Over the last three or four years - since the advent of HD really - camcorder features and functions have increased in concert with their pricing. $1500 and upwards is not uncommon. The bottom end of the market segment was catered for by a bunch of wannabes aimed at the' funky' market with the likes of the Cisco FLIP, Sony Bloggie and Creative Vado. For the amateur film maker that simply wanted a no-frills camcorder at a low price, this was a problem.

Lately however, the major vendors seem to have realised there is a potential 'down there' and proper grown up cameras are starting to reappear with reasonable price tags and fewer igh end functions and electronic trickery. The Canon Legria FS306 is one of these.

With a price tag of only $399, the Legria FS 306 has a proper barrel shape with a single handgrip strap and flip out LCD that while not brilliant in bright sunlight, is certainly usable. Of course, as is the trend, there is no viewfinder. Zoom is 41x with a ludicrously large decal on the barrel announcing a 2000x digital zoom. Tip: turn that off and leave it off. Not even the electronic image stabiliser will help you there.

By David Hague

David is the owner and publisher of AusCam Online. He has a background in media dating back to 1979 when he first got involved with photojournalism in motorsport, and went from there into technology via a 5 year stint with Tandy Computers. Following that, he ran a software distribution company on the Gold Coast and was one of the first to recognise the potential of Microsoft Windows.

Moving back to WA, David wrote scripts for Computer Television for video training for the just released Windows and Office 95 among others, and was then lured to Sydney to create web sites for the newly commercial Internet in 1995, building hundreds of sites under contract to OzEmail including Coates Hire, Hertz Queensland, John Williamson, the NSW Board of Studies and many, many more.

He went back into full time journalism as the Managing Editor for Channel 7's 'Gadget Guy', Peter Blasina's publications VideoCamera and Pixelmag, before starting Australasian Camcorder magazine when these publications were shelved. He lives at Sydney's Avalon Beaches nearly on the ocean front with dog Budweiser and in his spare time is a nut for motor sport, road safety, fishing, science fiction - especially Dr Who - and technology.

David can be contacted via david@auscamonline.com