What Camcorder?!

CyclingBantam
CyclingBantam Posts: 1,299
edited January 2010 in The bottom bracket
I know quite a few on here ride with Helmet Cam's but does anyone know anything about Camcorders? I am doing a charity cycle ride to Italy in June this year and want to take a camcorder with me to record a video diary and some footage of when I am away.

The problem is I know nothing about camcorders. There are that many on the market I never know wht I am looking for and what is good vs. bad. I don't need it to be especially tiny and I don't need to edit footage on it whilst I am away. Whenever I ask the staff in Currys etc all they do is read me out the description on the cards infront of the Camcorders.

Any advice or pointers would be much appreciated. Budget is roughly £250-£300 and I would like a hard-drive instead of SD cards due to the ability to store footage.

Thanks

Ben

Comments

  • I have just seen the Sony Handycam for about £200 which I am hoping will do the job. Anyone any experiance with these?
  • hopper1
    hopper1 Posts: 4,389
    I'm not experienced enought to advise, but I always use this site to check reviews, etc...[
    Start with a budget, finish with a mortgage!
  • BigDarbs
    BigDarbs Posts: 132
    I was in exactly the same situation as you. I wanted a camcorder that was relatively compact, had a hard drive and easy to use. I bought a Cannon Legria FS19 from Currys for about £240. It has a hard drive and can also take SD cards as well. It has a bult in light on the front and can also take photos, recording time is stated as 215 minutes and this handily counts down in minutes remaining on the screen display, so you don't have to guess how long your battery low indicator will last!!

    It is relatively compact, can film while the screen is folded down and is easy to upload to a PC. All of the uploads are automatically put in date folders and indexed by date and time.

    I am not a camera geek, hence I just wanted somthing to use for cycling, motorcycle track days, holidays, for my daughter growing up and family occasions.

    let me know if there is anything else you need to know about it?
  • Monty Dog
    Monty Dog Posts: 20,614
    I bought a JVC Everio a few years ago - one of the first hard drive cams, it takes SD cards too - a chunky little unit. I had it fitted to my bars for the Paris Roubaix sportive - at the first sector at Troisville the metal bush in the chassis sheared off and it hit the deck at about 40kph. I stuffed it in my back pocket thinking it was terminal. Got to the feed zone and it still works! The newer models are smaller with bigger capacity. I'd also prefer a solid state camera - I generally use a SD / Compact Flash card in place of the removable hard drive - hard drives don't like vibration whereas SD cards are cheap and easily available. You can get 60 mins on a 4Gb card at DVD quality.
    Make mine an Italian, with Campagnolo on the side..
  • ScottieP
    ScottieP Posts: 599
    A couple of sites I would recommend having a look at are:

    http://www.trustedreviews.com/camcorders/ They have a buyers guide there as one of the first articles.

    I've also used this site too (it used to have a good forum but I couldn't see that just now)
    http://www.simplydv.co.uk/

    One or both of these should help you.

    It's a bit like bikes - do loads of research first if you want a good one. Personally I would only buy an HD one now as an SD one will be less and less useful.

    Once you've found/decided on one use somewhere like: http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/ to check the best prices.

    I think Panasonic, Canon and Sony make the best in that order....

    Good luck!
    My cycling blog: http://girodilento.com/