[raypundo]

Hello everyone,

I was starting to look for a camcorder recently, now that we have a baby, and after going cross eyed for many days of reading I was looking for some thoughts on what I think might be a decent camcorder. Or just things I haven't thought about enough, too much, or at all. Time for some fresh thoughts in my brain I think

Uses would mostly likely be indoors/outdoors around home, and would be nice to be a little future proof for say sports down the road when he is older.

Features I was looking for in a camera:

1080 resolution (needs 1/4" sensor to do properly?)
SD card (no HDD)
decent zoom
Anti shake
Don't care about photo capability

So far I found, before shipping: (zoom,reso,stability)

Canon HF M300..........(15x, 1080, 30p filmed in 60i?, optical)..$471
Sony HDR-CX110........(25x, 1080i/60, optical?)...$493
Panasonic HDC-SD60...(25x, 1080i/60, optical)....$452
Samsung HMX-H200....(20x, 1080i/60, optical)....$410
Samsung HMX-H205....(20x, 1080i/60, optical)....$492
Samsung HMX-M20BN..(8x, 1080i, optical)..........$513
Sanyo VPC-FH1ABK.....(10x, 1080p/60, digital)....$325
Sanyo VPC-SH1..........(23x, 1080i/60, digital).....$344
Sanyo VPC-GH2..........(12x, 1080i/60, digital).....$205

What zoom do most people find is sufficient?
Difference in quality on playback with 1080i vs 1080p?
Optical stability help that much? I assume thats why Sanyo is less?
Any expereiences with any of these?

Thanks for reading!

 

[raypundo]

Thanks for the replies. I was looking input from lots of sources, after reading 100 reviews it all seems the same

The Panasonic 3 cmos does look very nice, but unfortunately $1000 is a too much for us for a camcorder. I was considering the HDC-SD60 though.

After looking it over I am leaning towards the Canon HF M300, a lot of the cameras did very well in reviews but the canon had the 3 filming modes, 24mbps filming rate (vs 17mbps), and full featured. I was actually surprised how close they were reviewed.

Can't really find the HF11 for more then $1000, did find a sale price from last year for $700

a 1/4" sensor has enough pixels to make a 1080 image, I know more is better but right now the cost is just too prohibitive.

There is some nice hardware out there! Now, to just win the lottery

Thanks again everyone!