Well, when you think of a camcorder, you probably envision those little hand-held mini dv camcorders that fit into the palm of your hand, right? Like all things, the camcorder had it’s own starting point, too. In the “old days”, the camcorder was very big and bulky. It was originally designed to be used to help capture news on the run. Today, they can be found in mini form and are even able to be recorded on many different media formats. The prices can vary, but thank your lucky stars that they have evolved; if they hadn’t, we’d still be lugging around those heavy vhs-beta recorders from the days of yesterday!

To really appreciate the camcorders of today, we must look at the camcorder of days gone by. When you look up camcorder in the encyclopedia, you encounter a long, rambling description. Basically, it says that a camcorder is a “portable electronic device (usually digital camera) for recording video images and audio onto a storage device. It contains both a camera and a recorder in one unit.” In the recording days preceding the camcorder, the camera and recorder would be separate in technology. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re on the look out for a new digital camcorder then you need to know what type of features to look for. It’s easy to get confused and hard to make sense of all the specifications. Looking for the right features is the key in finding the best camcorder for your needs. While you compare digital camcorder reviews and ratings, there are some items to consider.

You should have a general idea of what you need the mini dv camcorder for. Do you need a video camera for home movies? Or are you looking for a professional camcorder, for your next feature film? Think about what you are looking for so your camcorder comparison shopping won’t take as long.

Zoom

All digital camcorders have a zoom feature. Older analog camcorders only had optical zoom, but new digital video cameras have both optical and digital zoom. There is a difference between these two types of zoom. Optical zoom physically lengthens the lens,and will still give your videos high image quality. However digital zoom basically blows up the scene in a digital format. The problem with digital zoom is that when you zoom in on a subject the video becomes pixilated and blocky with little squares giving the video a blurred and distorted look.

If you’re wondering which zoom is better and more important, optical zoom. The more distance that your optical zoom can do, the more flexibility that you have when focusing in on a subject. I suggest a minimum of 10x optical zoom for most consumers. Read the rest of this entry »