After thinking and thinking and thinking...
My decision is now official: I will buy a
Nikon Coolpix P100.
At first, I was continuously dreaming a video camera. But in the price range of 800$-850$ I could only find crap ones. Even at that price range, they are still camcorders(small ones). The main advantage is that they have a different type of sensor that doesn't produce the wobble when you move them fast.
So then I start changing my mind... I saw there are a lot of new cameras supporting 720p or even 1080p filming, the main disadvantage here is that most of them shoot at 24fps and some of them have disastrous jelly-like filming when you move them.
At first I said: alrighty, I'll save some money for a Nikon DSLR. D5000 will be my choice. Then another day I thought for a couple more bucks I can get the D90 which has superior image quality.
But after thinking and thinking and thinking...
I realised I couldn't save that much until at least next year. DSLRs cost much because they have that functionality: you can change the lenses(or objectives or how do you tell them in english). But they are fucking expensive. And I aspire to be a semi-pro photographer, but I'm not yet. I even don't have a pocket camera, my whole experience is based on reading and using for a short period of time other people's cameras!
So the natural way to go was to search for compact cameras that are almost DSLR-like. People call these "bridge" cameras, because it's an intermediate class between the two.
And I found
Nikon Coolpix P100.
Just watch the review. For me, it was instant love...
Yes, I am aware how many disadvantages it has. But damn, it shoots 1080p at 30fps with stereo sound! And it can go as far as 240fps at smaller resolutions without sound. That just kicks ass. And it's half-price of the D90. And boy I will love that fucking awesome 26x optical zoom and awesome macro photography. Combined with a tripod to reduce that wobble, this will just KICK ASS.
I have about 70% of the money. I hope I can buy it before the summer ends. Wish me luck!
I'm not familiar with the video specs of this camera, but it mostly means that there are no manual focus and exposure settings and no picture stabilization during the shoot (which comes in handy above 5x zoom if your not using a tripod).
Of course it also comes down to how professionally you want to shoot your videos (I'm more into videoshooting than still photography), so if you're OK with auto-mode, the image quality is definitely going to be nice
It's not really like that :). I feel a little bad because I'm doing this, I'm more into videoshooting too.. but it's better than nothing :P. When I'll have a job will try to have a full hd video camera and a dslr as well.
Yes it doesn't have manual focus which kinda sucks, most DSLRs have this. And it's also nasty that it automatically adjusts the lighting when shooting films, which results in a bad quality looking video. That's why, during video shooting, I will disable this.
I also heard there is some software out there for reducing the wobble, so it won't be that bad.
Oh and btw, I saw a video with this camera zooming to the moon. The zoom is so strong that the moon doesn't appear anymore as a simple 2D object, but more of a 2D object with bump mapping(ridiculous explanation, but you know what I mean :D).
[EDIT] I posted on my blog some videos that show the power of this camera :D.