Whats a decent enough digtal video camera?

Question

all i want is to be able to take photos of my baby for memories and to be able to video it aswell with good memory card or whatever i needd to tape it onto a dvd or video for when she gets older to see it,

what would be good memory ex:megabytes or gigabites or whatever they're called i don't have a clue what decent memory is.

what is a good make camera?

Answer 1

Any video camera will do the job of recording your home videos.

Your computer probably has a free video editing program.  Windows Movie Maker comes in MS Windows, and you can download it for free from Microsoft if it is not already on your computer.  Macs come with iLife which includes iMovie and iDVD.  There are also other full version video editing programs available in free non-demo downloads for Windows, OSX, and Linux.  Most have basic abilities, but some have very advanced capabilities.  If you need a program that is a bit more advanced, you can purchase Sony Vegas Pro, Avid's Pinnacle Studio, or Final Cut Express for less than $100.

Unless you need a digital still photo camera for specific photography needs, the best option is to just get the best video camera you can afford.  Older camcorders do not take very good photos, but several of the newer HD camcorders take very good 6 megapixel photos and sometimes better.  Be careful with this since there are also many digital still photo cameras advertised as 6, 8, and even 10 megapixel video cameras.  These cameras take very good photos 6-10mp photos, but they take very low resolution video - lower than SD and VGA quality in most cases.

If you need photos from your video camera, it is best in most cases to just take video.  Most editing programs allow you to export video frames as very good high quality photos - much better than what most video cameras and some digital still photo can take in the photo mode.  This works best with HD video recordings.

The real question for your situation is what format will be best to record in.   Well, since your computer is specifically set up for DV tape, and DV tape is designed for long term storage, a camcorder that records to HDV (or miniDV) tape is recommended.  This is the most economical recording media, and it is the only consumer-level recording media that has long term storage ability.

Be sure to NOT purchase the basic consumer grade tape from Wal-Mart and similar stores.  Go online to Amazon and get the Professional AY-DVM63PQ Professional quality tape. These tapes are built with 2-3 times the quality of the standard tape, and you can get them on Amazon in packs of 10 for half the price of consumer grade tape at Wal-Mart and other stores.  You can also choose to get the HDV marked tape which is even better, but you will definitely pay for them.

If you choose  different recording medium, or if you want to start editing your dv tape video, you will also need a good hard drive with at least 500gb of storage.  Many external 500gb drives are as low as $100, and if you have a desktop, you can add a second internal hard drive to your system for even less.  If you do add a second hard drive to your system (especially your desktop), it is recommended that you use the drive only for your video needs.  If you need to store other material on the drive, then it is best that you partition a section of the drive for video only.

Either way, it is very easy to record video to tape, store it, capture it to the computer via Firewire, edit it, and burn it to DVD or save it to another format for uploading to a website or adding to email.

Answer 2

Video cameras aren't the best digital cameras but some do a decent job. You'll want want one with at least 3-4 megapixels for photos and some camera type functions like flash and auto focus. Optical image stabilization and zoom are also good to get. A good lens like Carl Zeiss or Leica is best too. Check to be sure it will allow you to take pictures while filming.

They aren't cheap,I found a Sanyo Xacti VPC-C40 for under $200 on Amazon a couple of weeks ago, but it was refurbished. The Sony DCR-HC96 MiniDV looked pretty good too...It was around $360 I think. Many are $500-$1300. I would want at least 1GB of memory so you don't have to constantly download.

Answer 3

dont spend more than 100 dollars on it. (theyre really expensive) dont worry about memery when your getting the camera. you can always get better memory cards later on.

burning to a dvd you do with your computer, any digital camera can do it.