Is there a reasonably priced 16:9 camcorder? (1 Viewer)

[Dave Poehlman]

I would think with the impending flood of 16:9 TVs into the market, one would see more 16:9 camcorders available. The ones I've seen are in the thousands of dollars range. Are there any reasonably priced 16:9 personal camcorders out there?

Also... I've read one can purchase an optical anamorphic lens for a regular 4:3 camera and shoot that way. The drawback being the image in the viewfinder is "squished" and those lenses aren't cheap either. (something like $500 or more)

Anyone have any insight/experience with this?

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Nope

About the cheapest you're going to pay for a true 16:9 camcorder is about $5000

Anamorphic lenses for 4:3 camcorders run around $700

Or you can use the the fake anamorphic mode on many 4:3 camcorders and lose about 25% resolution and your viewfinder will still be squished

 

[Dave Poehlman]

I can't believe there isn't a bigger push for these things to the average public. >sigh

 

[Brent Cantrell]

Wasn't the Canon XL-1 16:9 (or had that)? If so, you can still grab 'em for around 2,000, great, wonderful cameras btw...

 

[Jeff Kleist]

No, the XL-1 is a 4:3 camcorder

you're right though, it's a great camera, and they're not $2000, try about $3-3500. Maybe used ones are going for $2K of the original model, not the XL-1S

 

[gregstaten]

The least expensive 16x9 native camera I've seen is the newSony DVCAM DSR-PDX10. It lists for $3100 but you should be able to find it for a little over $2000 if you look hard enough.
-greg