Best sub $1000 cameras

[Gary Sheynkman]

Every time one goes onto a website or ventures into an electronics store, one is greated by a multitude of digital camcorders. Which ones do the enthusiats at this site reccomend?

Canon? Sony? Panasonic? JVC? etc etc

Lets narrow it down a bit though:
Digital Stills are not important at all. Best video quality is key. Easy to use. Remember to keep it under $999.95 :wink:

[Jason Dunn]

I've had a fair bit of experience with Canon and Sony cameras, and both make very good sub-$1000 cameras. Between the two, Sony tends to have a cooler blueish tint, and Canon tends towards a warmer, redish tint. I prefer the Canon hue myself, but some prefer the Sony. The Canon ZR series is a good entry-level collection of cameras.

[Suhit Gupta]

I vote strongly for the Canon Powershot line. They are all sleek, light and nicely featured. They have nice optics, and take solid shots. And their movie recorder isn't bad either. But best of all is their built in photo stitching assist mode, the one that helps in making panoramic shots. Check this cool picture (http://www.philgross.com/pics/dasada-07-2002/orig/ft-mchenry-army-of-clones.jpg) of me and Janak (editor on PPCT) :-D.

I must also vote for the Sony and Casio cameras. Sony has very nice optics as well while Casio seems to be aiming towards the "super thin/light" cameras niche of the market.

Other notable mentions - Nikon and Minolta.

Suhit

[Jason Dunn]

I vote strongly for the Canon Powershot line.

Umm...he's asking about digital VIDEO cameras, not digital still cameras. :wink:

[Suhit Gupta]

I vote strongly for the Canon Powershot line.
Umm...he's asking about digital VIDEO cameras, not digital still cameras. :wink:

Oh duh... well, everyone should own a Powershot in any case ;-).

Anyways, I think the JVC's GR-HD1 HD Camcorder is top notch but is well over the $1K threshold that Gary set. So in the sub $1K category, I would have to pick (in order) the Panasonic D-snap 100 SD Camcorder, Sony MiniDV TRV38 or the Canon Optura Xi Handicam (though the 300 isn't bad either). I am not a great judge of the best video output quality, but they all seem to do a very good job. Still photograph capability built into all of these AFAICT.

Suhit

[Gary Sheynkman]

for those of you interested ... www.dvspot.com as some very nice digi camcorder reviews!

We'll beat him soon though :wink:

[Montego]

I own a JVC MiniDV and A Sony Digital 8, and I would definitely say that as far as bang for the buck, Digital 8 is a pretty good value. Especially if you previously owned a Sony analog 8, you can put those tapes into the digital 8 and transfer over to your PC. I paid $800 for my cam about 2 years ago, and at the time, a Sony MiniDV with the same features as my D8 cost $1200. Another plus is that you can use regular Sony 8 tapes, which are much cheaper than MiniDV tapes...even the high end metal tapes are cheaper.

Last, my Digital 8 has a 1.3 megapixel digital still capability that saves to Memory stick. This was a feature that I was not really interested in at all, but I started shooting some stills with it and it actually makes really decent regular size prints. I was really surprised. I own a Sony F717, but a lot of times now if I'm out doing fun stuff with the video cam, I shoot stills with it and leave the F717 at home and just use it to shoot my "serious" stuff.

The downside of this is that I've read that Sony may be phasing out the D8 line, but yesterday I was looking at cams on the Circuit City site and a listing of the best selling cams showed a Sony D8 as number 1.

Anyway, I've been really satisified with my Sony except for the fact that it has no manual shutter speed adjustment like my JVS does.