Cheapest Camcorder with Manual Control

[Daniel Smith]

Hi.

 

I was just wondering what's the cheapest camcorder with manual control you know of?

 

Something with shutter control, aperture, white balance and gain.

 

Thanks.

Dan.

[Matthew W. Phillips]

Hi.

 

I was just wondering what's the cheapest camcorder with manual control you know of?

 

Something with shutter control, aperture, white balance and gain.

 

Thanks.

Dan.

 

I cant swear that this is the cheapest, but about a week ago I purchased a JVC GR-D347U from Wal-Mart for only $180.00 + TAX. It has Manual Shutter options, Gain, Manual White Balance, and "Exposure" control. The "exposure" system is different than the aperture because it does a dB system instead of the F-stop system but you can still obtain the same results with it. I felt this camera was a great bargain for the features it has. Its only 1 CCD however, but you didnt mention that it had to be 3 CCD. I've never seen a brand new MiniDV camcorder with this many options for under $200.

[Matthew Buick]

I was going to buy a TRV900. At this price I may not have to. :)

[Hal Smith]

I was going to buy a TRV900. At this price I may not have to. :)

Keep in mind that you'll be wanting to hook your camera up to a computer to dump tapes into it for editing and want a camera supported by the editing system software. For instance: That TRV900 will hook up with its firewire output to an Avid Xpress DV system and the Avid is capable of remote controlling the camera for capture, laying edited material back out to tape, etc. If you don't have a camera or deck capable of being remote controlled by your editing system you're always having to fiddle with things to get anything done.

 

I run Avid Xpress Pro on a relatively inexpensive computer that technically doesn't meet Avid's specs for video card, etc. but works quite well with a $120 gaming video card, 1GB of memory, a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 processor, a $60 firewire card, and a 120GB hard drive. I shoot most video now with a 3CCD camera but use my little Sony TRV30 as a deck with the Avid since it's fully supported by the Avid system and works just as well as a $1500 DV deck.