Best Camcorder

Kodak Playsport ZX5 Black $133 on Amazon.com

The Kodak Playsport ZX5 is one of the new range of small compact camcorders which have been specially designed to be carried around during activities which a normal camera would not survive.

The Kodak Playsport camcorder is standards compliant in both dust and shock proofing; it is water resistant to 3m or 10 feet and will withstand a drop of 1.5m without any damage to the camera. There are lots of people who want to be able to carry a small but tough camcorder while they are taking part in more rigorous activities such as skiing or snowboarding. Until recently you risked serious damage to your camcorder if you took your normal camcorder with you, however the Kodak Playsport ZX5 video camera is the best camcorder designed for this type of activity.

Not only is the Kodak Playsport ZX5 camcorder tough, but it is a full High Definition camcorder including two HD settings. You can use 720p at 30 to 60 frames per second or full HD 1080p at 30 frames per second, this gives the camera excellent video playback quality which can be plugged directly into your HDTV via the Micro HDMI port. The Kodak Playsport ZX5 pocket camcorder is both small and very tough making it much easier to carry around with you it is about the size of a small cellphone. This is the best camcorder for taking on to almost any sport with the added advantage of being water proof so you could even take it surfing or waterskiing without any risk to the camera as long as you secure it to yourself properly.

Best Camcorder – The Kodak PlaySport ZX5

The Playsport ZX5 video camera is an improved version of the previous model the Kodak Playsport ZX3 which had great reviews for being a good quality compact video camera and great value for money. Due to the fact that it has improved shock and dust proofing over the original Kodak Playsport ZX3 the newer Kodak Playsport ZX5 pocket camcorder is much more suitable for a wider range of activities, which in turn will make it much more popular to a wider range of people. It also has the ability to take 5.3mp still photographs as well as its great HD video making it a suitable replacement for the small compact digital cameras.

Kodak Playsport ZX5 reviews all give the camera a very good rating for both price, functions and video playback. As with most reviews there are a list of both Pros and cons for buying the camcorder.

The Kodak Playsport is also available in Aqua (shown) and Red

Pros

Cons

In most of the Kodak Playsport ZX5 reviews the camcorder comes out as being good value for money and a few of the cons for the camera are very picky as there is a micro USB port but you will need a USB cable to attach it to the computer. The software which is for Windows allows you to enter account information for all the most popular social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter which allows you to select the share button whilst taking the videos. Once you download it to your computer the software will automatically send it to your account or you can do it the old fashioned way by drag and drop. The Kodak Playsport ZX5 shoots video in .MP4 format making it good for directly uploading to sites like FaceBook or YouTube and priced at about $133 this is a great deal for such a quality camcorder.

Local stores often have a very high mark up on this type of product, you can often save 40% by shopping online. Even if you do decide to buy locally, at least double check the best price available by taking a look at a few online vendors.

You Can Buy the Kodak Playsport ZX5 From These Suppliers – Best Price is Amazon.com

If you are looking to buy the Kodak PlaySport ZX5 camcorder, you can get it cheap online on Amazon.com with Free Shipping through this link here. 

The Kodak Playsport Zx5 camcorder is also available from B&H Photo Video Global for around $143 – they also do a convenient protective pouch and an 8GB memory card for $12.95.
Kodak PLAYSPORT Zx5 Video Camera (Black)

Kodak Digital ZX5 1080P Playsport–Red is sold by Datavision for a slightly more pricey $169.30

The Panasonic HDC-SD80K is the latest version of Panasonics very successful digital camcorder range complete with intelligent zoom function. This intelligent zoom function will allow you to shoot with up to 42x magnification and still maintains a good quality image unlike most other camcorders. The Panasonic HDC-SD80K camcorder also comes with a hybrid optical image stabilizer which eliminates the troublesome hand-shake blur which can frequently occur especially when zooming in on a subject. Unlike most other camcorders the Panasonic HDC-SD80K HD SD Card camcorder uses SD cards not an internal hard drive to store footage on this limits the storage capacity to 64gb which is compensated by fast data transfer speeds and disk access.

The Panasonic HDC-SD80K video camera also has a wide range of new and improved functions such as face recognition, smile shot on still images which is linked into the face recognition and detection setting on the camera. It can produce up to 3mp when taking still shots and 2.7mp when extracted from a video shot. The Panasonic HDC-SD80K HD SD Card camcorder also has new wind and mic noise cancelling functions allowing for a clear and cleaner sound for your videos. Most of the Panasonic HDC-SD80K camcorder new and improved functions are automatically set when you choose the format of your shots the intelligent picture function then takes over and gets the correct settings to make the best shots this takes all the stress from using this camera and makes using the camera much easier.

The Panasonic HDC-SD80K review is pretty limited as the camera has not long been on the market so the reviews for this camcorder are few are far between the CNET reviews site editor gave a good review of this camcorder and said it was one of the best in this price range. However other Panasonic HDC-SD80K reviews I have not been able to come up with due to the fact this is a fairly new model and not many people have written an in-depth review of this camcorder.

The main pro’s and cons for this Panasonic HDC-SD80K video camera are as follows:

Pro’s

            Excellent video quality including HD format

            Good noise cancellation on the mic and from wind noise

            Fast date rate transfers from its use of SD cards

            Easy to use automatic picture modes via its intelligent zoom function

            Great quality videos with easy transfer to a computer or online

Cons

            No internal hard drive for storage of videos

            Limited to 64gb Storage via SD cards

            Can be complicated in the manual mode

The Panasonic HDC-SD80K seems to me to be a lot of camcorder for very little money being priced at around the $388 on Amazon this is very little for a camcorder which seems to tick all the box’s alright it does not have a internal hard drive but who needs one with SD cards being so cheap and it makes it much easier to transfer to your computer if it has a SD card reader. The software allows for easy conversion to upload to sites such as FaceBook or YouTube and you can connect the camcorder direct to your HDTV via a HDMI slot all in all a very good camcorder for its money.

Local stores often have a very high mark up on this type of product, you can often save around 40% by shopping online. Even if you do decide to buy locally, at least double check the price by taking a look at a few online vendors. 

If you are looking to buy the Panasonic HDC-SD80K, you can buy it cheap online on Amazon.com through this link.