Buying:
Here is a summary of my experience looking for and buying a DV camcorder...
I looked around review sites such as:
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/
They go over most of the criteria and trade-offs.
My main criteria was good video image. Stills were not a priority. So I tried maximizing on video performance, good optics with good optical zoom and also good stabilization. Also there are the DV tapes and DVD varieties. I can't say I know much of DVD cams, but for my use they would have been a bit of a pain. They are the "mini" kind so they would not fit in my laptop drive (powerbook). Also there is not as big a variety of DVD cams as there are of DV camcorders. In case you don't know the DV tapes are digital. You download the data through the FireWire port and can also upload video back on the tape as a backup or something. So whether its a DVD or DV tape both are a digital medium. Going back to still performance, there are very few cameras that are considered "good" at this. Plus, they are super pricy. One example is the Sony DCR-350. It does very high res stills but the price tag is well over 1000 (1500 here in Canada)... So might as well get a separate digital still camera for the price difference... And end up with two devices which both do what they are good at. One stills, the other videos.
So most major companies have models that will correspond to my criterias. I looked at the three big brands and narrowed it to the following three models:
- Canon Optura 40
- Sony PC109
- Panasonic GS200
I talked around with other people a bit and also the following review helped me a bit:
http://www.macworld.com/2004/10/reviews/dvcamcorders/index.php
In the end it was a bit of a guess based on gut feeling and I went for the Cannon.
Hope this info helps you out in a possible future purchase :o)
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