Hi Alex,
I have always been lazy and just gone with Sony cameras - they have a good reputation after all!
Just a couple of things I would look out for -
1. Get a camera with a built in Hard Drive. They are off the charts these days (my Sony SR-11 has a 60gig drive which equates to about 10 hours of Hi Def footage!) No need any more to worry about tapes or dvd's. If you are worried about losing files, most cameras will have a memory card/stick slot that you can backup to.
2. Battery life - I don't think I've ever run down my Nikon battery to below half, but not so my video camera - it churns through the small battery that was supplied with. But again, technology is there to help out - I have the biggest battery Sony makes for my camera and it lasts for up to 13 hours!
3. Lux level - depending on what your friend wants to use the camera for, this is important. Basically it is a rating of how the camera performs in low light. The lower the number, the better the camera with cope when things get dark. My old camera was rated at 0 lux and it was able to focus and keep quality in pretty dark envirnments, whereas my new camera is 3 lux (I think) and it struggles in even
moderate light.
4. Video format - of course, more is better, but remember that HiDef chews memory and most likely needs specific editing programs to open and run.
5. Still images... Well that's what I have a D80 for! I guess it is handy to have the option of taking stills, but the quality is poor compared to an SLR... I've found I hardly ever take still on the camera, but I often capture a decent quality stills off the video.
I hope this helps! Just for the record I have been pretty happy with my SR-11e, although for the cost (~$1500) I expected a little better performance in low light...
Chris
Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:21 pm