GR-D72 vs ZR65MC

[choirislife923]

ok, i have decided that I am going to buy one of those two. which one do you think I should buy? i'm leaning torwards the GR-D72 because reviews say that it does better in low light.

[lordsmurf]

How low light?
(Just for the record, most people that complain about "bad in low light" need to get a light attachment and quit shooting in cave at midnight. A little common sense wouldn't hurt them either. Word of warning about reviews on video cameras.)

I really like JVC products, but I have to admit, their DV video cameras suck. I rank Canon as best, Panasonic as next best. Of the Canons, I was simply amazed by the ZR90.

[NightWing]

The catch with low light is the amount of grainess is acceptable. Supprise no one talks about hot pixels. To those griping.... Get a life! Even a Digital Still camera has fun at these levels.

From reading reviews. The bulk of the camcorders have problem at low light. Its the nature of the beast. Small sensors, What you need to run the shutter at to not get jerky movement, lense speed etc. I am impressed of what they can do at this level!!!!

Grabed one of Fry's Black Friday special on a ZR-60. Wow does it work! Even shot the moon and some street lights with good sucess.

Having fun trying to get some decent filters. That darn 30.5 is a really limiting size. Oh well just need a step up ring to 46!

Good luck on your desision!

[lordsmurf]

For comparison's sake:
VHS and S-VHS looks like crap in low light.
So does film.

[NightWing]

Wish these people would realise that roving reporters cameras are both expensive and have external lights. For night shots I need to hit 1 to 2 seconds shutter speed to get anything decent.

From testing it so far it good enough for goverment work.

[spidey]

I recently got the JVC GR-200 and couldn't be happier.

The JVC's got the best low light reviews - see camcorderreviews.com

Also, if you bounce up to the 200 it has the DV Analog video pass through, to enable your capturing of any analog material through the camera - I believe the 72 does not have that.

One final note - for your best pricing - check out buydig.com I found the camera there for hundreds less than anywhere else...

[choirislife923]

I believe the 72 does not have that.

i'm pretty sure it does though

[NightWing]

choirislife you are right. The 72 does have pass through. saw it on a review site.

The quality through the 60 is much better than the ADS box I bot a while back.

[choirislife923]

ok, i think i'm going to go with the GR-D72

-analog passthru
-better "low light" performance
-dont hear that many complaints about motor noise compared to the ZR65MC

[harmsway1976]

i just bought the gr-d72 a couple weeks ago and so far i am happy with it. the camera is decent in lower light, but it also helps if you use the external lights on the camera. obviously, for $300 you won't get hollywood style results, but for a personal camera shooting home movies i consider it a pretty good deal. maybe one day i'll upgrade to a prosumer 3ccd camera if i could ever afford it, but for now i have what i need.

[NightWing]

Did you look at the GR-D33? From reviews it has the best low light due to the 3D filter. Just wondering.

[choirislife923]

Did you look at the GR-D33? From reviews it has the best low light due to the 3D filter. Just wondering.

yea, but i NEED the passthru, lol.

VHS -> DVD conversion services don't work well on a low budget with no digitzer, lol.

[NightWing]

Hum... I thouth it had a passthrough. The ZR60 is looking better and better!

[choirislife923]

nevermind, the gr-d33 does have passthru. unfortunately, it doesnt double as a a .8 megapixel camcorder with a SD Card input, so thats why i didnt get it.

you might ask why pay more and bother with a camcorder with images that bad? imagener seems to be able to add more detail during enlargement.
http://www.imagener.com/

[NightWing]

For picture you need as many pixels as possible. Esp if you are going to print big stuff.

Was reading in one of the trade pubs I get that camcorder sales are down while still cameras are up. One of the camcorder had a 2mb still function.

[choirislife923]

nevermind, the gr-d33 does have passthru.

nevermind my last "nevermind" post...it turns out the gr-d33 does NOT have passthru :P .

read this post:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1123938#1123938