For the student filmmaker, finding the right camcorder can be a very arduous task. Sure, all students would love to have a top-notch professional model in their arsenal, but let's be honest—most people cannot afford to spend upwards of $5000 on a camcorder. Well, we're here to offer a helping hand for students in this situation. This article goes through the best consumer camcorders on the market for the student filmmaker, and all of the models we discuss can easily be found for $1500 or less.

The GZ-HM340 from JVC is a new entry-level HD camcorder that performs like a solid mid-range model. Its performance is on par with that of last year's GZ-HM200 from JVC, but it lacks most manual controls and its design leaves something to be desired.

The D300s is Nikon's newest video-capable DSLR. While the camera did show some impressive results in our low light testing, we were disappointed by the fact that Nikon didn't implement any new video features as compared to last year's D5000.

The HDC-HS60 is part of Panasonic's new crop of mid-range camcorders for 2010. It boasts a 1/4.1-inch CMOS sensor, 25x optical zoom lens, and 120GB internal hard drive. The camcorder impressed us with its strong performance, but we expect a lot of good competition in the mid-range camcorder market this year.

February 12, 2010 – Today, Panasonic Broadcast introduced a bevy of new products in advance of the upcoming NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show. In the realm of camcorders, however, the big announcement is that Panasonic is allowing customers to reserve orders on its new Full HD 3D camcorder by placing a non-refundable $1,000 deposit.

February 9, 2010 – Panasonic announced its 2010 flagship camcorders in the U.S.: the HDC-HS700 and HDC-TM700. Both are high definition models with a three-CMOS sensor array, native 1080/60p recording, and a new wide-angle Leica Dicomar lens. Other updates to last year’s models include an upgraded image stabilization system, extended zoom, and enhanced wind cut feature. The TM700 is the replacement model for last year’s excellent HDC-TM300, our choice for 2009 Camcorder of the Year.

The Kodak Zi8 ($199 MSRP) is an ultracompact camcorder with some impressive specs: Full 1920 x 1080 HD recording, a 5 megapixel still image capability, and a 3.5mm external microphone jack. Even with these strong specs, however, we found the camcorder to be more of a disappointment than anything else. 

February 2, 2010 – Canon announced today the development of a new MPEG-2 Full HD recording codec. The codec uses 4:2:2 color sampling and it is expected to be implemented on yet unannounced file-based professional camcorders from Canon. The new codec will be capable of 50Mbps bitrate recording, can capture full 1920 x 1080 HD video, and offers two times the color data of the HDV compression system.