Top HD Camcorders under $500?

Nicolas Cooley: The top HD camcorders for under $500 are all JUNK. It would take you in excess of $3500 to get a HD camcorder that could even compete withe video Quality of a $300 MiniDV tape camcorder.consumer level HD camcorders have 3 issues. 1) Fuzzy, blurry, out of focus areas around people in the HD video. 2) Any movement in front of a recording HD camcorder shows up in the finished video with screen ghosts and artifacts following the movement, ruining the video. 3) Lack of record times. 1 hour, go home, no way to change storage or continue shooting. Some offer a whole whopping 30 minutes. What, record 1/3 of the event then put the camcorder away or leave.You can get the Canon ZR960 for $250 or the ZR930 for about $300. Both of these camcorders are MiniDV tape based. Both camcorders have a Mic jack. Both of these camcorder can take better quality video and audio than any sub $3000 camcorder....Show more

Mel Crapo: Panasonic camcorders are great for ! the relatively low price. Admittedly I don't have extensive knowledge of the consumer camcorder market, but three years ago when I was learning the ropes and making videos on a budget of practically nil, I used to do everything on the Panasonic SD60 (now superceded by the SD90). The colour reproduction is brilliant and the low-light capabilities, while a far cry from professional, are about the best you're going to get in a camera at such a low price. It also offers an unusually high degree of control over things like iris, shutter speed, gain etc. for such an entry-level model - and I may be wrong, but I do believe the SD90 even has an input socket for a microphone (which the SD60 didn't have). So by all means shop around as there may be something even better, but I can vouch for the Panny range as an extremely safe, quality and reliable bet. And no, before you ask, I don't work for Panasonic ;-)...Show more