, but I don't know much about camcroders so I don't know if this is really the best choice. Should I be looking at these small HD camcorders?

Any advice would be very much appreciated.
Cheers

krush

idunno... and maybe someone else can chime in here, but I'd probably try to find a much better, yet used camcorder for that price.

defreak

The two main drawbacks all flip camcorders have are poor picture quality under low light conditions and the camera has to be pretty still during recording, especially if you are recording something that has a lot of movement, like a sporting event.

Since you're using it outdoors and on a tripod, you're a perfect candidate for a flip!

I highly recommend the Flip Ultra HD, especially since they just released the 3rd gen model, so the 2nd gen is even cheaper now.

2nd gen
3rd gen

The difference is 3rd gen has 2x digital zoom and image stabilization technology, personally I don't think the increase in price is worth it for those 2 extra features.

I personally have the 2nd gen model, I coach high school, so I mainly shoot volleyball and basketball games, the picture quality is much better than my $500 (2 years ago) Sony Handycam. I don't consider myself to have steady hands, but when I shoot randomly by holding it, the picture quality is still pretty good (minimal movements).

Antithesis

I shall never stop recommending this camera- if you can find a used Canon HV20 at that price, it will be worth it. Assuming that it isn't broken. I can go into greater detail if you wish.

Fred Savage Power Glove

iPhone 4.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you're thinking.

The amount of content my peers are producing with these things is nothing short of amazing.

In August I was the technical director on a shoot where three iPhone 4s were the cameras we were using. We pulled some simply amazing results off them.

Uncle_Balsamic

Iphone is out of my price range and the canon is really hard to find new or used. Is the flip a better option than the kodak?

krush

Uncle_Balsamic wrote: »

Iphone is out of my price range and the canon is really hard to find new or used. Is the flip a better option than the kodak?

not if you ever want/need to zoom in on your content.

Optical zoom >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> digital zoom, all day every day.

krush

does it need to be HD?

If not, then maybe a Samsung SMX-F40 could work for you. No image stabilization, but you're using a tripod with it anyways so that shouldn't be much of an issue. 52x optical zoom, records in H.264 format, and records to SD/SDHC cards. They're only about $120 over here, so I'm pretty sure you could have one for £100

Uncle_Balsamic

HD's not a necessity - I just want the best thing I can get in terms of picture quality at this price.
I'll check out that Samsung, cheers.

edit: It seems the video's a bit blurry on the Samsung and I don't need the zoom particularly either.

Uncle_Balsamic

Any other suggestions? It still seems that the Koadk Zi8 is the way to go.

ben0207

Zi8 is the way to go. Flips are great and all, but the quality is fucking appalling unless you put them on a tripod.