My family and I will be taking a trip soon that we wish to document. For this, I've begun looking at various brands and models of camcorders. I was wondering if anyone on Applefritter has a opinion on which is better and such. I'd highly prefer one that can offload the video to my Mac via firewire, etc.
Any suggestions?
We bought a JVC GR-D275u when Ultimate Electronincs was shutting down their local store. It's fairly compact (I can carry it in a generic digicam case, w/ ps and tapes) and light, and I paired it with a super cheap tripod from MicroCenter ($6 for 56") and it works fine. Firewire support for iMovie was plug-n-play (autoconfig for us old Amigans!) once I bought a cable. The camera only came with a USB cable. I also found out that using the viewfinder isntead of the LCD sceen gave me another 20 mins of battery on top of the 1 hour that the standard battery gets. My only compaint so far is that I have to take it off the tripod and completely remove the tripod mount to change a tape. That may just be because the tripod mount is about 2" square.
Overall, I think any name-brand DV cam should be fine. I wouldn't get sold on lots of effects features, 'cause you can do alot of that in post. Of course your needs and YMMV.
I bought a secondhand JVC camcorder and the necessary firewire cable to attach it to my mac, but without a user manual, I'm not sure how to transfer video to my Mac. It's not plugging and playing at all.
You use a program like iMovie to control it. There is a little switch just below the video section in iMovie that switches between video capture mode and editing mode. You should only need to turn the camcorder on in play mode and do everything else from the computer.
I've had good experiences with the Canon my wife bought me. The support in iMovie is great, the features are good, the pricepoint is good. Not a bad deal - even on the super low end. I have a Canon ZR500 and have been very pleased with it. Has a mic input on it, and can be had for under $200 now.
Here's a review.
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-ZR500-Camcorder-Review.htm
It has the option for widescreen or regular tv format. For what it is - it's a pretty decent camera.
can anybody recommend something with either stereo mic in or stereo line in (while recording through the camera)