What video camera?

[Mrs OwenK]

Forgive me if there is a topic already open, I did have a search but without any luck.

I really don't know anything about video cameras or where to start.

Ideally I don't want to spend anything above £500 but that is variable depending on the gains of spending more!

It's for a holiday so would like decent battery and memory life.

Other than that I could really do with some help!

If anyone has anything they could reccomend or tell me what specs are a must, I would be very greatful!

[pugwash4x4]

we have a HD sony DVD recorder one- personally i'd avoid these- you spend ages changing discs, formatting them, etc etc for only 20 mins of recording time.

I'd like a HDD, or memory card one- oh and make sure you get one that is comfortable in the hand- getting good footage is actually quite hard and needs a very steady hand.

[Road2Ruin]

I would say get one that records to SD cards, they are small and very nice to handle. I would only go for a HD one if you can drop the resolution down to SD when you want to as the extra hassle in transfering and storing, let alone editing HD images, is only worth it for important shots. Panasonic do a nice range.

[jonesy]

I have one of these:

http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/Products/Cam...

its very good value, small, simple to use, light, battery life is about 3 hrs, full HD and up to 64G memory card. Its pretty good in dark and light conditions and has Optical image stabilization

example for footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpoZ5jiVkUU

I don't know much about camera's either, but this seems to have everything I needed.

J.