Mini DV Camcorder Recomendations

[Junior897]

I am looking for a camcorder for just family stuff and have knocked it down to 4 cameras and looking for a little advice. The first is a JVC GRD290, second Panasonic PV-GS16, third PV-GS36, and Canon ZR100. I am stuck between the JVC and the Canon. Leaning towards the Canon only because it will use the same charger as my DSLR, but the JVC has built in lights. Any help would be apreciated because I would like to have one that I can download to my pc and mac. If this is in the wrong place let me know and I will post else were.

Thanks
Ray

 

[Johnboy2978]

My first stop would be to read all of the reviews that I could get my hands on for each of these. Might also look at:
http://reviews.cnet.com/Camcorders/2001-6500_7-0.html?tag=cnetfd.dir

I was in the market for one about 6 months ago, and ended up with a Canon Elura 100. Had the best reviews for the money I was willing to spend, even though I was initially looking at cameras 3x that price range for one with an internal HD. The reviews of those with the HD sucked and I decided to go with the mini DV format as it rated better. I'm still not really impressed with the image quality though. It does well outside and where there is PLENTY of light, but in moderate to low light, the quality is poor. It seems like all of the manufacturers have been spending their time and research $ on their DSLR instead of the camcorders. I was expecting a little more that would begin to approximate that of a DSLR which is an unfair comparison I guess. Still after shooting w/ a DSLR, it's hard to get used to that kind of resolution from a camcorder. I think they have spent most of their time in figuring out how to make them smaller and smaller which is rather impressive how they can cram all of the electronics into such a small package.

Anyway, just make sure to read plenty of reviews and see what others hated about the particular model.

 

[DeepSpring]

As a film student I would suggest going with panasonic or cannon. Those 2 are the leading cameras in the prefessional world and both companies produce quality. At school we use the panasonic dvx 100 which is a few levels up being about $4000. I used to use a panasonic PV-GS 15 before I took it in film and it met everythign I threw at it. If you just want to film family stuff and special occasions all of them will do fine they all seem good. Most camcorders are not very good in low light and dont belive the in camera nightvision stuff they say it has because everything starts getting motion blur and nothing is clear and you get a lot of grain. From what I have seen stray away from sony, they seem to charge for the name and the quality of the products doesnt match the price tag.

My Band played a show a while ago so I tried to get a few of my friends to film it. One of them used my camera (pvgs 15) and another used a canon I dont remember the exact model of it. But my camera had really nice color and everything was clear, looked really good. On the otyher hand my friends camera was extremely flat and it just didnt look very good. If it is possible for you to spend a little more to get a camera with 3CCD it would definately be worth it.