Looking for a New Video Camera - Suggestions?

What Retro Swim said. Their focus and aperture work exactly like a Polaroid, or a disposal camera. Really wide angle lens and a fixed aperture of most likely F8. That seems painfully limiting to me.

EDIT: They're F2.8 (at least some are), so there are definitely worse lenses out there for that.

 

Oh boy this JVC is terrible when recording in indoor lighting. Either I need to install a flood light in my work area... or go outside?
I'll have to test it when I'm outside in sunlight, but that isn't going to be much use indoors... bah!
Curse you JVC / Kenwood! Ah well, I'll try to make good use of it...

Edit: Hmm, I need to find settings. Looks like the intelligent auto setting is completely drain bamaged and mucking up my indoor video!
Final Cut clears it up well by increasing exposure and decreasing saturation. Surely there's a setting inside the camera that adjusts those

Before:


After!


It's good that everything looks bright again, Intelligent Auto mode is terrible for indoors. I wonder why it didn't pick it up?

 

What's your lighting like? Going from your previous videos it seems pretty subdued.

More lighting is always good for video work. You don't need huge floodlights, my lab is lit with dual fluoro tubes and that's sufficient.

 

I'm in what was my kitchen, best lit room in the house... maybe I do need more lights.
Although with the new settings it is a lot clearer

 

Muahaha!! I dunno, man... some people like Coldplay!

Yes, you should be skateboarding down Ayers Rock with a video camera!

Minimal focal length for a stock GoPro is 12 inches (30cm). Your Canon with a very expensive 50mm f/1.2 lens has a minimum focal length of 50cm. And the GoPro focuses to infinity. And yes, you can get macro filters, too:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDAopwmGXmk

The barrel distortion is due to the wide angle lens - after all, a fisheye lens IS a very wide angle lens. Apparently it's a 170 degree lens, but you can bring it down to 127 degrees (or 90 on one model) by filming 1080p @ 30fps. You can remove it in software. Bit of a pain, admittedly, if that's not what you're after. Perhaps there's a filter to do it? No idea.