There are three things that are VERY important when getting a
camera:
Three CCD’s or CMOS
Manual controls for the iris, shutter, focus and white balance.
A microphone input.
The JVC GZ-HD7, the first of the JVC HDD cameras is now a little
over a year old and discontinued, but I’ve seen these on line for
as little as $800. A really nice Fujinon lens makes a huge
difference and full manual controls is important. Three 1/5’ 16:9
progressive scan CCD’s are pretty impressive for a camera in this
price range. It has manual controls, a mic input and an excellent
focus ring which is surprisingly rare on small cameras. It
records directly to a built in 60GB hard drive. The issue here is
the MPEG-2 compression (TOD). It’s not compatible with many NLE’s
so you’ll need to convert the TOD to QuickTime or AVI.
The GZ-HD6 can record 1080/60p through HDMI - pretty impressive.
The GZ-HD40 is a bit of a disappointment. I like that it records
using AVCHD compression which makes it compatible with most NLE’s
but it loses the important focus ring. And it’s so small.
The Panasonic HDC-SD100 uses a 3-CMOS array and records 1920 x
1080 video in the AVCHD format to SD and SDHC memory cards. I
like the ring on the lens that controls zoom, focus, white
balance, shutter speed, and iris and it actually has a viewfinder
in addition to the LCD screen. Very important it has both a mic
and headphone jack. I found it difficult to handle with all the
cables attached (mic, headphones and monitor) but it’s a camera
with all the basics.
The Panasonic HDC-HS300 is a fine camera. I got to use it in
January for a little test run shooting some behind the scenes
footage for a model shoot in Las Vegas. I likes the focus ring -
a great improvement over similar cameras. But I didn’t like the
touch screen controls. On the plus side it has the essentials -
headphone and mic jacks and manual control over all the basics. I
like that it uses the AVCHD format. There is a nice toggle switch
at the front of the lens for switching between the zoom and the
focus. It took just a few tries for me to master it.
Close is the Canon HV20. It’s an excellent camera. It records in
HDV (1080i) and 24p (60i), has a mic input and manual controls of
white balance and focus but it uses one 1/2.7” CMOS sensor rather
than 3 CCD’s. My only reservation is it’s so small the handling
is difficult.
The HV30 adds a 30f (Canon’s “frame mode”) in addition to 24p.
The Sony HDR-SR12 has a mic input and a good sized 120GB HDD. It
uses a 1/3” CMOS chip and like the Canon is really small. Because
of the input placement, the mic cable kept getting in my way. The
HR9 (which records to tape) is also a nice, very small, camera
with the essentials. Again the mic input is just below the lens
which is rather poor placement, in my opinion.