HD Video Options- What’s The Best Bang for Buck?

I just finished reading a post by Judi Barrett asking what people thought about the Best HD video gear.  Well, I left a comment there explaining my choices, but I thought I’d share with everyone else in a little more details my thoughts and likes for video gear.  I think there are 2 categories on this that we need to discuss.

Good Quality with Great Price Tag

The first category is equipment that is going to deliver you some really good quality video without super high prices.  This is the equipment that you can get for well under $250.  In the past I have used my flip video camera which delivered decent quality, but not always the best.  My big complaint was always that the audio would not be the greatest because of no way of connecting an external mic to it.  Then, I have also used my digital camera before which takes amazing pictures and HD video.  The audio quality also seemed to be pretty darn good.  But, my issue here was that the file sizes were HUGE and couldn’t be transferred quick and easy.

So, I did some research the past few weeks and think I have found the newest winner.  I just purchased this past week a Kodak Playtouch.  This little guy will shoot 1080p HD video and has a 4x zoom.  It’s lightweight, has the ability to connect to a tripod too.  But, the thing I really like about this camera is that it can have an external microphone hooked to it.  So, I picked up one of those for $25.  The tests I saw made this a no brainer for improving the audio quality majorly.

Now, after reading many reviews and seeing the down sides to the Kodak Playtouch being the not perfect video quality in low light situations, I decided to buy a small bracket & 36 LED light attachment.  I should never have any issues now with the light being too low.  The other thing I purchased was to make sure I could get wide angles.  It was a Kodak Wide angle lens for under $20. Both of these accessories were purchased for under $40.  The last accessory I got was an extra battery.  Because I bought all the stuff from Amazon, I was able to get some really good proces and purchased the camera & all the accessories for under $300! Personally I think this is pretty good deal for all the equipment I ended up with.

Pro Grade with Pro Price

I know for some of you, you want to take it to the next level in your video and have the funds available to go buy pro quality stuff.  For this category I found something that really impressed me.  A few months back I was in Orlando for an event and got to use a friends Canon T2i DSLR camera.  WOW was i impressed with it!  It shot some amazing video and had the ability to add all the types of accessories I talked about above. These little beauties are going to run you probably double the price of the Kodak setup above.  Plus, you will need to then pick up a few lenses for it.  But, like I mentioned, for the person who wants pro grade video, you will get it for sure with this product.

To give you an idea, here’s a video that was shot by Mike on his Canon:

 

 

Also, to make it easier for everyone, instead of you needing to click on all the links above to see the different things I am referring to, I put them all together into one page inside Amazon that you can view here. So, what items are you using for video that I might have missed?

**links in this post are connected to an Amazon affiliate account.  Owner of this post may be compensated from any purchases made from links above.