Reasonably priced HD stills/video cam • Non-Gaming • Photography • Eurogamer.net

Deleted user 13 April 2010 12:32:37

I know nothing about these things so I thought I'd throw this out there for the EG photography crew... my dad's recently decided to get a new camcorder/stills camera and I don't have the first clue about this sort of thing. I know he's not looking at much in terms of expenditure so I'm wondering if there's any realistic pricing or model he should be looking at? It's for a family reunion coming up soon that's been a long time coming.

Thanks in advance.

monkman76 13 Apr 2010 17:16:13 18,987 posts
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Well I'm no expert (and I may have misunderstood the question) but if he wants both in one device, the Canon 550D has got me regretting owning Nikon lenses :-)

It's about Ł700 with a basic lens, don't know if that's too much. If so, the 500D or the Nikon D5000 are slightly cheaper and still do movies (though not quite as well).

If you mean an actual camcorder, sorry, no idea!

Neverness 13 Apr 2010 17:33:01 1,186 posts
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The D5000 is a proper DSLR is it not? (just a low end one)

Deleted user 13 April 2010 17:37:06

Jesus, just get a Lumix LX3 or something, no need to go all SLR on his ass.

neilch 14 Apr 2010 12:14:54 749 posts
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I'd say not a Nikon, Canon pretty much own the DSLR video market at the moment.

But I'd agree with kalel, I doubt those are what he is after, either something like a Lumix LX3 or TZ10 would be much better.

malteaserhead 14 Apr 2010 12:18:38 13,443 posts
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I got the gf a Lumix Tz7 and the video quality is really nice (widescreenish HD that looks pretty sharp and colourful - from a noob perspective). I know nought if other models are worse or better or offer better value for money.

Deleted user 14 April 2010 14:00:54

monkman76 wrote:
Well I'm no expert (and I may have misunderstood the question) but if he wants both in one device, the Canon 550D has got me regretting owning Nikon lenses

It's about Ł700 with a basic lens, don't know if that's too much. If so, the 500D or the Nikon D5000 are slightly cheaper and still do movies (though not quite as well).

If you mean an actual camcorder, sorry, no idea!

The 550D is Ł550 at Laksys - a mate of mine's just picked one up.

JohnnyWashnGo 14 Apr 2010 14:13:13 1,544 posts
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I can highly recommended the 550D - had one for a couple of weeks now and the HD video is astounding. It is also a very good stills camera as well.

But it all depends on the level of control needed over the video recording. If you don't want to spend a fortune and don't need to worry about manual control when recording video then go for a decent point and shoot. If you fancy playing around with recording some studio quality video then get one of the Canon DSLRs and a bunch of expensive lenses.

Apparently the season finale of a show called House (never heard of it) was filmed entirely on a Canon 5D Mark II. That should give you confidence that Canons HD video recording ability is pretty good

Edit: Also Ł50 cashback on the 550D for a couple of months - just got mine posted

Nth 14 Apr 2010 15:13:46 3,164 posts
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For something basic a Sanyo Xacti might do. I paid Ł150 in Feb only to see it down to as little as Ł80 last week. Like all CMOS camcorders it suffers a bit from rolling shutter syndrome, something the D90 excels at, but which may not bother him. Image quality is much better than the 720p mode on my old Lumix TZ5. Mind you stills quality is fairly poor on the Sanyo.

Tonka 14 Apr 2010 15:29:55 31,980 posts
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Get the LX3. I love mine to bits. They have come down a fair bit in price as well. Takes decent videos as well (especially once I got the hang of under exposing in video mode).

monkman76 14 Apr 2010 16:25:51 18,987 posts
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TeleFunken wrote:
The 550D is Ł550 at Laksys - a mate of mine's just picked one up.

Sure you don't mean the 500D? 550D is listed as Ł694.98. Had me interested there for a moment...

http://www.laskys.com/cameras_and_camcorders/cameras/digital_slr_cameras/

Deleted user 14 April 2010 16:27:23

Wow, thankyou guys. I kind of fired and forgot this thread after a few hours of it knocking about with no replies! So much appreciated that you got back to me! I'll take a good look at your recommendations, that's for sure!