Hi guys, I'm going on holiday later this year (to South Africa no less ) and I want to bring a video camera with me. However, since I'm not a budding Spielberg, I've been eyeing up the mini HD cameras. Looks like they provide 720p HD video image and they're tiny and pretty cheap. Just wondering if anyone had any suggestions? I've been looking at the Flip Mino HD, but it's got no expandable storage and only 2hours record time - probably not enough for a 10 day holiday. Anyone got any other suggestions? I'm thinking of spending between £100-150 for something suitable. Cheers guys ;D
The students use Flip HD cameras at work after we narrowed it down to those or the Creative Vado and Kodak Zx1 (the Kodak has an SD slot.) The biggest problem we had with the Flip though was the MP4 video output. Students wanted to edit footage but the software bundle only allows you to crop and upload to youtube etc. We ended up buying Womble MPEG and DVD editor for them which so far has worked out pretty well. At least, they're making movies and no one's complaining.
Kodak SportPlay: 1080p 30 fps, 720p 60 fps, SDHC memory, Shock and WATER Proof(!) for £129.00. Nuff said
Sanyo makes a decent consumer camcorder/still camera combo. It's compact, and the quality is surprisingly decent. One of my co-workers owns one, and he reports positive results. We pooled together and bought one for another co-worker as a wedding present. He took it on his honeymoon cruise and was pleased with the results. They can run up to £200, but you might be able to find one for less.
Cheers for the tips guys, out of interest, I have no intention of using the bundled software to edit - I've got far better tools available! Can I just drag and drop the video files from the camera to my PC/ like I would on a USB stick?
It depends - if it's AVCHD, maybe not. I'm not aware of any editing software bar Sony's Vegas that does native AVCHD editing - but I haven't looked recently. IIRC, Most editors will have to import it to another format to edit. For example, my Panny HD camcorder records in AVCHD to SD cards, and when I edit them in Final Cut Express, my Mac imports them to something known as the Apple Intermediate Codec.
Everything you wanted to know about AVCHD, but where afraid to ask: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD Quite a few editors out there now it seems.
I love my Kodak Zx1, the image quality is superb and hardwearing (my 4 year old uses it). Not so good in low light and no image stabilizing so you have to hold it very steady. Also less than £50 from some online retailers (sadly not CCL)
I have a Panasonic AVCHD camcorder. Forgot the model, but it's tiny. Only cost £300 at the time; get something like that, not this flip or vado nonsense. You'll only be disappointed with the latter, especially if you want some nice safari shots.
