If you do, and if you like your travel video camera, PLEASE tell me what video camera you have!

I am trying to find a video camera that works well for travel, so is small, yet takes good quality video, has good battery life, is simple to use, and works with iMovie on a Mac -- directly, without "fixes" or "workarounds" or special software to make it work. I have iMovie 08.

I've made some expensive purchases that turned out not to work with that system. Asking Apple directly does not help...they just say look at the owner's manual to see if it will work.

I'd prefer not to reinvent the wheel. If you have personal experience with a good videocamera that works with a Mac, and it's smallish, with good battery life and has good quality video, PLEASE share what brand and make it is !!

I'm surprised you had compatibility issues with iMovie, what camera(s) did you try previously? Also, what is your budget? You can make pretty much any problem go away if you're willing to spend enough Seriously, though... I can give you some good recomendations, but you're requirements are way too vague. What's you budget? What type of scenes are you likely to shoot? How important is optical zoom, or low-light/indoor performance? What do you consider "good" battery life? HD or SD? How much storage would you need?

Oh - forgot to add these helpful links:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1014
http://www.macworld.com/article/1337...camcorder.html
http://www.macworld.com/browse.html?cat=226&type=3

Hi bakerstreet -

I use a Mac but haven't got in to video editing. I suggest visiting some Mac discussion forums and you'll find lots of helpful advice. Here are a couple that are pretty active:
http://forums.macnn.com/

http://forums.macrumors.com/

Good luck!

I've been looking at the Canon legria hf200 and was worried about compatibility issues as well. This Canon should work with Imovie. I can't tell from personal experience since I haven't bought it yet, but like it based upon the reviews. The only thing I'm not sure about yet is battery life.

http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/24214....html#tab:info

The link is in Dutch but I'm sure you can find a review in English if you like it.

Forgot to say that I do have a Canon Ixus 100is that has a HD video mode. I can upload and edit the movies on my mac with no issues at all. The movies are good quality for such a compact photocamera. However, ofcourse it doesnt have all the possibilities that a real video camera will have.

We do video editing on our Mac all the time from our travel video. We have a Panasonic PV-GS320. The thing to look for - German lenses. (Same advice for a still camera.) This has a Leica lens. Cost us $400. Great quality. Uses a mini dv. Read that the cameras that use a disc don't take as good video. We didn't want HD -no need for it and the price that goes along with it.

Anyway, never had a problem with Mac and this camera. Always a breeze.

griz_fan, here are my answers:

What's you budget? I'd spend up to $600

What type of scenes are you likely to shoot? Family members doing activities, including school plays, lacrosse games, basketball games, snow skiing, etc., landscapes, daytime stuff, footage at home in dimmer light, Christmas morning, birthday parties, etc.

How important is optical zoom, or low-light/indoor performance? Zoom is important, especially to get closeup video of my child on the field during a team sport. I'm not sure what "optical" zoom, as opposed to just zoom, menas -- I am not technologically very savvy. Low-light/indoor performance is also important, for times like dinner parties, Christmas morning, child birthday parties, etc.

What do you consider "good" battery life? I'd like it to film for a couple of hours before needing a recharge.

HD or SD? If that means high-definition or standard definition, standard is fine.

How much storage would you need? I'd like the camera to hold several hours of video before needing to be downloaded.


vakantie, I found a description in English...the camera looks like it takes great-quality video, but I am looking for something really, really easy to use, both in taking the video and then importing it to the Mac, editing it and putting it on DVD. One reviewer had this to say:

"Summary: No one should buy this camera without completely understanding its format. You will be disapointed. Hard to burn standard DVDs. You will find most of your friends will need a Blu ray or HD player. The DW-100 burner does not write to SD. Cannot burn DVDs from flash card, format for DVD-R only, so you are out of luck if your computer burner does not burn -R. I will have to buy a external burner now, to burn DVDs. Be sure you understand camera before buying."

kenav, the mini dv you referred to -- is that the small tape? I have a Canon camcorder that uses those little tapes, but I have found the tapes collect without my doing anything with them, because of the time it takes to download them (in real time, with a firewire...and now I can't get even that to work with my Mac; it used to work with my Dell. I was hoping to find a good videocamera that's all-digital (no tapes), but are you telling me that the quality of those is not as good?

This would be a good question to post in the lounge.

bakerstreet - Stay tuned. I'm asking my husband who is an audio-video tech (professionally).

Will get back to you.

kenav -- waiting with bated breath!

griz_fan -- Thanks for those links to the Macworld sites! It has been VERY interesting reading. I had no idea how difficult it is to align camcorder usage with Mac importing/video editing/burning to DVDs. There seem to be difficulties/drawbacks with nearly everything....I had naively assumed major videocamera manufacturers would absolutely make cameras that work flawlessly with a major product like Apple computers.

I have the Panasonic PV-GS320, its a great unit, but unfortunately no longer available. Start with the Apple compatibility list. I'm still partial to MiniDV, long recording times, good quality, archived content, etc... the only real downside is that it is a linear format, so downloading to a computer is a real-time process. But, the market seems to have spoken, and MiniDV has been relegated to pro gear.
So, next best bet would be a flash or hard drive based camcorder. As mentioned earlier, good glass is really valuable. Also, look for a LARGE image sensor. Finding image sensor size can be tough, but one really good clue is optical image zoom. Something with a 10X Optical zoom probably has a nice large sensor, while the 30-40x models have a smaller sensor. So, the smaller optical zoom actually has better image quality, especially in less than ideal light.

Spoke to my husband. Yes, the MiniDVs at least used to be much better quality than the hard drive types. Downside, as you said, is downloading time. (real time.) Depends on what you want - quality vs. time. If, as griz_fan says, that the Panasonic that we both have is no longer available. then I guess you'd go with the hard drive type. Any other MiniDVs out there? although, didn't you say that you had a Canon MiniDV and don't like it?

We had a hard time finding a MiniDV even when we looked 3 years ago as the market was changing to hard drive types. But glad we got what we got. The market doesn't necessarily "choose" the best. People hear "hard drive' and think wow, great. No tapes, etc. But what about quality?

My husband didn't know anything about compatibility issues with Mac. We didn't even think about it. Never had any trouble with moving the video to our Mac, and editing, etc.

I have a Conon MiniDV that worked well with my old PC. Now the Mac we have doesn't even recognize it....even after a couple of hours on the phone with Apple Care. Oh, well -- I got a Flip video camera and it arrived last night. So far taking video is a snap and hopefully I'll be able to edit it!

There is a lot of internet discussion of incompatibility of some videocameras with the Mac...there are various workarounds, patches, fixes, etc., but I was looking for something that didn't need to be worked around, patched or fixed -- just plug in the camera and the video would pop up.

Thanks.

Hey Bakerstreet, glad you found something. Do you have a link for me for the Canon camera review you found? I'm still interested in it and wondering if people found it harder to handle than other cameras in the same category.

By the way, you were asking about zoom ... Digital zoom just crops and enlarges part of the picture by blowing up the pixels. Exactly the same thing can be done when editing on your computer. It will always result in quality loss. Optical zoom on the other hand uses the lens and and the entire resolution of the sensor resulting in better quality.

I have a Canon HF100 which is a HD camera that records around an hour on an 8GB card so it does use up a lot of memory but is quite light (the HDD version felt noticeably heavier to me). Indoor, low lighting performance is good though as we use it a lot on our 18 month daughter in the evenings. I have a MacBook with iMovie 08 and it recognises the camera without any problems. However if you are working with HD video then I would recommend you use a MacBook Pro since it uses up a lot of processing power.

Another issue as pointed out is that you cannot burn directly to a standard DVD since that is only good for SD recordings. So you have to import to iMovie and then convert it to SD, which negates the point of having a HD camera! I don't have a Bluray burner yet but I wanted to future-proof myself, in hindsight I would probably have gone for an SD camera now and upgraded in the future.

The SD version of this camera is the FS200, which may suit your needs better and work just as seamlessly with iMovie.

Finally zoom is important but I also have a wide angle lens for group shots and scenery. Its useful as the widest setting on the lens is still quite narrow.