Hi Allura,

I would splash the extra cash and get a hard drive one. We wish we had!

Hubby could go through all the ins and outs of it but the jist of it is the hard drive ones are much better unless you are losing optical quality of course.

Hope that helps

Hi Allura,

If your lovely parents don't want to splash out on a hard drive camera (I agree with Lisa, if the budget is there then it is the way to go) then I can recommend my Samsung VP-D361. It is small and easy to use with a good lens and zoom and has produced very good results.

The other thing that I would recommend is that if you don't go down then hard drive route then you should consider minDV (digital tape) rather than DVD because when I was seeking advice myself a year ago many friends who know a lot more than I do said that DVDs have all sorts of problems associated with them - particularly when it comes to editing the film you take.

Most digital camcorders come with a fire wire cable which will allow you to make high speed digital downloads of the film to your computer. If it doesn't then you can buy one for a few quid.

Once you have the film you will want to edit it and for this I can seriously recommend Adobe Premier Elements. It doesn't cost the earth and is very easy to use. There are some other freebies on the net that you can also look into, really it depends on what you want to do with what you've filmed.

I love my camera and find it a very useful learning and planning tool. Most of the time I rehearse in a hall without mirrors which means that I don't get to see what a number looks like as I develop it. I use my camera to film numbers from different angles and throughout the process of creating one so that I can see what needs work on and what works well. I will also often use it in private sessions if I want a student to be able to see what something looks like so that they can understand a learning point too. It will be hard to watch yourself to begin with but believe me, once you get over that hurdle it is a very useful thing to be able to do!

Afra

Thanks for all the helpful info Afra!