Camcorder Get

I have a friend who wants to buy a camcorder. It's not for anything big, just recording events like dogs playing, babies being born, and birthday parties and stuff like that. Price range of about $500.

I've been looking and there are just too many choices. I have no idea what would be good for her needs because, since neither of us have ever owned a camcorder before, we don't know what the needs are. Will she edit (MiniDV)? I don't know. Is the picture quality of a DVD camcorder good enough for our purposes? Don't know either.

Basically, I'm looking for the best value $500ish can buy for a camcorder for your standard uses.

I was looking at www.camcorderinfo.com, but they don't really break it down. There's no "THIS is the camera you should get".

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well, the top one I recommended was the Panasonic 3CCD MiniDV one:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...ons-Review.htm

And I gave her another Panasonic as a DVD recommendation:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...der-Review.htm

I wanted to find an Elura 100, which CamcorderInfo.com basically said was the best camera of 2006, but they are only available refurbished anymore, so I gave this as a cheap one instead:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...Conclusion.htm

The Sonys just seem too expensive and the Canons, while cheap, just don't seem to have the quality. It'd be nice if the budget line of camcorders were as high quality as Canon's budget digital cameras.

I dunno, there just isn't as good info on the Internet for camcorders as for cameras.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

All the available Optura 50s are refurbished or used also.

From the sounds of it, the big camcorder makers trimmed their lines in anticipation of HD technology being adopted quickly.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.