On Mon, 02 Sep 2002 02:12:30 GMT, "Philip Penry" wrote:

>I'm going to Best Buy this week to purchase a digital camcorder, but I
>really have no idea what I'm looking for. I'm a college student and my
>friends and I are interested in making short films.

I assume you mean "short videos", a very different thing...;-)

>I'm not looking for
>professional equipment; something for around $1500 or less would be perfect.

Without going further, I would recommend a good used 3-chip
Sony TRV900, if you can find one for this price... Short that, several Sony 1-CCD camcorders (and maybe
some others,
but I generally prefer the Sony picture quality to others
at similar levels...) may serve well enough. Popular at the
local cable access channel is the Sony low-end TRV11/17/18,
which has a pleasant picture, decent low-light range, excellent stabilizer, AE, and AF, is small and light, and
well under $1000. Don't forget to budget for batteries, WA converter, UV filter + shade, tripod, and
external mic...

>Now for some questions:
>- Why do the more expensive cameras have lower optical/digital zoom than the
>cheaper ones?

At a given price point, wider zoom range generally results
in lower image quality... A "feature" is offered in place of
a less interesting, but higher-quality lens...;-)

>- What is the Carl Zeiss lens?

Hype. Sony assumes that consumers will associate the famous
brand name with quality. The lenses *are* good on Sony
cameras (and on many others) without the "CZ" name... BTW,
Sony's best consumer camcorder, the VX2000, has an excellent
lens on it (see: www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/diffraction.htm)
that has no name at all on it. Try to look past the sales-gimmick
items, if you just want a high-performance camcorder...

>- Am I able to turn on/off the SteadyShot feature, or is it always on?

Most allow you to turn them off...

>- Which is better quality- MiniDV, Digital8, or MICROMV?

Mini-DV, D8, and DVCam are essentially the same; MicroMV is
a further-compressed format, best avoided for now...

>- Do any in the $1500 and under price range feature detachable lenses?

No - but very good WA converters are available...

>- Am I able to turn-off the auto focus feature on any cameras? The last
>camera we used kept shifting in and out of focus. I would rather be able to
>focus it myself rather than have the lens do it automatically.

Many current video AF systems will be better than you at
focusing, especially since the viewfinders are not really
sharp enough to judge focus very well...

>We do all of our editing by computer, so I'm not interested in any special
>effects. Do you have any recommendations? Thanks for any help. Please
>respond in newsgroup or email me at penryba@muohio.edu

Several editing programs work well...