The best one out there under $1000 is the HC90 for low light.
It lacks some options that you are looking for.
It does not have mic input, but it does have a hot shoe for Sony mics.
It does not have headphone out.
It does not have some of the manual controls that the 3ccd Panasonics have.
The Panasonics are not very good when the lights are low, but they have the manual features you are looking for.
If you want excellent quality video in low light and the manual options, you would have to step up to the $2000 range.
Hey everybody,
I am looking for a camera for making some amatuer short movies/documentaries with friends, but i don't want to pay too much as I am just starting out. I obviosuly want the video to be as high-quality as possible, and I have heard that what you need for this is good low-light quality, which means big ccd size. I was originially going to get the Canon Elura 70, which seemed like a good camera to me, but I have since found out that camcorders in this price range have poor low-light quality. I am willing to pay more, but I just need something high-quality to do the job, without spending thousands.
Other things which wound be a bonus to me are:
-plenty of inputs/outputs (AV input, mic input, headphone output)
-plenty of manual options to play around with
*Does anyone have any recommendations?*
Things that I have been looking into are the sony HC90 and the 3CCD Panasonic range. Has anyone had any experience with these?
thanks in advance for any help.

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