Feb 6, 2010
What Is The Best Affordable Camcorder In Quality?
I am looking for a good value camcorder. Any brand or type is alright with me. Any recommendations will be much appreciated. Thank you. 
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What is your budget?
What do you need the camcorder to do?
Who is your audience?
“affordable” means different things to different people.
The “best” and no stated budget?
High end? Red One. Maybe Silicon Imaging.
Pro grade? Sony XDCAM series, HDCAM series; Canon XLH or XH series; Panasonic AG-HVX series; JVC GY-HM100.
Prosumer? Sony HDR-FX1000… or jump to the higher end of the HVR series.
Consumer? Canon HV40.
If the above are to much, then consumer cams in the standard definition Canon ZR960 or FS100 are decent.
As the cameras get less expensive, the lenses and imaging chips get smaller and their low-light behavior diminishes. Manual controls get buried in a menu and audio control is lost.
Pocket cams less than about $250 can work well IF you stay within their limitations… Always under good light, always with audio that is not loud and not soft, always on some sort of steadying device (tripod, chair, table, whatever) and never handheld. Never use digital zoom. Stray from these recommendations – or try to make a camcorder work outside its specifications – and any cam will not provide acceptable results.
I would suggest Sony HDR-CX100 AVCHD HD Camcorder
– Capture 1920 x 1080 HD video to built-in flash memory
– 10x optical zoom, 120x digital zoom; Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens with SteadyShot image stabilization
– 2.7-inch wide touch-panel Clear Photo LCD Plus display
– 4-megapixel still image capture; Face Detection
– 8 GB built-in memoryhttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001PY4…
or if you want cheaper one JVC Everio MS120 Dual Flash Camcorder is a good SD camcorder that take good video quality.http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001OMH…
I used to have a Canon Power Shot A640 , it was a Camera but took Video too on a Memory Card , just like a Camcorder.The video was very good quality.
So you can use a regular Camera too.
For HD Camcorders look into these…..
Creative Vado
Kodak Zi6
They are not that expensive.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw6Pla949…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr5iXO1pD…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsydBfIkZ…