Advice Please? Small AVCHD Camera?

BrianMurphy

BrianMurphy

Veteran
A friend of mine is about to head out on a journey around the world visiting different not for profit and volunteer projects. Aside from volunteering which his many goal he wants to document his journey. In pursuit of this he recently bought himself a new laptop, the macbook 13 and on my advice he bought an HV30. I had no idea the macbook he bought didn`t have a firewire port. He can not return the computer but still can return the camera. His best bet in my opinion when you consider he is very space restricted when travelling is an AVCHD camera and a portable drive for media storage at least until Apple lets us cut AVCHD natively.
Opinions? Camera suggestions?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Brian

PS: Who would have thought Apple would not include a firewire port in one of their computers....? Me!
 
BrianMurphy said:
A friend of mine is about to head out on a journey around the world visiting different not for profit and volunteer projects. Aside from volunteering which his many goal he wants to document his journey. In pursuit of this he recently bought himself a new laptop, the macbook 13 and on my advice he bought an HV30. I had no idea the macbook he bought didn`t have a firewire port. He can not return the computer but still can return the camera. His best bet in my opinion when you consider he is very space restricted when travelling is an AVCHD camera and a portable drive for media storage at least until Apple lets us cut AVCHD natively.
Opinions? Camera suggestions?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Brian

PS: Who would have thought Apple would not include a firewire port in one of their computers....? Me!
Click to expand...

The Sony HDR-SR11/12 are AVCHD based cameras. It has an internal disk drive to record, so if 'moving parts' is an issue, then perhaps there are some SDHC card based cameras out... otherwise it's reasonably small, and has a USB interface.
 
Edweirdo said:
does his macbook have a pcmcia slot? It should, and then he can add a firewire port:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...181_EF_Dual_Link_Cardbus_.html#specifications

if you still want to go the cam route-

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/539291-REG/Canon_2708B001_VIXIA_HF_100_AVCHD_Flash.html

this way he doesnt have to lug around tapes- he can just keep saving the files on his mac and re-use the same SDHC cards over and over and edit when he gets back home.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately the new MacBook 13 looks like the pro model with its silver finish but is not. it has no slot and no firewire. Good thought however thanks again.
 
Canon HG21, shoots on 120gb internal HDD or SDHC cards. any usb card reader works with those.
 
The new Canon HF S10 will have a built in 32GB storage and shoot in AVCHD with 24mbps. Will be released next month. He should look into that cam :).
 
I just picked up the Samsung SC-HMX20c camera; it shoots 1080/60i, 1080/30p, SD, and even 300 FPS slow motion (448 x 332). Of interest is that the single chip image sensor (6 MP) is 0.56" (1/1.8") CMOS; large for a consumer camera.

It has a 10x optical zoom, 6.3mm --> 63mm (31mm to 310mm on a 35mm camera) and uses standard 49mm filters. It's small, 2.60" x 2.65" x 5.35" and weighs about 1 pound. It records to standard SDHC cards and even has 8 GB of internal memory.

Given that this is a consumer camera, the image looks really good.

The camera also offers in camera editing; where one can split clips, delete clips, and glue 2 clips together. The clips must be of the same resolution and frame rate. All cuts occur between each GOP.

I'm still testing the camera out and will write a full review later on... Oh yes, the list price is $850. (I lucked out and got it on sale for $550!!!) :)


Bob Diaz
 
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