vdr-d300 for $450.00

Hello everyone. I am in the market for a dvd camcorder and have read all the reviews. I am looking at vdr-d300 and sony dvd505. At Best Buy they have a Panasonic display model vdr-d300 for $450. It comes with full warranty and everything that it is supposed to come with except the box. The cheapest I found the sony dvd505 is $739. Only thing concerns me is low light conditions which it sounds like the sony has the edge. Is it worth almost $300 for that better feature. Will I be able to tell a big difference. Keep in mind I will probably keep the cam for 5-8 years and am using it for family video and vacations.Thank You all for your input......Anthony

Yes, I think you will be able to tell a difference. However, how big a difference is the question. If it is only a marginally small improvement for the $300 it might not be worth the $$.

You can buy a inexpensive cam light to mount in the hot shoe to bring the Panasonic up to the equal of any cam that does well in low light. Panasonic used to equip their cams with lights for the purpose. I bought an accessory light for mine and it makes a BIG difference in low light. You have to work a bit with it so as not to "spotlight" a face and get a white burst, but medium range it works great. You can also clean up the gamma in your video editor and that will put some "light" into an otherwise dark video, but it is not as good as having the proper lighting to begin with.