What is a good digital camcorder to purchase for low light situations?

Question

I'm looking for a moderately priced digital camcorder that will record high quality footage in low level light situations, but also have really good sound quality. Mostly for recording live music in small club type settings. Geek speak is Greek to me. I get really confused when people talk about bites and pixels and whatnot. I just want something that can see in the (not completely) dark without being green. If someone can recommend a brand/ product name that would be great.

Answer 1

"Moderate" means different things to different people.

Good low light generally means either big imaging chips and big lenses to allow as much light in to hit those big imaging chips. The imaging chips are like the retina in you eye. They need light to work well - big lenses allow more light in. The good news is (I think) is *most* clubs have some sort of lighting and the talent is under those lights. That means the talent is not necessarily under "low light" though you might be at the back of the room and the camera will be surrounded by low light, it will be pointed at the talent - that is lit.

My opinion: There is no camcorder with good built-in mics. Whatever camcorder you get should have a mic-in jack so when you discover that the built-ins are not good enough, you have a recovery path.

DO NOT GET A DVD BASED CAMCORDER.

Since miniDV tape provides the best available video quality, that is where I will stay...

Low end:

Canon ZR800, ZR900, ZR930

While these camcorders do have mic in jacks, they do not have manual audio control. If the audio you record is loud, the camcorder's auto-mic gain circuit will not be able to handle it. There will be lots of clipping and the audio will sound very muddy. The best mic in the world cannot fix this and the bad audio cannot be fixed in editing. You can replace the audio with properly recorded audio from a field recorder (like those from Marantz, M-Audio or Zoom).

Mid range - some might consider this "moderate":

Canon HV20, HV30

Sony HDR-HC7, HC9

They are around or over $700.

All four cams have a mic-in jack and full manual audio control. These are the least expensive camcorders with both. They all shoot in standard definition (DV) and high definition (HDV), so you have a choice as to which format you want on the miniDV tape.

As miniDV tape camcorders, you will transfer the video from the camcorder to your computer using firewire (IEEE1394a, .Link - all the same thing). USB will not work to tansfer the video from the miniDV tape. You will need to add a firewire 400 port to your computer if you don't already have one. Macs have had them for years.

Since we have gotten this far, I will list the high-end recommended cams, too - Just so you understand where I came up with "moderate":

Canon XHA1

Sony HVR-V1U

Panasonic HDX200

These are all around or over $3,000.