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Question

Which semi-pro camcorder to buy?

Nov 23, 2011 2:16AM PST

Looking for
a camcorder and really need some help. My old Canon XM2 (GL2) is just not doing
the job anymore, and I am tired of tapes and standard res. Not to mention it's
starting to look antique, so it's not really giving me that professional confidence
boost when I pull it out.




What I am
looking for is something like this:




- Full HD
avchd

- Midsize
with handle. Need a pro look for my business so a small one, won't do the job.

- Record to
SD card and/or internal memory (flash or HD)

- Decent
wide angle (or a cam to which a good wide-adapter can be bought at a reasonable
price)


- Decent
battery time.


- Heavy
enough for steady handling, light enough to be able to shoot using the handle
for some time.


- Good low
light quality as I will be shooting lots inside and not always with optimal
light.


- Generally
speaking, image quality more important than audio quality.


- Maximum
price: Around 4,500 USD / 2.800 GBP




These are
the cams I have been looking at:




- Sony
HXR-NX70E

- Canon
XF100

- Panasonic
AG-HMC40/41

- Sony
NEX-VG2OEH




The Sony
HXR-NX70 gets great lowlight reviews, but it's expensive and I don't know if I
would be paying for lots of stuff I will never need (like the jungle-thing,
waterproof, dustproof etc)




The Canon
XF100 also at the very top of my budget, but seems like an overall great
camera.



The
Panasonic is affordable and I think would certainly do the job had I always a
perfect light set-up, but I am worried that the lense is small and that it does
a bad job in less than great light. I am tempted by an offer right now of 2040
GBP for the camera + XLR-adapter + iPad.




The Sony
NEX-VG2, i Just saw this, looks different and interesting, but can't compare
the lense really, so am fairly clueless.




Any cams I
have left out?

And which of these would you suggest and why?

Discussion is locked