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Buy a Camcorder

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With so many brands and features, it’s difficult to know which technology may be best for you. Here are some tips to help you in the selection of a Camcorder.

  • Manual focus. Do you ever get annoyed when you are trying to video tape something and the camera keeps focusing to something in the background? A focus wheel is a nice quick fix or if it is in a menu option you can have a quick fix but you won’t be able to focus if the subject moves.
  • Low Light Conditions. Get tired of having to have perfect light to see things if you want to make a quick video at night? A Night Shot Plus or another low light system is nice. I personally like the Sony Night Shot Plus it has a professional look at it uses inferred technology .
  • Battery. I have noticed some videos that the description is always, sorry the battery went dead. I find Info Lithium battery’s hold a long charge. There is also a few company’s that will sell bigger battery’s and have a connector clip so that it fits on the camera. I find these are very hard to get off sometimes though. So you might want to find a regular sized battery that holds a longer charge.
  • If you have a tri-pod. Sometimes it gets very annoying if you want to just take out the tape and put in a new one without going though the mess of taking it off the tri-pod. I see allot of smaller camcorders having bottom open tape “drawers?”. These are very frustrating because I know I like to get my camcorder on the tripod nice and tight and I don’t want to spend 5 minutes in the middle of shooting video trying to get the camera off the tri-pod.
  • Last thing, Firewire/USB. I got my camcorder and hoped to start importing right then. But what? There was no USB or firewire cable included. If you get this I might suggest reading what comes with the camcorder so you don’t get caught in this mess.

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25 Comments

Original post:Buy a Camcorderby at Google Blog Search: camcorder Blog tag: Camcorder Technorati tag: Camcorder

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I got a new Camera, and it was the wrong type i dint have any mic inputs i was so angry

lol my hard drive hd camcorder by sony is wayyy smaller

interesting…. nice tips!

I say buy a cannon, the best one you can get with you budget wheather it be a xl2 gl2 or the suprasinly awesome cheap HV20

I can’t get Windows Vista to recognize my HV20 because of a combination of my via firewire card using a old OHCI protocol. And vista not supporting many firewire protocols… I have no idea what to do, without buying a new firewire card.

Yep this was my top 5 list I sent in the night before. ^.^ :D

I have a older 2004 Sony Hadycam camcorder. My camcorder can record on either a Hi-8 Cassette or a Memory Stick (pro). I also have a battery simalar to Chris’s but it’s slightly smaller, but when I press a button on the battery it tells me how much is left. If it wasn’t for my camcorder I wouldne have hardly any uploaded videos on YouTube.

I also have a HDD (Hard Drive Disk) camcorder. I like it but I like to use flim sometimes (depends on what I want to flim).

All true. Also, I suggest NOT buying the Firewire cable at the store you get your camera; retailers mark it up hugely. I bought mine at Circuit City and the 6 foot FW cable was $30! At a local wholesale electronics store the same cable is less than $10, and I can get a longer one for half what CC was charging.

Great video chris i do not own a camcorder id liek to i use my digtal camrea for recording video. I like using it because it can focas on multipul things im happy enough with it.

thanks

i bought a camcorder 11 years ago it was so big and now a days its small as a pen and even in pens if you wait like 1 year they will be very very small and hold lots of files i hope you have fun with your extra tiny cams

I have a older 2004 Sony Hadycam Model DCR-TRV460 camcorder. My camcorder can record on either a Hi-8 Cassette or a Memory Stick/ (pro) card. I also have a battery simalar to Chris’s but it’s slightly smaller and when I press a button on the battery it tells me how much is left. If it wasn’t for my camcorder I wouldne have hardly any uploaded videos on YouTube because I use it’s analog-to-digital converter feature on it which is exactley what I wanted because I wanted to copy some of my old home movies I made on my Dad’s ancient XD Panasonic camcorder from 1996 that records on VHSC tapes (mini VHS tapes) which is now broken and no longer records which was another reason why I got my camcorder.

I want a camcorder and my parents are going to buy me one. This is going to come in handy. Thanks

Chris,
One very importiant tip that was left off was look for a camera with an external microphone jack. Depending on your camera use and conditions, it can sometimes be very difficult to get good sound quality from just the built in mic.

I am thinking of buying one like Chris’. I am going to make vids for youtube, so if i start will high quality, i should look betteron youtube. Who ever made these tips thank you!

Same here I use Mini DV

This help a lot, Becuase I have a camcorder which is not the best but now, I understand much more about how a camcorder should work. Mine is just a simple 10 Mega Pixels with web camera feature. But it also has a feature where you can edit the videos clearness and how good it looks while taking the video or picture. But, over all it is very good, it does have that Mini Screen to see everything. But batterys are Hydride batterys, which is pretty cool too, cuz I can recharge them with a charge I got for free.

it is weird how he is wearing the same shirt in every episode

I’ve got an ancient 8mm tape camcorder – black and white view finder!

Would love to get a new camcorder but can’t really justify spending the cash.

Anyway I’d recommend learning some skills to create better video – learn some techniques (eg. don’t zoom unnecessarily/ excessively!).

Did a quick search and found http://www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/filmingskills/

i got an hdd camcorder (jve everio gz mg 130) and it uses hard drive space on it but it records the files in MOD so i am trying to find software for this camera and chris if you know any software could you tell me where to get any oh and i am using a mac os 10.4 so pease help

im pretty sure he does several a day…

he does around 5 or 6 a day

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