$300-$400 Camcorder
Hello all,
My Canon ZR 25MC has finally kicked it after five years. It jams/destroys the tape when rewinding and the battery is definitely not what it used to be. Canon's website says a repair will cost $150.
I'm going to Disney with the fam in a few weeks, so I'm going to be buying another MiniDV camcorder. I looked at DVD, but my slot load iMac won't handle it and I hear the quality is poor. HD cams are still too expensive for my liking. When I bought the ZR it was like $800...but now decent MiniDVs are down to $300-500, which is a good thing. I also have a lot of recorded DV tapes that are serving as sort of an archive.
After doing a lot of research, it seems my best choice is the Canon Elura 100. I checked out a slew of reviews over at http://www.camcorderinfo.com/ and found among other things that it ranked 12th out of 60 camcorders costing between $300-$1500. Not too shabby considering it has 1 CCD and itself costs only about $300. It trounces some $500 and $600 machines and is rated higher than the Sony DCD-PC100, a $850 three CMOS machine.
Best price from a reputable merchant looks to be
buydig.com for $314.00
I looked at virtually every others Canon, Sony and Panasonic product. I am consumer level user. One thing I wish it was better at was stills, but good still performance is difficult to find for less than $500. I'm also a Canon fan in general, so there is some brand loyalty there. Features of importance are the optical zoom, A/V port, size and general video quality.
Your thoughts?
My Canon ZR 25MC has finally kicked it after five years. It jams/destroys the tape when rewinding and the battery is definitely not what it used to be. Canon's website says a repair will cost $150.
I'm going to Disney with the fam in a few weeks, so I'm going to be buying another MiniDV camcorder. I looked at DVD, but my slot load iMac won't handle it and I hear the quality is poor. HD cams are still too expensive for my liking. When I bought the ZR it was like $800...but now decent MiniDVs are down to $300-500, which is a good thing. I also have a lot of recorded DV tapes that are serving as sort of an archive.
After doing a lot of research, it seems my best choice is the Canon Elura 100. I checked out a slew of reviews over at http://www.camcorderinfo.com/ and found among other things that it ranked 12th out of 60 camcorders costing between $300-$1500. Not too shabby considering it has 1 CCD and itself costs only about $300. It trounces some $500 and $600 machines and is rated higher than the Sony DCD-PC100, a $850 three CMOS machine.
Best price from a reputable merchant looks to be
buydig.com for $314.00
I looked at virtually every others Canon, Sony and Panasonic product. I am consumer level user. One thing I wish it was better at was stills, but good still performance is difficult to find for less than $500. I'm also a Canon fan in general, so there is some brand loyalty there. Features of importance are the optical zoom, A/V port, size and general video quality.
Your thoughts?
Comments
I wouldn't place much emphasis on brand loyalty, unless you get the same respect in return (has Canon called you recently to say, "hey, you're one of our favorite customers, and we just wanted to share some equipment with you free of charge this time...")
Good luck!
Originally posted by AugustWest
I went through a similar analysis recently, and just purchased a Panasonic PV-GS300 for around $500.00. It's a bit more pricey but I wanted the 3 CCD's. I might have gone with your selection if I weren't so...well...lazy. I stopped my search at the first 3 CCD dv camera priced at around 500 bucks. Too bad I didn't see your post first!
I wouldn't place much emphasis on brand loyalty, unless you get the same respect in return (has Canon called you recently to say, "hey, you're one of our favorite customers, and we just wanted to share some equipment with you free of charge this time...")
Good luck!
Thanks. I looked at that model too, but it was out of range. I ordered the camera from buydig. Three words: Best Store Ever. Shipping was free but I pain an extra $6.50 to get it faster (4-6 days instead of 8-10). That was yesterday. Well guess what...last night I see it has shipped from Jersey. Son of a bitch if it didn't show up at my door an hour ago! One day! Anyway, I'll play with it and let you know what I think.