Essential Camcorder Features

When browsing the net or out shopping for a camcorder to produce [tag-tec]website videos[/tag-tec] you will be presented with a myriad of specifications and features. It can be quite confusing at first but you should really know which features are important and which are not.

As mentioned elsewhere on the site we use and prefer a miniDV camcorder and this is what we are concentrating on in this section.

These features are what I consider the more important and which you should pay special attention to.

CCDs. One CCD is normal in consumer quality camcorders and three CCDs provide better quality but are a lot more expensive. One is adequate but three would be nice.

Optical Zoom . Specification sheets usually list optical zoom and digital zoom seperately, more about digital zoom later. Focus on optical zoom and look for a camcorder with optical zoom in the 12x - 25x range.

Batteries. Lithium Ion batteries are supplied with the majority of camcorders but be aware that NiMH (nickel-metal-hydride) batteries are not so efficient and are not so easy to maintain.

External microphone . This is really a must for the sake of sound quality and the camcorder must have a MIC terminal. Without an [tag-ice]external microphone[/tag-ice] you videos will suffer with poor sound quality. Some high end camcorders will have a 3-pin XLR connector which are used by high quality microphones.

Manual controls . Virtually all camcorders offer automatic focus and exposure control but sometimes manual control is preferable and availability of this feature is important.

FireWire terminal. Possibly called a DV terminal, this is important for high speed capture and transfer of your videos to your computer.

Remote control . Not supplied with lots of camcorders but important especially if you are working alone recording yourself. Nothing worse that getting up and down starting and stopping the camcorder.

The following features sound good but are not so important when choosing a camcorder.

Still photos . Many camcorders take still photos. This is handy at times but normally the quality is poor and even cheap digital still cameras take better photos than a camcorder. Better to have a seperate camera.

USB port . Some camcorders offer a USB connection in addition to FireWire. Useful for transferring still photos into your computer but not suitable for transferring video.

Built in light . If the built in light works as a flash for still photos, it at least serves a purpose. Not much use at all for video though.

Features that are essentially useless and can be ignored.

In camera special effects . Special effects can be added much more effectively during editing so ignore this feature.

Digital zoom . Digital zoom crops the picture captured by the CCD then makes each remaining pixel bigger to fill the screen making the image appear blocky and pixelated resulting in greatly reduced quality. Despite how impressive the digital zoom figures appear, it is not a feature worth considering. Make sure that digital zoom can be disconnected.