After a lot of hours and many days researching the best HD camcorders in the $450-$600 price range, I finally settled on two choices. I ended up getting the Canon Vixia HF200 because it was reported to have really good indoor video quality for its price range.

In a high definition camcorder the sensor size is important. Even though the HF200 has the same sensor size as many others in its price range, it is somehow able to do things with that image that others can’t. Indoor picture quality is really amazing. It’s to be expected that it won’t be perfect, and won’t be as good as outdoor video. But if you are like me and take most of your videos inside then you don’t want a camera that will ruin those memories. The Canon seems to have more than enough ability to take great images.

The price is about $600 right now, although I have seen as high as $750. It records to SDHC cards so you don’t have to worry about the internal harddrive freezing up and losing any precious memories. You can buy these cards for pretty cheap and the prices are always dropping.

The HF200 doesn’t come with an HDMI cable for direct hookup to an HD TV, you’ll want to buy one yourself. Be sure to get a mini HDMI to HDMI cable as the port size on the camcorder is smaller than standard TV ports.

This model fits snugly in your hand and isn’t too heavy. It’s compact, will fit in a jacket pocket and has a lot of internal controls for adjusting white balance, zoom and a variety of other things in case you want to tweak your videos to perfection.

For my full review including pictures please visit the Canon Vixia HF200 Review site.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Filed under: Every Day Life

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!