1 - Important Questions
| Digital Camcorders from well known brands such as Sony, Canon, and Panasonic are available from entry level prices around $ 400 to the high-end ones of $ 2000 and above. The features and capabilities also vary in accordance. Hence it becomes imperative to decide along with the price whether it is to be used only for family functions, vacations, casual home videos or amateur movies or work-oriented presentations, etc.
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Determining this throws up a lot of pertinent questions such as:
- What is the intended use of the camcorder?
- Will you use it indoors or outdoors?
- Is portability important?
- Will you be editing major portions of the footage and need effects?
- How important is the quality of the video you shoot?
- Do you wish to showcase it as a film?
- Is it only a recording for a few friends at home?
- Will you use a tripod with the camcorder?
- Are still shots important?
- How much of memory is needed?
- Is the usage more during night or during day time?
- Is audio quality very important?
This also helps determine to a large extent the features that one would be focusing on. For instance; camcorders allow for the media to be loaded differently and if you intend to use a tripod, you might choose one that loads the media from the top or the sides, rather than the bottom. PC connections and Firewire /IEEE 1394 support, lens quality, viewfinder and LCD Size and panels, Stabilization System, Digital Still Image Capability, zooming (optical and digital), night vision, flash light and mega pixel minutiae, memory, microphones and battery charge are some of the key characteristics that come into play when choosing the right digital camcorder. Most of these features depend primarily upon the usage of the camcorder. Features such as; manual control for the lens, focus, flash, aperture, etc. become essential to people who are already familiar and would like to control these themselves. For the others, automatic systems could be said to be more essential than the manual controls. Also certain aspects such as; PC connections and editing compatibilities become important when one wishes to edit a large part of the footage. The effects and lighting play a significant role here. When using the camcorders for professional and work-related projects it is advisable to invest in models that have these features and also offer higher resolutions. Memory, audio controls and battery life are key features when the camcorder is to be used extensively rather than occasionally for family vacations and the like.
Another fundamental facet is the comfort and expertise levels of the users. People who are not familiar with video photography might find certain controls complicated and may hence prefer automatic settings rather than a number of panels with values that need to be set. Thus the choice of a digital camcorder is easy when its use, price range and the comfort, expertise levels of the user are taken into consideration.
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2 - Relevant Terms
Media choice / Mini DV RECORDING: Recording media can vary from tape to DVD depending upon your preference. DV refers to a standard consumer recording format and mini DV, while about half the size, has superior images and sound. It is at par with DVD. DV also provides CD quality digital sound. As the connection to the computer is digital there is no generation loss when transferring DV data. The smaller size facilitates the smaller camcorder size. If portability is very important, you might want to opt for a smaller model.
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CCD - Charge Couple Device: The Charge Couple Device converts the light in electronic signals that can be recorded by the camcorder to the digital format. The bigger the CCD and the more CCDs there the better your picture quality will be. A maximum of 3 CCDs are available at the moment. |
Viewfinder, LCD's, Playback: A viewfinder lets you see what you record and its quality helps determine what you record. If it is important to view the recording immediately, then a camcorder with LCD playback is required. The higher the number of pixels, the clearer the view will be.
ZOOM (OPTICAL & DIGITAL): Zoom is an essential characteristic, especially when recording outdoors and is of two types, optical and digital. Optical zoom involves the camera magnifying an image a number of times through its lens. On the other hand digital zoom enlarges a part of the image and this can result in loss of quality. It can range from 3/4x to 8/10x or may go as high as 20/26x generally.
NIGHTSCOPE: It is also known as Night Vision and requires a 0 lux lens. It facilitates video shooting during night. One must determine if it captures in color, as some camcorders do not.
MEMORY: The camcorder’s memory is a card that is inserted into the camcorder. It can be used to store, pictures and small video clips depending upon the memory size such as 8MB (standard), 64MB and 128MB.
PC CONNECTION: A PC connection becomes very important when you intend to transfer what you record to the PC to just store pictures, video clips and recordings or even to edit the footage and add effects. You must ensure support for Firewire, USB connections, DV-in and DV-out, etc. depending upon camcorder and PC compatibility.
| MICROPHONE: Sometimes the audio quality of the recording is important. Digicams can capture video as well as audio, however, quality of depends upon the whether the microphone is in-built or not and if it has an attachment for a zoom microphone. A zoom microphone can capture sound from the vicinity of the focused object, even if the object is at a distance, thus enhancing audio quality. |
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IMAGE STABILIZER: An Image stabilizer is absolutely important since it is practically impossible to hold the digicam steady at all times, especially over longer periods of time. Image stabilization eliminates the jerks and shakes that may occur during the recording phase, from being recorded and also avoids the blurry images. It is of two types, optical and digital; optical stabilization is regarded as superior.
BATTERY: The battery provided normally runs for an hour, but it is also possible to have external ones that run for higher durations; 2 to 4 hours or more, depending upon usage. An external charger makes it possible to charge one while the other is being used and is very useful when recording over longer periods of time continuously.
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