Memories on a budget

Last night I attended my six year old's spring/summer program at his school, and looking around, it was more like what you would think a news press conference would be than a kindergarten sing-a-long; camcorders as far as the eye could see, people taking pictures with their digital cameras, picture phones, it was like we just discovered these kids for the first time. Now, we had our own camera, but I have been thinking for the longest time about upgrading to a new video cam for a while.

To be honest, the one we have right now seems like it's back from the 1970s and resembles more of a TV camera like the one in the photo. I may be exaggerating a teensy bit (Noooooooo!), but it sure feels like that. Now, the thing is with camcorders is that while technology improves and things seem to get smaller and smaller, many of the cams have not gone down in price but rather upward. So I did some research on some things I thought would be the most economical for us Dads to get "Memories on a Budget". I am going to highlight a few that I think fit this "box" in this post and the next couple posts as well,

The best bang for your buck, in my opinion, is the Canon ZR850. The cheapest one I could find new was about 160.00, and for this price, you get an affordable MiniDV and the menu is really seemingly easy to use. Although for us still in the stone age where you can't transfer analog to digital, you get a camera with high end features such as optical zoom of 35x and a 1 CCD sensor which gives much better overall production for stills. All of the controls are literally at your fingertips and for those of us who sometimes can be mechanically-declined, it's a very user friendly camera.

There are some drawbacks, but remember that you're not buying the high end DVD type camera, but yet still have Canon quality, and for me, that's a win-win situation that doesn't punch my wallet in the gut (I already have two kids that do that) but yet allows for a good quality product.

TAGS: Camcorder Reviews, Camcorders, Cameras, Canon, Digital Cameras, Gadgets, Product Reviews, Video Cameras, Zr850
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