On Wed, 23 Feb 2000 06:48:25 GMT, "Jesse" wrote:

>I'm about to take the plunge into DV and would like your thoughts on a
>camera under $2,000 for video taping wildlife. I've read all the websites
>and newsgroups I could find and would like some other views if possible. In
>other words, HELP!
>
> My intended subjects would be at a distance of 5 to 75 yards mostly and in
>the twilight hours occasionally.
>
>The second worry is I would like to capture stills for viewing on my
>webpage. I'm assuming most of the main stream cams will do acceptable
>resolution for web publishing. Slap me if i'm off base there.
>
>Lastly, I would like to record some of the sounds of the woods on the DV
>cam, but after reading several discussions here on this NG, it doesn't sound
>like I can acheive high quality with a DV cam setup. Any work arounds to
>this or suggestions?
>
>Any DV cam recommendations will also be taken to heart.

You can find (critical...) reviews of several mini-DV
camcorders on my web site, under "I babble". Your
need for a long lens, and good moderately-low light
performance would lead me to look at the Canon GL-1
(I'm less fond of it for general-purpose use, though,
for the reasons given in the review). You will probably
be using external mic(s), which may help solve another
GL-1 problem - and the basic sound recording quality
*can* be very good with mini-DV camcorders
(maybe not "audiophile" quality, but very good...).
Grabbing great stills is not the forte of video
cameras (I wonder why people are so concerned about
this feature, since the results are barely acceptable
for web use at decent size, and they are unacceptable
for any but low-quality print use...), but good
frame-grabs, with "fix-up" in a good photo-editing
program, can produce serviceable small-size web
images.