Bécasseau tacheté (Calidris melanotos), Lough Beg County Antrim, Irlande du Nord. Photo : Paul Hackett.
Matériel : Sony PC100 digital camcorder with Eagleeye 5x Converter (camcorder 10X optical X 5X converter = 50X magnification).

The Basics - what do I want to achieve ?

Firstly you have to decide what you want to achieve, do you want to have good video footage, or quality stills or possibly both ?
This decision greatly influences the cost. When I was looking into this subject just over two years ago I decided on a camcorder and what I wanted to achieve and the following are my reasons for choosing a camcorder and maybe they can guide you to what you want out of it
- Firstly I wanted to have a camcorder to record video footage of all the resident birds, common migrants plus any rarities seen in the UK and to copy them onto video to keep a library built up over time for my personal collection. My aim and still is, is to record video of adults in summer/winter plumage and juveniles with general behaviour which fascinates me. This obviously will take a life time because most of us have to work in the week and earn a living, to pay the mortgage !! But I am still undecided upon the method of storing the video footage and stills, and I am also looking into record able DVD at the moment for a long term solution.The cost needs to come down and in time it will, although generally VHS tape is used.
People are now recording on recordable CD or computer hard disk with the advent of so many home PC's bought now and as a CD Writer is part of the standard package, you still need to buy software/hardware in most instances to transfer from camcorder to computer and be warned !! Video files take an enormous amount of disk space