<p>Does anyone have suggestions of a decent camera that takes good video, or a video camera that takes good still photos? Not outrageously expensive?</p>
<p>I have a JVC everio, the first generation to have HD, but the picture quality has never been that great and it is frustrating. When you zoom in, the details just disappear. I have been taking photos and video with my phone, but of course the quality is grainy when sent to my computer, and the video is a weird, non-standard format, not easily converted.</p>
<p>I have looked at a couple at BB, but I am not sure. I am a bit leery of camcorders that say “youtube-ready” because does that mean that’s the format/size/quality I can expect?</p>
<p>DD has the Canon Powershot A1100IS. It lists for around $150 but on sale it is a little over $120. She used it at her brother’s wedding and not only got good pictures but she had the best video of the first dance. It had good sound and quality. How much video do you want? Seems to me if you want to video something long you might want a camcorder. For short things the camera worked great. There are reviews on Amazon and CNET for some of the various models.</p>
<p>I am not sure what you mean by “good quality” and “not outrageously expensive.” You really need to spend $500+ for a decent video recorder. You can get a decent still camera for much less money. Trying to get a combo will only give you a high cost and/or poor quality for either the stills or videos.</p>
<p>In order to get usefull help, you need to be more specific about your budget.</p>
<p>I know edad- that really is the problem for me. Our first camcorder cost $1700 and had tapes. Our second one cost, I think $1200 and had little tapes. We can no longer view those tapes, except through the TV. The JVC cost around $1000 and was the first model HD.</p>
<p>Ideally, I’d like to spend less than $500. And I guess I’d want HD + SD card.</p>
<p>Singersmom07, great suggestion. I will check it out to find out what the format is, etc.</p>
<p>I understand since we went through the same process. We did converted some of the smaller tapes to VHS before losing the technology. In the long run it has not made any difference. No one at my house ever looks at the old videos. Photos do get looked at on occasion. Are you really sure you want to go through the same process again?</p>
<p>Sony makes the best camcorders, hands down (it surely helps to have Carl Zeiss optics). Make sure you have image stabilizer - almost all Sonys do. We tried a Samsung digital video camera which did not have this feature and returned it - games filmed from a distance were impossible to watch because of shaking images (and my H has many years of filming experience). Don’t get too excited if the specs say “digital zoom”, it is the “optical zoom” that you want.</p>
<p>For a camcorder the Canon Vixia HF200 is pretty good. It’s HD and the medium it uses is an SDHC memory card. It takes great HD video and can do so at 24fps. It has a 3.89 Megapixel pickup sensor so the still shots are pretty decent although I haven’t taken a lot of them. This camcorder is around $550 at Amazon.</p>
<p>There’s no one company that makes the best camcorders. You need to take a look at the particular models to compare one to another from one brand to another and even within a particular brand and even then you need to take into account the cost of the features on one versus the other. Having just done this a few months ago we decided on the Canon mentioned above for our desired features and price range.</p>