Is it worth me upgrading my camcorder?

cambsno

cambsno

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I bought my current one almost 6 years ago, a Panasonic HD5 as that seemed to be a very good one for my budget. I know technology moves on so keen to know if its worth upgrading.

I only really use it for footage of the kids - out and about and in the home. To be honest the Panny is fine and does the job I need, but while I am up to date with camera tech, i dont know much about camcorders... So, with a budget of £400, would I benefit from a new one?
 
What areas do you think your current camera is deficient in?

In the past 5 years there's been increases in codec performance, sensor low light performance and in camera processing. But not by a huge amount.

Depends what you shoot. You may be better off buying some LED panels, a shotgun and a lavalier and a shoulder mount.
 
To be honest it does what I want, but didnt know if things like resolution/low light was much better. For example, when I bougt it the D80 was the current model. now we have the D7100 which is far better. Didnt know if this improvement had been carried over into video.
 
Video cameras like any camera improves over the years. A new camera may have additional features such as WiFi possibly a better chip, maybe has more user controls. But if what you've got works, and you don't find it wanting then I really wouldn't bother upgrading.
 
Thought I would update this and canvas more opinion!

Have a Disney trip next year to look forward to so now would be the time to look at upgrading rather than after i come back!

As stated, the camcorder is fine, but then so is my D300 but the D750 is a massive improvement! Silly question but is HD better now than then, and would IQ have improved much?
 
Technology moves on. And yes a modern camera may have better IQ, but it's also the imaging chain that can make a difference as well. Modern software can make a significant improvement. However you are off to Disney next year and you don't want to be worrying about should I have bought a better camera. I would say go ahead and get a new camera if you can afford it. You've committed to a significant amount of money on the Disney trip so you really want to make the most of it.

I'd spend the next few months researching suitable cameras. What I would buy may not be the one you would. There seem to be a lot of competent cameras around at your price point. I don't think there are any Video magazines still published that would do the reviews you might be interested in. However there are a few web sites that offer short reviews which may help. Might get you down to a short list
 
Thanks, I know nothing about video, so unsure about what to look for, and also what is important - Many people still think the more MP the better the camera! Are there a few basic pointers I should be looking for in terms of specs?
 
If you are shooting HD video there is no need to go mad on pixel count HD is 1080 x 1920 pixels , so anything bigger needs to be resized down. Never a good thing. The size of the chip on the other hand is different. Bigger the better. The bigger the chip the larger the pixels the more light gathering and therefore less noise. But don't get hung up on this, most modern cameras will produce reasonable results.

At your price point I would simply look for a camera you find easy to use, maybe has slo-mo if you want it. I'd also opt for a camera that uses replaceable media such as SD cards, rather than ones with just internal storage. Some offer both such as the Canon HF R48
 
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