Best HD Camcorder for low light with a hard drive, great sound, and a reasonable price?

Question

Looks like someone forgot the reasonable price part. $3 or $4K is a little more than what most people would deem as reasonable, IMO.

Answer 1

With the features you are asking for?

A Canon XHA1 or Sony HVR-Z1U with a Firestore external hard drive. You will also need external mics. The Audio Technica AT-825 stereo mic is what I use for live music. The NRG SA-568 (camera mount), Shure SM-58 UHF wireless (handheld) or Shure UHF wireless lavalieres are what I use for interviews.

Answer 2

find a machine that has easy to use gain controls to work with low light situations.

i have been sony cams recently and they work very well under those conditions.

Answer 3

Since you added the $ later... the only cameras that come close to your specs are the Canon HV20, HV30, Sony HDR-HC7 and HC9.

Some would say that no camcorder has great built-in mics - but with either of these 4, they all have 1/8" mic-in jacks and they all have full manual audio control.

Their low-light capabilities will be nowhere near the others listed by Nu'uanu. Great low-light requires big glass and big imaging chips. These items are expensive. Two of the reasons (among others) the camera's Nu'uanu listed are expensive.

Oh... and don't bother with the hidef units with internal hard drive unless you want to go through the AVCHD headaches... Just get a firewire port on your computer and go with firewire transfer of DV/HDV.