BUY LCD TV, GPS, BLU-RAY, NETBOOK AND MORE - Kogan Technologies

Fantastic value for money! Ordered on Frugal Friday; delivered to North Queensland on Tuesday. Fantastic service. This camera is so simple to use. My wife is not so tech savvy and the first time she used it she was able to capture a short video without me telling her what to do. Now that gets my tick of approval and my wife’s. Out of the box, it took me about 10 minutes to set up the camera, quickly scrolling through the menus, most of the settings were already where I wanted them anyway, set the time and date and started filming and snapping shots immediately. I was surprised how small the camera is and how well it fits into my hand. The hand strap is comfortable too which is important for those events when you need to have the camera at the ready for long periods. It is also awesome how you can take a still image while you are filming. This makes for excellent add in still shots when I edit the movies on my computer. Very happy.

Sorry guys; it may be a great spec but wiithout a decent viewfinder c/w dioptre adjustement it's really just rubbish. Anyone who gazes at a dimly lit screen in daylight is kidding themselves if they think they are getting good framing and positioning the subject correctly. As for trying to pan -- forget it.

Cheers and I wish you all the best when you try serious cine work.

RF

Great camera, especially for the average user!
This camera is a great little camera and I found that with the white balance set to 'sunny'and the resolution set on 1080p I was very impressed with this little camera. Although this is true, I need to point out a few issues...

I bought this camera keeping in mind that I wanted good picture quality and a fairly manual user interface (which I expected form most cameras). Instead of getting this, I got a real dumbed - down user interface that I had trouble finding some more advanced options in. I would have liked to have manual focus, but sadly this is left put in this camera (despite the rather useful looking attatchement on the front of the lens). Also, I did have a problem with the actual video codec that this camera saves it's clips to. I was familiar with the H.264 video codec, and I sought for HD compatible software in order to edit these clips. One of the main problems with this camera is the video format is NTSC - in a land of PAL! Why would you do this to us!

All in all, this is a great camera and I reccomend it to people who occasionally want to view clips on their HD TV and do not want to have to fiddle with any options or change any settings - they just want it to work. However, for people who want great picture quality, manual focus and a production style future for this camera, keep looking and expect to pay a bigger price.

The quality of the videos is very good. This is a very simple camera that won't take long to set up. I do recommend this camera for the price. The still camera function requires some more work. In low light conditions, the image is very easily blurred even with OIS. There is no option to raise the ISO sensitivity nor to see what shutter speed the camera is going for. Also the button for the still shots is not responsive and hard to press. The Stabilisation works, although don't expect it work miracles with your shaky hands. If you need a miracle, there's a new Sony camcorder that claims to be 10x more effective in reducing shakes. On the brighter side, everyone says the camera looks really professional. And besides, nothing beats having 1080p! The vividness of the faces of my friends and family as comes out on this camera is great.

Nice camera for the price but.... after using it for some time now and having put together a view edited movies I have the following comments.

Lucky to get it to view in a media app without image shake and/or pixelation. Kogan informed me this was common in older computers. As I run a overclocked 920 with 16gig ram, top of the line nvidia card and an SD drive I felt this definitely wasn't the problem.

After many issues trying to import the clips into Premier Pro and Final Cut Pro I finally had to convert them all in MPEGStreamClip before they would stream without stuttering or loose frames in transitions. Kogan informed me it was just my camera but two others used by friends have the same issue and the PC Guide review alludes to this same issue.

After much analysis it looks like the on-board codec is the culprit which showed a variety of issues. With any luck Kogan will fix this with a firmware upgrade so the average end user can better utilize the files it creates.

In all not a bad camera if you are just using it to shoot and output to a TV, or you know enough to convert the MOV's to something useful.

Also - why use an NTSC codec in a land of PAL? Once again, needs conversion before you can do much with it once in a PC. Yes, I know most TV's and media viewers can do both now-a-days but when it is mixed with files from other apps and cameras in a media editing program it becomes yet another issue to manage with this camera.

Thanks Kogan...Love my new HD touchscreen video camera. The picure quality, both in video and still mode is awesome. Great price for what you get!

In the past I have always purchased the high end brand names when it comes to electrical.I have now purchased 3 items from Kogan this year including this camera being one of them and I am very pleased with the overall quality of the camera and the end result with photos and videos is excellent.I would highly recommend this product to anyone who wants to save some dollars on a good quality video camera,5 stars.

An excellent price for an excellent product. I am very pleased at the quality of this camera overall. I have to say that the low light performance of the camera is less than spectacular and that the auto power on when the screen is opened is a bit annoying.

I was a bit surprised that there was no AC adapter to run the camera on while the battery was charging, but overall one of the best deals I have seen.

After owning this camera for over 6 months on a Linux platform (not supported by the supplied software). I am pleasantly pleased of the quality of film it produces and the ease I can use it.

This camera produces some really quality film when used on tripod, the image stability isn't crash hot. But the price for it is bang on.

I'm very happy with the overall purchase and of the quality HD videos I've been able to upload to youtube.

My camera came yesterday and I am looking forward to using it properly. I have enjoyed playing with it, and plan on using it to shoot for my journalism classes. The quality is great and the HDMI cord works brilliantly.
It is easy to use and the remote (I bought that as well) is going to make filming myself from a tripod much easier, especially with the LCD screen rotation.
I didn't get Video Presto! with the camera though, and am disappointed with the software I did get. I will call Kogan in the morning to enquire about that. But overall I am very impressed.