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Samsung F50 SD vs. Panasonic HX-DC1

robzwolf

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Posted August 10, 2011 at 1:20PM

Hi...

I'm struggling to choose a camcorder...

I've narrowed down my searches to two camcorders.

The Samsung records video in 720x480 pixels, but has a 52x optical zoom (65x Intellizoom, 1200x digital zoom). I also prefer this shape. The Panasonic records video in 1920x1080 pixels, but only has a 12x zoom.

I have to be able to screw the camcorder onto a tripod for video filming. I have a green screen.

My current setup involves my iPhone 4 being stuck to a music stand with blu-tac, standing on a washing basket. Not ideal, as you can imagine.

What would your thoughts be? If you had to choose, would you rather have the SD camera with mega zoom, or full HD camera with limited zoom?

I prefer the chunky block shaped camcorders to the hand held upright ones.

I'm not over the top excited about full HD, if anyone could find a good camcorder that takes decent stills, good zoom and 720p video, that can be fixed to a tripod, has a rotatable screen, ideally a block shape and not the portable upright shape, and is a maximum of £150 I'd be really grateful.

Yes, I'm very picky.

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ams4127

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Posted August 11, 2011 at 4:20PM

Is there a particular type of movie you intend shooting? Will you really need that zoom lens?

If I were forced to choose, I would go for the full HD every time.

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robzwolf

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Posted August 11, 2011 at 4:31PM

I will be shooting outside and inside in front of a green screen.

I'm slightly concerned about shooting in full HD - it uses lots of space and I don't have a very powerful computer (I plan on lots of video editing).

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ams4127

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Posted August 13, 2011 at 4:38PM

You need an expert here, which I'm not!! I've done some editing but not to any degree of complexity. I'm fairly certain that some of the popular editing programmes will work on your footage in SD and only convert back to HD for the final output.

I'm sorry I can't help any further but am worried about leading you astray!

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