Video camera recommendations

A few people have asked me for recommendations for a video camera. I've talked about this before. I don't have any specific brand recommendations, but I will tell you what I think is essential, useful, unimportant and unwanted for me.

Essential:

• A good lens (Carl Zeiss is a good name)
• Minimum 10x optical zoom
• Easy to use on-camera controls
• FireWire (IEEE 1394 or i.LINK) interface to computer
• At least 90 minutes battery life
• Night vision mode
• A/V pass-through mode (can play a VCR through it to a computer and vice versa)
• MiniDV tapes

Useful:

• USB interface
• Digital camera built-in
• Shoe on top for external light
• S-Video port
• Port for external microphone

Unimportant:

• On-camera editing
• Digital zoom (it's misleading - the zoom comes at the expense of quality; only optical zoom is important)
• Size of flip-out screen

Unwanted:

• Direct to DVD - it's convenient but the quality is less than MiniDV
• Controls you have to press on the LCD screen to use

For the record, I have a Sony DCR-TRV25 that I bought in 2002. I guess the equivalent Sony model today would be the DCR-HC32. Of course, that's a better camera than I have, mainly due to the better optical zoom.

Have a look at this link: 10 Questions to Ask When Buying A Cam-Corder.