finding a decent cheap hd camera

petergreen

petergreen

New member
Aside from the usual places like Craigslist, eBay and Amazon does anyone have any advice for sourcing a cheap HD camera? I love to take video of the places I visit for posterity but given my lifestyle my equipment invariably ends up broken, stolen or both.
 
Goodwill or yard-sales, bro. It's hit or miss, but sometimes you can find some great equipment for real cheap. Especially if you know how to fix minor things. A lot of the stuff you find will have minor problems, causing the thing not to work. So it's cheap. If you can fix it though...
 
if you're willing to sacrifice some features, there's definitely a market for good gopro alternatives/competitors, and most of them are around $100. here's an example:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.


now, the sound sucks on this one, but really, if you want to make good videos, you should probably be doing external sound anyways. the rode smartlav is a decent lavalier mic that plugs into your cell phone for recording, so that's definitely a cheap way to get that done.

i'm in the same spot as you (low budget, but want to make decent videos) so i think this is a good solution, but i haven't tried out the above camera yet.
 
also, keep an eye on amazon warehouse deals and the used section of amazon. i shop there almost exclusively for most things and get a great deal each time.
 
Thanks to all of you. Mostly these are for my own enjoyment or to send to family. I love to see exotic places, or just new places, but eventually I run out of brain-room and it's nice to have it on a micro sd or a hard drive somewhere. Appreciate the tips.
 
thanks for starting this thread, was actually thinking about starting one myself. very useful info, guys!
 
Not sure why you're avoiding ebay and amazon, but ok.

I purchased this camera new a couple years ago:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kodak-Ze1-P...794610?hash=item1c65f75e32:g:TGwAAOSw2GlXITxe


It has been on a train (cool points) has had a marker used on it to make it less visible and has never been dropped.

I'll even throw in an SD card (not sure how many GB).

Will ship priority mail with tracking

Make offer.

btw: I purchased it using ebay.

(Has image stabilization and shoots 1080p)
 
Recently, I bought a refurbished Kodak Playsport zx5 camera which was about $100.00 tops. This was useful to me in case my phone ran out of its own space for shooting videos. It barely gets a few good shots in lit-up places during the night time, but great for the daytime. Also, get yourself a flashlight with at least 80 lumens so your camera can behave in the dark.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top