Before you get a camcorder it is very necessary to determine the purpose of getting the camcorder. A nature lover or a traveler or a Grand parent who wish to record their grandchild’s activity or a parent who likes to capture their friends marriage or a short week end trip, the list goes on, for all these you definitly need a good, high quality stills and videos at affordable price. Covered below are some of the basic accessories to be taken care of while getting a camcorder.

Digital Zoom and Optical Zoom

The functions of the digital zoom is to magnify the image pixels. This doesn’t mean that you get closer to the image, it just enlarge the picture resulting in grainy dots to the video. For better understanding blowing up a normal picture up to 500% on your computer is a best example, the larger you zoom, more grainier the image becomes. While choosing a digital video camcorder, the optical zoom number counts. It is the work of the optical zoom to magnify an image to get a closer view. Thus while getting a camcorder make sure that it possess a good optical zoom.

Megapixel

Megapixel, the most common word which most of us might across while getting a camcorder. The pixel count means just the still image taken with the camcorder. For quality videos you will have to look up for the chip count of the camcorder. The 1 CCD camcorder differ from the 3 CCD camcorder in the depth of the color where the 3 CCD has got more color intensity. The common and most used 1/3 inch CCD gives you improved image than its later versions viz 1/4 inch and 1/6 inch. In recent days, a new technology have bloomed up, the CMOS sensor. The size of the CMOS sensor matters more for superior quality.

Wide Angle Shots

One of the other main feature to be looked in digital camcorder is its capability to shoot wide angle shots which determines how far you must be placed from the object to get clearer and sharp images. Make sure that the wide angles capture your images within the frame ignoring the object distant. A good camcorder must be able to capture objects into the frame with respect to any distant.

Low Light Conditions

It is not enough that your camcorder works well under day light. It is equally important that you camcorder produces clearer and sharper images under dim light, room light and at night. Most of the camcorders fail to keep up its quality under low light, the videos shot during the dim lighting conditions appear to be unsmooth and grainy. It is advisable that you ask the dealer to demonstrate the camcorder under dim light. Now a days various night mode features have come up to facilitate brighter high definition videos under all environmental changes.

Know About The Recording Formats

Explained below are about four commonly used recording formats viz Flash Memory, MiniDV, Hard Drive and DVD

MiniDV

MiniDV is the most common format used for video recording. Depending upon the record mode, each tape had got a capability to record about 60-90 minutes of video. One of the drawback of MiniDV is that you cannot directly edit the clippings, you will have to import it to your PC which in-turn consumes little time to download. Since it is gives us more recording time and available at affordable price, they are most commonly used.

DVD

Some camcorders use DVD as a recording media among which Standard size DVD+R or DVD-R are been used often while the mini DVD concept is quiet famous now as it is been employed by the Sony Camcorder. The recording time of DVD is approximately about 20 minutes and is cheaper than the MiniDV. If you rarely edit your footage then DVD camcorders must be the best choice, or if you happen edit often then you must make sure you get DVD editor for revising the video.

Hard Drive

Hard Drive is another recording format which makes it easy to transfer footage to the PC quickly for editing. Depending upon the camera capacity the hard drive works fine. In case if the hard drive capacity exhausts then you will have to delete the videos in order to keep recording, which is the major drawback behind this recording format.

Flash Memory

Flash memory is the latest and the most commonly used recording format giving you an hour of recording time for 1GB. Transferring files to PC or hard drive is made so simple and easy with flash memory. All you have to do is to just simply copy the videos to hard drive for editing. The flash memory cards are quiet expensive than other cards but gives us lot of convenience.

With all these basic tips, I am sure that you will find the right camcorder that promptly suit your needs. All the best!

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