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Thread: help good video cam

  1. #1

    help good video cam

    Purchasing video camera for holiday and of course some fishing videos. I have been looking at panasonic nv-gs500 and jvc gz-mg77, sounds like panasonic has best picture but I like the hard drive idea of the jvc. I have read a lot about the jvc not having very good picture quality. Any one with these cameras have any input on performance good bad or ugly. Also any other cameras worth a look under $1500:00 thanks Andrew.

  2. #2

    Re: help good video cam

    HDD cams are only relatively new on the market. My concerns with the HDD is how they will stand up to the bouncing around in a boat. But in saying that, HDD's now days are pretty damn good.

    What will really be the icing on the cake is when solid state video camera's come along.

    Basically you want as much optical zoom as you can, digital zoom is worth squat. Get a bigger battery & also, whatever the maximum extended warranty is that they offer, GET IT!
    Heath
    Gold Coast
    WWW.GCFISHING.COM

  3. #3
    Ausfish Platinum Member whiteman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Townsville Qld

    Re: help good video cam

    Invest $12 and join Choice.com.au as they have just reviewed camcorders. I have the Panasonic from earlier this year. Great unit but if I was buying now it would be a wide screen with HD if possible.

  4. #4

    Re: help good video cam

    Must admit I have a fairly up to date Sony.
    And it's crap compared to my much older Panasonic Video.
    With colour and picture quality I wil look at Panasonic next time around.
    I wouldn't have bought the Sony Except someone dropped the camera and now it don't zoom in or out.

    I think Sony is a over rated product.
    A marriage licence should be like your fishing licence!
    Expires every year and you get a 3 day pass when you go interstate.

  5. #5

    Re: help good video cam

    Andrew,

    I've got one of the new JVC Everio HDD cams. I did a lot of research first and ended up going with the MG57 over the MG77. Although the 77 has 32x optical zoom, the 57 has a f/1.2 lens compared to f/2.0, which is worth more to me than the higher zoom. It's a fantastic piece of gear, the video quality is fine - don't know where you read that it wasn't but maybe that's when it's set to Low Quality mode (37 hours rec time). I copy the recordings straight to my PC and then edit/burn to DVD, but if you don't want to use a PC, it has an AV out, or you can buy a docking station to burn DVDs directly from the camera for < $300.

    If you buy one before 31 Jan 07 it comes with a free 3 yr extended wty.

    Anyway, let me know if you want more info on it.

    Heath - the current JVC Everios also take SD memory cards which can be used for both stills and video - so in fact what you have wished for is already here. 8GB SD cards are available now, and they will only be getting bigger in the future. This means that although the unit comes with a fixed 30GB disk, it is in fact infinitely expandable !!!


    Cheers,

    Alan.

  6. #6

    Re: help good video cam

    sorry, I was wrong on the model numbers/specs.

    The 37 has 32x optical, f/2.0 lens, 800K Pixel stills
    The 57 has 15x optical, f/1.2 lens, 1Megapixel stills
    The 77 has 10x optical, f/1.2 lens, 2Megapixel stills.

    I went for the 15x optical over the 10x, as the Megapixels only matter for photo quality, not video.

    Don't pay RRP either - I was able to get $250 off the RRP (and $150 off the shelf price) of the MG57 without even trying.

  7. #7

    Re: help good video cam

    Thanks Guys I bought a Sony HDD SR40e today. It came down to a toss up between great picture quaility of Panasonic and convenience of hard drive, hard drive won out. Alan if I had read your post this morning I may well have gone with the MG-57 as it was between it and the Sony, Heath got 4 yrs wrnty so that should see the camera out, Roughasguts hope I havn't done the wrong thing but so far I like what the camera does and I got a good deal on it so It's all good. Andrew

  8. #8

    Re: help good video cam

    Cyclone the only things I don't like are the red colours, they are brown and lose all definition. And the lens could be more wide angle, taking a shot of the kids in me boat, I got to watch I don't fall out the back.

    Hmmm get a bigger boat, me thinks.
    A marriage licence should be like your fishing licence!
    Expires every year and you get a 3 day pass when you go interstate.

  9. #9

    Re: help good video cam

    Sounds like the best solution to me.

  10. #10
    Ausfish Platinum Member whiteman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Townsville Qld

    Re: help good video cam

    You really should buy ANY camera with lens quality as the highest priority. Next is processing chip then storage media a distant 3rd or 6th consideration. Video cameras above 10x zoom need tripods or really good anti-shake systems which usually don't exist for under $5k.

    Try and get your hands on a copy of Pinnacle Studio v9 for editing and DVD authoring. Feature rich and easy to use. Windows Movie Maker is easy to use but doesn't output to DVD.

  11. #11

    Re: help good video cam

    whiteman, I agree with your comments on lenses, zooms etc, but keep in mind for most people a camera/video is for pix of the kids playing in the back yard, or hauling the odd fish on board.

    It might be a diff story if you are entering a short film festival or doing a nature doc (get a 3 CCD camera), but these days $1000 gets you a good video camera and a really good still camera.

  12. #12
    Ausfish Platinum Member whiteman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Townsville Qld

    Re: help good video cam

    Quote Originally Posted by 25_ponies
    whiteman, I agree with your comments on lenses, zooms etc, but keep in mind for most people a camera/video is for pix of the kids playing in the back yard, or hauling the odd fish on board.

    It might be a diff story if you are entering a short film festival or doing a nature doc (get a 3 CCD camera), but these days $1000 gets you a good video camera and a really good still camera.
    No, $1,000 gets you an ADEQUATE cam and still camera. I had the (mis)fortune of hosting 3 of my rels from Sydney over the weekend and I spent this time taking photos with their P&S digi cameras. They were close to the top of the range of their type. The resulting photos, while "adequate" needed a lot of work in photoshop to get half decent results - and they are so slow to zoom and focus and take the bl**dy photo once you've pressed the trigger.
    My $900 Panasonic camcorder is 3CCD and it is barely adequate once you view the output on a 42" plasma - and the stills shots aren't worth the effort. But this is not where I want to spnd my photography budget.

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