JVC GR-D396 MiniDV Camcorder

I have the Ultra Zoom version of this and it's just a pain. The little on/off knob that you twist to record or play constantly turns on when you put the camera in the bag, so you almost never have a battery that you can use when you need it. (you can't plan baby's first anything, so this is useless.)The only way to stop this is detaching the battery and keeping it in the front pocket so that you have to assemble the camera in those few seconds where your kid is crawling or walking for the first time. Sound aggrevated?? Yes I am.

The pictures that you can shoot are horrible. Unless you don't ever plan on printing them, then you're ok.

The lighting is useless since it doesn't light anything at all. Anything other than outdoor sunlight comes out grainy. I'd prefer "green" nite vision clear videos than poorly lit, grainy videos where you can not really tell who is who..

What a waste of money.

I've had this camcorder for quite some time now and so far so good. Tapes are easy to put in and take out, does use a lot of battery power, but you get two batteries so basically 2 hours worth or record.

You can also place a memory card in for taking pictures...the pictures when developed do NOT turn out well at all. But if you just want the pictures to put online or send to family then they are good. So if you are expecting to hit two birds with one stone with this camcorder you won't. It makes great videos but not great pictures.

It has lots of extra features: fade in and out, black and white, date, time stamp...pretty much everything you could want. It doesn't have nightshot though which is sad. But in nightshot everyone looks green and scary anyway, but it still would have been nice.

All in all i like this, small size and packs some heat. I'd recommend this one. It's the one i decided on after HOURS of research.

Buy JVC GR-D396 MiniDV Camcorder Now