Unless that camcorder is quite obsolete, most of my band friends and I would be shaking our heads at anyone laughing at someone with a camcorder. Especially those among them who are/worked as professional audio/video recording/editing professionals.
Especially if the intention is to get the best audio and video quality to release a live CD track and/or DVD or higher quality video.
I’ve recorded with smartphones at friends’ live gigs at various venues.
However, with one exception the smartphone was a supplement in addition to the camcorder as the audio/video quality of smartphones while good for personal use…isn’t anywhere near high enough quality to be released as a live CD* or video unless the band wants to openly advertise their entire operation is amateurish and run by dilettantes.
Typical settings even at the highest settings tend to only be equivalent to a high-bitrate mp3....no where near CD quality.
There are compact video recorders, like the Zoom HQ (I don’t know what the latest model is) that has sound and image quality a smartphone cannot match and especially the sound. In terms of cameras, while you can do amazing things with smartphone cameras, the picture quality of a real camera can’t be beat, there are things you can do with a SLR you can’t do with a smartphone, especially using the lenses that fit the cameras. I was talking to my cousin’s wife about this several weeks ago, she is a very well known photographer (the kind who is sponsored by camera companies), and she said pretty much the same thing. She uses Olympus cameras at the moment, in large part because the mirrorless model she uses is very light and the video screen flips up, not side to side, so you can look down at the image while shooting, she also said for some work she does she uses her Nikon.
Smartphone cameras have pretty much replaced a lot of the point and shoot cameras, but even they take better pictures I think, especially when someone doesn’t really have any kind of training, it is easier to take good pictures on a camera than on a smartphone one, to get the same kind of quality takes a bit more work.
As far as transferring pictures, many modern cameras feature wifi, but it also isn’t that had to transfer pictures. Some cameras have a USB port that allows transferring pictures, or if they have a memory card the camera generally will come with a USB based card reader you could use to upload it. Some cameras even allow wifi printing to a printer from what I have seen.
One of these days I plan on getting another camera, I really enjoyed my old film camera and I look forward to finding a lightweight SLR, probably mirrorless, to be able to use.
I still have two Nikon DSLRs. The newer one is obviously ‘better’, but it weighs so much that I sometimes opt for the older one. The only trouble is that it if I want to be in a photo, it is becoming almost impossible to find someone who can shoot through the lens.
The phones take very decent photos outdoors in daylight when the subjects are not moving. I can’t stand the grainy look of indoor flash phone photos.
I don’t download photos until I am home because of the battery drain, even though I try to keep two fully-charged batteries with me.
When we went out to dinner last year with my parents and in-laws after my son’s graduation, my dad asked the waiter (who was in his 20s) to take a picture of the table. My dad had a dSLR. The waiter had absolutely no clue how to use it. He said you couldn’t see what the picture would look like until after you took it. No clue you could look through the viewfinder. Or that the camera had a telephoto lens so he didn’t need to move back to get everyone in the picture. He eventually got a couple of good pictures.
I laughed. I asked him if he would take one more picture. And handed him my phone. He knew how to use that one.
Why is that sad? Plenty of people will never have the need or desire to use cameras other than their phones. If all they want to do is take casual snapshots, and aren’t interested in True Photography, why is that sad? It’s like being sad that the everyday person can’t read music. It’s irrelevant to their lives.
I used to love photography and developed my own pictures in a darkroom. I don’t know how to do that anymore. It’s not sad, though.
I noticed a lot more big cameras on my last trip to Europe. Most around the necks of young people. H and I have taken to just using our IPhone unless we are traveling someplace where we know we want a better quality shot. You wouldn’t want to take only a phone on an African Safari. For us the downside of bringing our better camera is the weight.
My youngest is an equestrian and she just purchased a camera last spring. She also “borrowed” our old camcorder to record training sessions.