Hi
I am a newbie to this forum (in fact to any forums!) and unfortunately am a technophobic newbie to boot, so hope I don't embarrass myself in front of all you experts!

I need a digital video camera for my work. I am doing research in the Occupational Health and Safety field, and need to analyse the inherent physical requirements demanded of rail workers. This will include drivers, guards, cleaners, attendants, transit officers, track workers etc.

I have a macbook pro (with parallels). My supervisor has a windows laptop.

Requirements:

• video and stills, both of good quality but not necessarily great quality -
• Simple editing of video
• Stills to put into a document
• Good in low light (shots taken in confined spaces inside trains)
• A viewfinder would be a real advantage (lots of shots will be taken outside on the track)
• Needs to be either DVD or hard drive (my supervisor refuses to get a tape format)
• Don't need any fancy manual functions - basically a point and shoot
• Cost - absolute max. $1500.00 (australian $)

Any insight into pros and cons of any camcorders will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Ok think I can help here.
Simple editing- avoid dvd camcorders, stick with dv
stills - they are shoot stills.
Good luck trying to get a unit that shoots well in low light for 1500 or under my recomendation do not even think about a camera without a 3ccd sensor.
Viewfinders no big deal all have them.
Dvd camcorders use a weird codec therefore making them incompatable with macs. Also as far as I know all hard drive based camcorders use wird codecs to and I have only seen them with USB transfers not firewire, again making them incompatable with macs.
The best formats for mac in the lower end of the market are DV and for hd , HDV. Both are the easiest the edit, and the less fussiest across different platforms. Remeber 3ccd very important for what you want. Tape is still by far the best format to work with, you always have stuff on tape if your system fails , where as hard drives are more suspectable to failure. Take a look at the Panasonic 3ccd cameras there great. Tapeless is just not going to work for you.

Then get a new supervisor

Tape is still the best way to go. All the "new" technologies have problems. Buy a cheap tape camera for $500 and tell your supervisor you've saved $1000. I'm pretty sure even 3CCD tape cameras are less than $1000.

if low lights important do not buy a single chip camera!! think the 3ccd ones are a tad over 1k

Complete agreement here. Lose the brain dead supervisor. Tape is still the king.

mutters

If your boss wont let you go to a tape media, then any amount of advice saying how much better it is (debatable as it may be) is no help.

Because of what you have said I would say maybe look at a JVC MG-77, it has a "fast" lens (f1.2), but fails on nearly every criteria you have mentioned.

Some of the problems you are going to have are,
- You will get a much better camera for less money if you do go to tape and everyone will feel the need to rant on about this
- DVD models suck big time, I reckon about 60% of the DVD models our company moves come back with complaints, thankfully I've only ever had to hand over three or four where the customer wouldn't budge.
- Very few HDD models have viewfinders (off the top of my head cant think of any), and the viewfinders on DVD models are usually so small theyre useless
- Still photo quality in that price range sucks (although you may get away with it in a document depending on output)
- Very few HDD/DVD models will work with macs easily (not sure if thats a concern for you or not)
- 3ccd (or the better name 3-chip) cameras will help a (very) little bit in low light because of their better dynamic range, and generally lower noise characteristics. In most consumer end cameras the lens is such a let down (in letting enough light through) that there is no significant gain in terms of low light performance. Colour separation/rendering, different story.

If it were me, I'd be looking into some of the Panasonic 3-chip DV models, good all rounder for well within your spend limit.

Yep, the Panasonic 3CCD models are the best of the range when it comes to consumer camcorders. The GS-300 is under $1500 and is easy to use, works well with Macs and has great quality. It uses MiniDV tapes though, but yeah, your supervisor will probably never know if you never tell them

OK - I have seen the light - now for the hard sell on the boss!

After reviewing your suggestions, it looks like my best options are:

• Panasonic PV-GS320
• Panasonic PV-GS500
• Canon HV20

Eventhough I have parallels on my macbook pro, I would like to be able to edit using imovie (I'm assuming this is the best editing option for technophobic computer users like yours truly!)

All advice re the above 3 camcorders, or any other suggestions, will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for your help.

Another thing, HDD cameras are not likely to work on a Mac as they use propriety codec and software.

It's still a good couple of years before we get cheap usable hard drive cameras that will work better than tape.
The new sony format SxS (pron: S by S) sound fabulous and the new camera looks the bees knees but it'll be the wrong side of $12K in Aus I guess.
See Flash Memory Camera for more info on flash based cameras and the new format.
And I agree with what everyone else said here - Panasonic - 3CCD - Tape. Nothing else will match in the price range.

I also agree with this - Whether using a Mac or PC. Your supervisor is probably making the incorrect assumption that DVD/Hard drive = New digital technology, Tape = old analogue technology. That's wrong. DV tapes are digital. They just put the 1s and 0s on a tape.

DV is still what the professionals are using. The Hard Drive and DVD video cameras are really for people who don't really care about doing much editing on their computer. Your typical mum and dad Sat morning Harvey Norman shopper if you will. I doubt you guys fit into that category.

100% agreement there. Non tape enviroments are just catching on now, still quite a while untill they are mainstreem. The networks shoot tape for news, and as far as I know shows like home and away are just shooting to raids. But man oh man you gotta see the beast of a lead thats needed to transmit that data to a production truck, very limiting. Flash media advances especially in the new sony xdcam are very exiting and for mine thats where I see it going.

Within a short period of time well have 100-200gb flash cards able to record hrs and hrs of lovely hd video to. The new xdcam has 4 sony flash card slots , so its extremely cool. The new xd cam will be around 8k USD which for what it is , is an amazing unit.
My point here being this technology will filter down to consumer cameras eventually, this is where it will be not old hat hard drives. Just imagine your a pro and your inbuilt hard drive dies agrgrghrgrhrgrh!!!!

I bought a Panasonic camcorder SDRH-250 for about $950 in August 2007.

I have had a problem whereby the camera just refused to turn on. This happened a week before Xmas 2007. Its now May 2008 and the thing is still being repaired.

Panasonic have been deplorable. They refuse to assist in resolving the matter and treat me like I have done something wrong. The only thing I did wrong was to put faith in their product.

Panasonic continue to send faulty and used parts to repair my almost brand new camera. They send it by road as their policy is not to airfreight and this takes weeks. At the moment they sent a part to repair my camera and its gone missing. Its been 3 more weeks and they still have no idea where the part is. A resolution is still not in sight. Despite the fact that my newborn son is nearly having his first birthday and I have no footage of him crawling or walking, Panasonic remain defiantly uncaring.

My advice to anyone seeking to purchase a camcorder is to give Panasonic a very wide berth. If the camera works thats great, if it fails save yourself an ulcer, throw it in the bin and buy another. I'm told Sony have fabulous after sales service.

I will NEVER buy another Panasonic product.