Hello to everyone as I am new on this forum although I do belong to many others I am from the UK so can sometimes have access to products not available in the US.

I am looking for a camcorder that is robust and light enough for using while paragliding. I'm not after professional images, its more likely to be used on a pc monitor or a small TV screen. I am also going trekking in Peru this year and fancy taking some candid footage of the journey. I dont need still camera facility as we allready have a digital SLR.

Main features for me are reasonable low light performance, ease of use, some sort of stabilisation, very light, small and rugged (weatherproof would be nice). Its unlikely that I will need to do any editing as I will just take fairly short clips. Budget is around £400.00 not fixed.

I have looked at the new version of the Sanyo CA6 which is the CG6 (promises better low light shooting, improved stabiliser and works with 4gbcards)http://techdigest.tv/2007/02/panasonic_sdrs1_1.html and the Panasonic SDR-S10 (released summer this year I think) http://techdigest.tv/2007/02/panasonic_sdrs1_1.html

Both are impossible to find reviews for.

I will probably dump the video to a portable Jobo HD drive or just send it via e.mail to my web addy while on holiday.

I know there is a fairly low opinion of the SD based camcorders and I do want reasonable picture quality, but my focus is on the ultra small size and lack of moving parts inherent in this design.

It seems that there are more and more SD based devices appearing and I liken them to MP3 players......they dont rival my home hifi system, but they are a damn sight easier to carry around in the Gym

Any help and advice welcome. I can wait a few months before buying as I am Paragliding mid June.

One last caveat........I really, really would like to avoid Sony if at all possible. Its all about there policies on software etc. If there is no other option then of course I would be daft to take second best.

Hi there

I would maybe contact this guy http://www.emuvideo.com/index.php as he does alot of videos with a microlite(Think thats how you spell it).

As for going with a sd card based camera i would maybe stay away from that area. You can buy a minidv camera (Doesn't have to be the newest) for around £200 these days. This is tape based, so no worries about storage. You get an hour on 1 tape in normal play and an hour and a half in long play. This can be uploaded via a firwire card in your pc and then formated to what ever format you require using window movie maker, which comes with all versions of xp.

Hope this helps
Simon

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DUDE were's my car
www.myspace.com/cheapdirt07

Maybe not exactly what you want but this stuff looks interesting to me. Portable player and recorder.
http://www.shoparchos.com/searchresu...&culture=en-US

Click here for the helmet camera. http://www.shoparchos.com/searchresu...&culture=en-US

There is a model with WIFI so you might even be able to upload your videos.