A Flip that doesn't shimmy?

the_W — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:46:15 -0800

I'm looking for an alternative to the Flip Video that doesn't shimmy the video when I move it side to side. I just got a Flip Video and it's awesome... I love the low light and convenience factor. But when I move it side to side, or up and down, the video gets shimmy -- a straight up and down line will tilt sideways. Now, I seem to recall some article online about how with some cellphone cameras you could tilt buildings and telephone poles sideways by moving the camera sideways. Something about reading the lines one at a time from the CCD. So I know why it does it.

Problem is, I hate it. Makes me seasick. Is there any little camcorder about the same price that doesn't use that technology, but does 640x480 30fps video that does well in low light like the flip? Ideally it could record to SD or something. I don't mind if it's a little bigger as long as it fits in one hand. If there is a digital still camera in the right price range that has the right video specs I'd be interested too.

Alternatively, do you know what the technical name of the shimmy is, so I can tailor my google searches more accurately?

On preview: I read through the suggested links, and looked at some camcorder sites, and I'll give the following qualifications to my camcorder search: I'd rather not go mini-DV with tapes but will if I must, I don't give a fig about high def, or zooms, and I'm really serious about the low light quality. I mean, I took out my Canon 20D and shot a picture of my kitchen lit by a single 25 watt bulb at f2.0, ISO 1600, 1/40th of a second. I shot a video with the flip in the same lighting conditions and the video and the still picture had the same image quality! That's some serious mojo and it's the only reason I hesitate to return it. But editing action videos makes me want to barf, I get so motion sick.

I'm looking for the least-expensive camcorder I can get my hands on.

Quidam — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:07:38 -0800

I'm looking for the least expensive camcorder I can get my hands on. As previously stated, in a few months I'm going on a road trip with a friend. I'm thinking it would be cool to have some sort of camcorder to record the highlights of the trip. What we're going for here is "cheap", and maybe "durable" - doesn't need to be high-quality or have a lot of features.

I'm intrigued by the Flip Video - simple, looks like it would get the job done, only records half an hour of video at a time, but if I dumped it onto my laptop every night, that space would get freed up again, right?

Does anyone have experience/feedback on the Flip Video? Am I going to find anything cheaper than $120? Any other suggestions?

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A Flip that doesn't shimmy?

I'm looking for the least-expensive camcorder I can get my hands on.