Samsung SC-HMX10

[Hulk]

Thinking about getting this camera. For $300 is this a good deal? Thoughts?

[Joker B]

Thinking about getting this camera. For $300 is this a good deal? Thoughts?I got my son this camera & it's excellent for the $$! The codec makes us a little crazy, but we usually re-encode through AME or Cineform anyway & then it's smooth sailing. He cuts on iMovie most of the time, though we also use Premiere Pro on my PC.

The camera has manual shutter speeds (up to 1/10000!), manual focus, exposure override, it's incredibly lightweight -- along with a small fisheye and a homebrew handle (two shelf brackets bolted together unto a "us" shape & wrapped in puffy weather stripping as a handle) he has the most-awesome skateboard video kit in the neighborhood. Has used it almost every day of the year.

[Shadow_7]

Seems a little high to me. The HMX20 was going for about $400 new at sears.com about a year ago, and the HMX10 is an older generation. When circuit city closed it's doors about a year ago, pretty much every camcorder was gone except for the HMX10. I'm not sure what, if anything, that says about the device.

[Seo]

According to CNET Reviews...

"The good: Relatively sharp video; manual exposure controls; can focus fairly closely.

The bad: Sluggish autofocus; exposure problems; mediocre low-light quality and performance; no hardware image stabilization; annoying touch screen; potential software problems.

The bottom line: Despite an attractive price and some decent features, the frustrations of the Samsung SC-HMX10 outnumber its rewards."

I'd agree. No optical image stabilization on such a small camera? Maybe if it were less than $200, but for a little more than $300 you could get a used HV20.

[Shadow_7]

The FH1 is only like $400-ish on walmart.com and if you ship to store, no shipping. And if you have a relative or friend that works there, 10% off. Still sluggish auto focus and NO optical stabilization. But it can take 8MP still images. And does at least that much pretty well. With a bunch of new camcorders coming out soon. Craigslist is packed full of used Canon HF's and XH-A1's and all sorts of respectable camcorders. The HMX10 is probably better than a $200 aiptek. Or not. In the audio realmn there's a saying, buy cheap, buy twice. Although it depends on if you record often enough to justify spending more. It's certainly useful to have a decent camcorder / camera around. Christmas DVD for distant relatives. Decent photos for craigslist, without having to take the best of 30 to ensure that one is usable cropped / scaled to 300px.