Camcorder for wife
 

Hi guys

What camcorder would you recommend for my wife to get? Should I go for these hard drive cameras or the memory stick ones. Just bare in mind that if the need arises I might use it as a back up camera for myself. Are the DVD cameras dying out?

Stelios

Get her a RED, then you can borrow it ;) I haven't seen the DVD cameras take off much. Probably due to the amount of time it takes to do anything with the footage once captured.

Cole
Unfortunately RED is not her favorite colour but BLUE is:)

Stelios

get her the canon hv20 or hv30 my wife took hers on an african safari and the footage she came home with was amazing

I'd say anything small and easy to handle - find out how she wants to carry the camera with her, how much weight and bulk she's wiling to live with... If you're going to use it for backup, you might want to choose based on the manufacturer in hopes of closer color matching, although that may be problematic anyway.

Virtually any of the small tape, HDD, and flash based cameras are great choices...

SONY - HC9 (tape), SR11/12 (HDD/MS Duo), CX12 (MS Duo, not quite released yet)

Canon - HV30 (tape), HF10 and 100... Not as familiar with their line, but similar to the Sony lineup.

I got the CX7 for a family cam, it's great to have such a small cam available, although I've been using the SR11 more because of the bigger screen & viewfinder... the CX is pretty close to a "pocket" cam although it's a big pocket!

Stay away from the DVD camcorders... a pointless format in my opinion.

Flash memory is the best way to go, or tape perhaps...

And be careful with the way you word your thread titles, Stelios -- when
I first read this one, I thought perhaps you were offering a trade! ;-)

That's a good one Chris, but not such luck...-)

Stelios

Stelios I can highly recommend the new Canon HF10, it's no bigger than a beer can so it's very easy to carry around, picture quality is excellent in decent light (not so good in low-light - but that's the fate of every handycam with HD and a tiny sensor). And the best thing about it is that it records to SD cards and on-board solid-state memory - it's incredibly quick to transfer your footage from the camera to an editing program.

The camera also has proper 25p (or 24p depending on the country) recording which looks great. I'd highly recommend it.

I've been meaning to get around to buying an HF100. Personally, I can't see spending a couple hundred more just for 16GB of non-removable flash memory in the HF10, when 16GB SDHC cards can be purchased for close to $50 nowadays.