ORIGINAL: lungbuster12point06
If you ever plan on going solo into the woods an LCD screen is a must and the bigger the better...............Also in my opinion shoulder mount cameras like the XL1s are not good to learn with, they are bulky and need heavy duty camera arms/tripods to support thier weight, also i don't believe the XL1s gives any better video quality than the PD170 (I think the pd is just as good and kicks the XL1s butt in lowlight). If I were just starting out I would stick with a smaller pro-sumer with a large LCD screen and XLR inputs for great audio.
I shoot the Panasonic DVX100p and you cannot beat the picture quality, manual controls are easy to use and it has a big LCD (3.5") the only downside is the optical zoom (10x) but for bowhunting it works just fine.
I agree completely. Using a tree arm it is 10X better to have a LCD screen. 95% of the time you are videoing with the camera nowhere close to your head/eye. The quality of the Canon cameras just cant compare the the Sonys in my opinion. Plus, the HD cameras are getting more and more affordable every day. Have you seen the LCD on the Sony V1U? Its huge and crystal clear! I think you can pick on up for around 4...