 Hey guys and welcome back to my youtube channel this is Daniel Rosal here I want to talk today about one of my favorite subjects which is the merits of camcorders the humble camcorder if I'm not mistaken camcorders are kind of making a comeback at the moment I've been seeing videos popping up on my youtube feed reasons to get camcorders in 2022 the camcorder isn't dead don't discount the camcorder and I'm getting the feeling that there's a camcorder renaissance brewing here now I was chatting to a friend this morning a good friend of mine Mike a shout out to a shout out to him he's in Australia and we were chatting a little bit about youtube what I'm hoping to do with my journey and video and we got talking about camcorders cameras recently and I explained that you know what you might want to use is this but I'm actually one of the ludites that uses a camcorder and I'm not sure the people who haven't looked at the video market yet are actually aware that camcorders are kind of the underdog choice today so I'm just going to start you know just a couple of really basic things what is a camcorder and why and this is the point I punch the record button to make this video about they're actually really really good value now when we talk about cameras and the cameras that dominate the market today at least for youtube if you plug into the youtube search you know best camera for youtube 2023 or you know you pull some of your friends who might be doing video stuff or you ask in a facebook group the majority of answers are going to point you in the direction of dslr and mirrorless cameras increasingly mirrorless cameras perhaps depending on what kind of stuff you want to shoot some people might say well you know an action cam or a gimbal something like the dji pocket might be better for your use case or even a gopro but you know for the kind of general vlogging style youtube channels which is a lot of youtube channels people are out of the bat kind of instinctively going to recommend dslr and mirrorless to make to keep things simple let's just talk about mirrorless because the differences between dslr and mirrorless are less considerable between camcorders and mirrorless now there's one more class of camcorder that just for the sake of thoroughness and talking about the value for money camcorders offer it would be neglectful not to mention and that's cinema cameras I would say those are the three broad worlds of camcorders your mirrorless cameras your for example the sony alpha camcorders for instance the canon xa series and then cinema cameras like the black magic pocket uh cinema camera um that are and those you can really think of as kind of souped up camcorders why do I say the camcorders are actually really really good value for money I would actually call camcorders a thrifty video purchase now this camcorder the one that I own the canon xa 40 is if I'm not mistaken the most expensive thing I currently own it's selling and being hated the moment for 1500 dollars and I was really really scared to spend that much money when I was looking at jumping up for my very very bare level consumer camcorder my first camera the vixia hf or 800 the thought of spending more than 1000 on a camera was kind of frightening to me especially when I hadn't monetized this youtube channel and I wasn't getting paid for video related stuff yet but it's a purchase I have not regretted for an instant my only regret is that I didn't have another 800 dollars to spare and I would have gone for a slightly higher camcorder in the xa series so coming back to the main point how can it be that you can spend over 1000 dollars on a camera and I am insisting it's good value now let's talk about it to understand that question I'm going to have to explain a little bit about what makes a mirrorless camera different from a camcorder this is a camcorder mirrorless camera you've almost certainly seen one they look pretty much the same as DSLRs they're those big boxy cameras and the main difference about camcorders and the reason that people don't a lot of people don't like them is they have a fixed lens if you look at the xa 40 here the lens is built in physically attached to the sensor now those are kind of that's kind of the main part of a camera really is the sensor that takes in the light and then processes it and gives you an image now the reason that people have increasingly shied away from camcorders in past years is that if you look at how much money you need to spend to get a certain size of sensor the camcorder does not seem to be a good deal to get a one-inch CMOS sensor in camcorder world in Canon camcorder world you're talking about a 2000 dollar purchase to just get a 4k capable camcorder you're talking about shelling out 1500 dollars at least so that kind of turns a lot of people off because you can get those those equivalent specs for a lot cheaper in the world of mirrorless but that is actually and this is kind of the point i'm trying to make here in this video it's not really a good way to look at it if you look at the fixed lens on this camcorder the xa 40 and i'm just going to cast my glance here so that i can read off the spec sheet the lens here is approximately 29.3 to 601 millimeter lens and that's at a 35 millimeter equivalent focal length now what that means in simple terms is that this is a crazy powerful lens the built-in lens on this camcorder is extremely powerful you can shoot pretty much anything you can shoot uh you know birds at a zoom like birds on trees right and there's actually that's part of the reason that these are still very much used in nature and wildlife photography because you've got that amazing um just versatility you can choose uh stuff that's very very far away now that huge focal length effectively gives you sort of a telephoto lens that's welded onto the sensor so the thing the reason that mirrorless people don't like camcorders besides their grievance about the spec is typically that well a fixed lens is a non-runner for me right now why does that make a difference again i'm sort of starting from first principles here camera lenses are basically what goes on to the camera sensor that thing that reads the light and gives you an image and different lenses give different looks and feels right people collect lenses so that's the advantage of an interchangeable lens camera whether we're talking about a mirrorless camera or we're talking about a super high end cinema camera like the the red cameras or the re cameras which are you know what hollywood stuff is shot on so the strange thing about the camcorder world is that their fixed lens and consumer and when when you get up to the top end of that world uh they become interchangeable lens again so two now here's my point about the cost why camcorders are thrifty video purchases if you cost separately the lens you're getting built into this canon xa40 a lens that would have a crazy focal length like 23 to 601 mil at 35 mil equivalent you would actually be spending for a high quality lens more than the cost of the camcorder so for what you're paying for this camcorder you're getting okay not the most amazing sensor in the world on a dollar for dollar basis i will i will acknowledge that you're getting a better sensor and what seems like higher imaging processing capabilities in the world of mirrorless but when you factor in the lens you're going to find and you you know i invite anyone to price this out themselves by looking up different components on b and h photo video or amazon or whatever you want and you'll see that the camcorder is going to cost significantly less now it doesn't end there there's the beauty of the camcorder really is that you've got quite a few different things all kind of molded together i don't know a better word for that melded together on one body so if you look at the top of my xa40 we have uh the audio the top audio panel and what you're getting there is two xlr ports now again i have my friend mike and mine someone who is trying to follow all these technical words and just to slow down a bit in terms of the audio um audio world for microphones xlr which is basically a three pin connection is the audio connection used in professional stuff to simplify right in terms of pro broadcasting in terms of live events now 3.5 mils which if you own a set of headphones you know that little connection headphone jack microphones exist in that but it's they tend to be less high quality microphones now if you want to get an xlr microphone uh high quality professional broadcasting class choose your adjective microphone in order to get in get that in to something like a mirrorless camera you frequently have to use what's called an xlr to 3.5 millimeter uh interface it's just a little adapter that has a xlr port on one side so you plug in your microphone and then it goes out 3.5 and you put that into your mirrorless you don't need to use one on a camcorder because it's built in so i'm gonna stop here because i think i've made the point and i'm just gonna try and summarize the key points when you look at sensor size when you look at the specs whether you know at what price point you get 4k at what price point you get 6k in camcorder world versus mirrorless world camcorders at first glance look like a bad deal however when you factor in the extra things that camcorders are bringing to the table because they're a fixed package which are their disadvantage for a lot of people but it's also a big advantage there you will find that if you price out the cost of a you know pro audio mixer of uh you know perhaps sdi output which the higher end camcorders have for advanced streaming stuff and you factor in the cost of a high quality lens with a really really big uh focal range you're going to find that camcorders are actually and just just in terms of the hardware deal they're actually a better deal they're better value for money than mirrorless but you know if you do need it there's very valid reasons why people would want a mirrorless camera the big advantage of camcorders and cinema cameras stuff like the black magic uh the black magic uh b m p c c black magic pocket cinema camera uh that i mentioned is these products are made for video right that's their primary intended use a dslr or a mirrorless is intended for photography and it also does video now by the way you can take still photos using a camcorder and even though it would be utterly ridiculous to use them for this purpose you could use a uh ari or a red for still photography everything can do everything but you're getting something in camcorder world that is pre-baked predefined for shooting video out of the box and that's why camcorders are actually a thrift i hesitate to use a word of bargain they're actually a thrifty purchase if you're looking to maximize what you get for a spend in a video capturing product um that was a lot of information i hope was of interest to some camcorder folks if you have your own thoughts fellow camcorder people of youtube about why you think camcorders are actually an awesome deal and you want to create a little echo chamber in the comment section go ahead and drop those thoughts and if you want to get more videos from me about the various topics i cover here on youtube ranging from technology through to interesting things happening in my locality in jerusalem and israel do please consider hitting the subscribe button thank you for watching