Decent video camcorder for wedding?

Hi.

I'm getting married next year. :dance:

Instead of having a videographer, we've decided to have a more personal touch to the video taking.

I would like to purchase 3 video camcorders and give them to various groups of guests so they can take videos of whatever they want, get interviews/remarks from family/friends. I'll then collect them and make an awesome video and view all the footage. :biggrin:

Can anyone recommend a decent video camcorder?

It'll need to record in HD (or a better resolution, if you think it matters?) and have a decent amount of battery life - something which might last 6 hours of filming? How much disk size should I be looking at? Are there any other features I should look at which will enhance the videos?

Also, can you recommend a decent GoPro so I can hook it on to my little cousin?

I'm very ignorant about camcorders, so help would be appreciated.

Ideally, I'd like to spend about £50 - £100 per camcorder - though I can persuaded to buy a more expensive one if you can convince me!

Main points:

I need to buy 3 video camcorders for guests to record wedding next year.
It will need to record at least HD and have a bit of decent zoom action.
It will need a decent amount of battery time - 6 hours of recording?
How much disk size should I be looking at?
Are there any other features you would recommend?
Budget - £50 - £100. Can be increased if need be.
Can you recommend a decent GoPro - I would to link it on to my cute little cousin so she can run about and talk to people.

Reply 1

username612415

Original post by Kagutsuchi

need to buy 3 video camcorders for guests to record wedding next year.
It will need to record at least HD and have a bit of decent zoom action.
It will need a decent amount of battery time - 6 hours of recording?
How much disk size should I be looking at?
Are there any other features you would recommend?
Budget - £50 - £100. Can be increased if need be.
Can you recommend a decent GoPro - I would to link it on to my cute little cousin so she can run about and talk to people.

Congrats on the engagement :h:

For within your budget there's going to be virtually nothing to differentiate the features or quality of different cameras, as your budget is about as low as it gets unfortunately. Even buying second hand stuff doesn't really break into anything much better without increasing your budget.

If you want to buy new stuff, stick with your original budget and look for cameras with the lowest minimum "aperture" and highest maximum "ISO". Aperture is the measurement of how wide the lens opening is, the wider the opening the more light the camera lets in. ISO is essentially how bright the camera's processor chooses to make the image, the higher the maximum ISO the brighter the image can be made (which means the camera can use faster shutter speeds in low light to prevent things like motion blur). Both of these things will be the largest factors for getting the best quality footage in low light, which is likely to be important unless the entire ceremony is likely to take place outside in the middle of the day! As I mentioned previously, odds are there won't be a whole lot of variation between cameras and brands at this price range, but those are the factors I would be looking for.

If you're happy to increase your budget and buy used cameras, start shopping around for Sony RX100 mk 1 cameras. The RX100 series have been the most popular cameras among YouTubers for years, thanks to their excellent video quality and wide aperture lenses that let in loads of light. The mk 1 version of this camera costs about £250 bought new, so with any luck you can find used models for somewhere in the £150-£175 mark. It's pricey compared to your original £100 budget, but the jump in quality will be substantial!

As for memory sizes, any modern camera will accept an SD card. How much space is recommended will vary from camera to camera, however you can pick up 32GB SD cards for less than a tenner on Amazon- pick up 3 of these for as little as £25 and they will have more than enough space for a day of intermittent filming and photos.

Reply 2

Kagutsuchi

Thanks! Being engaged is awesome. :biggrin:

I actually already have a professional photographer, so the camera function isn't really something I care about, neither is super high quality - that being said, I don't want something grainy and outdated either.

I'm looking for just a simple video camcorder with a mic, like this:

Something simple, easy to hold, can record high quality videos with a decent battery life, and which doesn't break the bank, since I'll be getting 2/3 of them. :smile:

The Sony RX100 series looks great, but it's really not what I'm looking for. I'd really like the video people to be able to comfortably hold the camcorder and look the part - they'll be getting comments/responses/reactions from the crowd throughout the day.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 3

username612415

Original post by Kagutsuchi

Thanks! Being engaged is awesome. :biggrin:

The advice I gave was relative to both cameras and camcorders :yep:

However you'll actually get better video performance, especially in low light, from a RX100 than any camcorder in this price range, either new or second hand. Digital stills cameras have almost entirely supplanted camcorders for non-professionals (and even professionals will use stills-oriented DSLRs for anything below broadcast-grade filming), the only real advantage is ergonomic at this point. And at such a low budget, grainy video footage will be the biggest thing you have to contend with and a camcorder in your original budget will fare no better than a stills-style camera shooting 1080p video. This is why I suggested jumping to the RX100- it uses a large sensor and wide aperture lens to take in substantially more light than any sub-£150 camera or camcorder can achieve at this price point, allowing it to keep ISO down as low as possible which means as little grain as possible.

If you're determined that you want camcorders, shop around and use the low aperture and high ISO stats that I mentioned before for your best chance of getting decent low light footage.

Reply 4

Kagutsuchi

Would something like this do:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-HDR-CX405-Full-Camcorder-Optical/dp/B00REMCYLA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477748870&sr=8-1&keywords=Sony+CX405

Nice, simple, fairly inexpensive. The following results are almost exactly what I want too:

Is there something better? :beard:

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 5

username612415

Original post by Kagutsuchi

Is there something better? :beard:

It will be fine. As I mentioned before there's really not a whole lot to separate camcorders at the low end and I still think you'd be better off with a few RX100s, but Sony's image stabilisation and image processing are normally top notch so this should be about as good in low light as you could hope to get for a traditional camcorder at this price point.