What video camera to buy?

[Luke]

With our first kid expected in less than 3 months my wife has been thinking about getting a video camera for family use. I would love it if I could swing a Go Pro Hero 2 for catching the kids first steps <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="text-decoration: underline">and</span></span> for catching my cold bore impacts at 1200yds... however, never using one I don't know how user friendly the Go Pro's are for the wife's point and shoot requirements. The other one I was looking at is the Kodak Playsport.
Whatever we get I'd like 1080p, and the longer the battery life and memory capability the better. The wide 170* FOV, and time-lapse mode the Go Pro offers is another big selling point for me.

Any suggestions would be great!

*just saw that the Go Pro doesn't have a video playback screen...that might be a deal breaker for the wife...

 

[Luke]

Re: What video camera to buy?

This review is worth watching even if you're not interested in a Go Pro...

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[jcfd2201]

Re: What video camera to buy?

One thing to consider if you are looking at HD cams is the zoom. Since you are wanting to use it for seeing bullet impact at longer distances you want a higher optical zoom. Many cams have high zoom but the higher end is digital. The problem with that is the image can become grainy. Stick to something that has a higher optical zoom.

 

[oldgrayone]

Re: What video camera to buy?

I just purchased a panasonic hdc tm900k this week after reading reviews for a few months. It has a 12 x optical zoom and up to 30x digital zoom and a 32 gig flash memory. I am still learning with it but so far I am happy. The retail is over 1k but I found mine at amazon for 600. The camera will slap do stills with a burst feature for action stills and it also has a lot of added features for different situations. Included battery life is about 1.5 hours. The 3.5 in screen is good but I still fat finger items when using the menus buy a stylus is included with the camera. I am not saying this is the best camera in it's range but after many months of research and mind confusing info this one kept rising to the surface within my price range.