Recommend compact camera with decent video

[edgars70]

Hi,

I was thinking of getting a camcorder for simple videos of the kids when I am out and about (e.g. kodak zx1). However, having a compact camera and a camcorder can be too much to handle along with the kids. I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a compact camera that can take decent video. It would be nice if the video was 720p, but VGA is good. My current compact camera (ixus 700) is showing its age and the video it takes is not too good - blurry and uses lots of memory card (camera only takes normal SD - so 2gig max).

Budget - less than £150
Thanks

[cptwhite_uk]

I'd highly recommend the Canon Powershot SD 780 IS

It's a 12.1mp camera
highly responsive (virtually no shutter lag)
Face recognition for auto focusing
Excellent 'automatic' mode that rarely takes a bad picture
720p (1280 x 720) 30fps video recording (and excellent quality - see sample vids in the link)
The smallest and lightest camera I've ever use (and I've used a fair few compacts - it's about 2/3 the weight and volume)
Very comfortable to use in the hand despite it's size


All this is confirmed in the review and it's available from Ebay for a little over £120 delivered:

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/i.html?_nkw=c...sacat=0&bkBtn=

PS: I'd recommend a 16Gb SD card to go along with it so there's plenty of space for 720p video footage. Buy this. I have two of these and they are excellent with good transfer speeds. You might also want to consider getting one of these for easily transferring the content to a PC if you don't have a card reader as well.

I bought this Transcend 16GB SDHC card to use with a Canon 90-IS camera. This capacity allows me to take 3 or 4 hours of video on the camera as well as 5-600 photographs, or alternately, in excess of 10,000 photographs, depending on the `quality' settings I choose on the camera. This card is as fast as they get (Class 6) and very reliable, as all my other Transcend cards have been - some of which are now several years old and still working flawlessly.

Total cost for everything is about £156. But you won't be disappointed