It's kinda difficult to figure what's a "practical camera" for using largely in Portugal, I'm guessing.
I just googled all of the cameras listed, only one or two had any of the normal search results I'm accustomed to seeing, so I'm guessing these are products offered locally/regionally that are not necessarily offered globally/U.S..
Correct?
What I'm getting at is that if you can buy literally ANY camera from ANYWHERE on the world then it doesn't matter and for the money you're looking to spend there are likely better options.
However, if you're limited to
PAL or
SECAM compatible products (maybe it doesn't matter, IDK) or something you want to buy at a physical store in Portugal then we can just deal with that search constraint and go from there with the provided list.
Overall, I don't think I saw too many manual controls on many of these cameras.
Manual focus is the greatest need.
Manual aperture and shutter speed next.
The sensor sizes were all pretty "chippy" small, but finding an about a 1/3" sensor is the goal at this price range.
However, I'm not real current on CMOS vs. Xmor CMOS chips, so... maybe someone else more tech-fluent than I can educate us on that.
Fourth thing you want to prioritize is finding a camera with a 1.8 max aperture, like the Sony
HDR-CX200 has. (Probably my camera preference from the given list, although it records audio in mono rather than stereo, and has a tiny 3.1mm [paint]chip.)
None of these had microphone input jacks, which is kind of a mixed issue.
On the one hand cameras and videocameras typically don't record audio on board very well (fine, but not great), so it's best to buy some external audio gear to record off-camera better audio. But you can easily spend double or triple your given camera budget for that capability (which grinds against most people's logic).
But with an external mini-pin mic jack you theoretically "could" at least use a shotgun mic (typically a Rode VideoMic) and a length of cable to get the mic off the camera since the on-board/internal camera mic is only good for about 4 feet/1.5meters out before the audio starts to really sound bad.
I wouldn't get the Fuji FinePix S2950. No excuse to buy a camera for the next five years that
can't even record up to 1080 resolution.
However, this really depends upon your computer's speed and capability.
If you're currently working on something three years or older (other than a Mac) maybe 720 resolution is about at what it can comfortably handle.
But if you're planning on upgrading in the next year or two to something with a i5 or i7 Intel processor (with all the RAM you can buy) then you might wanna buy a camera that can record 1080.
I dunno.
We could benefit from better understanding your usage, film product display, and purchasing limitations, assuming you actually are in Portugal most of the time.
Ray
