Need help choosing a new camcorder HELP!!

[goofyrhodie]

Would really appreciate your expertise and opinion on this matter! I have been pulling my hair out and have come down to 4 choices.

Please give me your opinion and the pros and cons of each PLEASE! I appreciate your time and knowledge!

JVC EVERIO GZMG330RUS
CANON FS100
SONY DCRSR45
SONY HANDY CAM HDRUX5 MINI

Thank you!!

 

[thomas998]

Would really appreciate your expertise and opinion on this matter! I have been pulling my hair out and have come down to 4 choices.

Please give me your opinion and the pros and cons of each PLEASE! I appreciate your time and knowledge!

JVC EVERIO GZMG330RUS
CANON FS100
SONY DCRSR45
SONY HANDY CAM HDRUX5 MINI

Thank you!!

I can only offer my insight into the Sonys as I have similar models to the SD and HD version you have listed.... I'm sorry to say wouldn't endorse either of them. While the image is fine... niether of the ones you mention has an acceptable method of manually focusing.. and when you get into lowlight events like a parade at Disney, a manual focus is very helpful. Instead on the Sonys you have a manual focus by way of tapping the LCD view screen which is also a touch screen.... that doesn't work very well as a tap might change the focus by .3 meters or it might suddenly jump 10 meters... no real method to the madness... making it even more annoying is when you do go to manual focus more than half the screen is then covered by the instruction so you can't really see what your are trying to focus on... And god forbid you want to manual focus when looking through the view finder...

That's my rant and warning against the Sonys... nice picture but a very very very useless interface... Oh... did I mention the sound quality... not that good unless you use an external mic... and the method of connecting one is with a Sony only connection... They used to sell a connection that allowed you to use your own mic but that has been discontinued so now your forced to use Sony's mics which aren't that good.

 

[goofyrhodie]

Thank you for your input Thomas!! I was not too excited about the Sony's, but I thought they were worth checking into and getting more information. Which one between the JVC or Canon???????

 

[vbarnett06]

Wish I could help... I have a Canon HV30 and it is the best camcorder I have ever used, don't know so much about the one's you have listed though.

Good luck in your search!

 

[thomas998]

Thank you for your input Thomas!! I was not too excited about the Sony's, but I thought they were worth checking into and getting more information. Which one between the JVC or Canon???????

I don't know much about the latest JVCs... I have one that uses the mini-dv tapes from a few year back. It still works perfectly... the only reason I got the Sony was my wife thought it would be better to have something that recorded straight to a DVD... I still prefer the older JVC... I can only assume the quality has improved, though has a picture that is as good as the newer Sony SD... not as good as the Sony High Def but I wouldn't expect it to be.... From what I've read the Canon are supposed to have very good low light capabilities... I would look at them in the store... make sure the both have the things that are important to you... I'm probably more of a nit pick on the sound, so I always make sure I can connect my own mic to it before I even consider one... If that important then make sure it has a mic input... other than that you might use google and search "model number cnet review" cnet usually has very accurate reviews of camcorders. I only wish I had paid more attention to them in this dising Sony's lack of manual focus.... I didn't... my bad.