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Budget camcorder (~£100). Thinking Kodak Zi8.
Uncle_Balsamic
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
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
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
Uncle_Balsamic on
0
Posts
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).
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.
not if you ever want/need to zoom in on your content.
Optical zoom >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> digital zoom, all day every day.
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
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.