Monday 28 Dec 2009
There has never been a better time to capture your own video for your projects. While there are a wealth of truly professional camcorders out there – capturing in high-end formats such as Sony’s XDCAM EX and Panasonic’s P2 – there are great models for less technically demanding creatives.
These include top-flight AVCHD consumer models that are more than good enough for motion-graphics artists and web designers who want regularly capture video to include in their work – and they’re pretty affordable too.
Many of these have a variety of manual shooting modes, which are ideal for those wanting more creative control over their footage. They also ape, or are inspired by, features included in digital cameras, such as face detection to multi-megapixel image sensors.
Accompanying this is a massive improvement in image quality. The shift towards 1,920 x 1,080 recording sounds as though it should offer an increase in picture quality, but lots of other factors come into play, too – image sensor resolution, the video processor and lens, to name but three.
Camcorder manufacturers are pushing these boundaries, too, chiefly by incorporating larger image sensors that capture more light and detail, but also by beefing up with higher bitrates and better processing.
Some HD camcorder-makers (most notably Canon) are making a push towards internal flash memory instead of hard disk drive storage. This helps make camcorders lighter and more robust, while also using less battery power; flash memory storage is now available in large enough quantities and capacities to make it affordable and worthwhile.
All the camcorders in this test give you the option to record or copy to removable flash memory cards (chiefly SDHC) or, in some cases, to take advantage of both. This means you can switch seamlessly between internal and external storage without needing to tell the camcorder which one to record to. This allows you to keep shooting even if one storage device runs out space. Some even offer dual recording modes – enabling you to shoot both video and still images at the same time.
To help you discover which HD camcorder best meets your needs we’ve picked six flagship models from Canon, JVC, Panasonic and Sony. Each one has plenty to offer both newbies and experienced amateurs. So let’s dig right in.
Camcorders featured in this group test:
Rob Mead
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