What is the difference between purchasing a camcorder with night shot plus vs one with a built in light?

Question

I attend a lot of candlelight parties so I'm looking to purchase a camcorder that can record in very low light.

Answer 1

There are different terms...

In the Sony world, the "nightshot" feature is a built-in infrared emitter which lets you take video in total darkness (or VERY low light), but the video is monochromatic - typically green/white not black/white. I find them to be useful (but grainey) up to about 8-10 feet away, but people's and animal's eyes look very odd.

Using a regular video light (whether built-in or added on) uses normal visible light. Typically, the built-in or less expensive add-ons are not very bright so for them to be useful you need to be really close (3-5 feet) to whatever you are capturing to video.

For a camera to capture well in low light, it needs to have a BIG lens and a BIG imaging chip system. A camcorder with a single BIG CMOS or CCD will out perform a camera with 3 small CCDs. I am not aware of any camcorders less than $1,000 with 3 CMOS chips.

Camcorders in the less than $700 range will be able to pick up the candlelight easily because the flame is bright, but people images lit by the candlelight will be very grainy, unless they are a foot or closer to the candle - which would be dangerous and not recommended.