Alex Lindsay

Canon's Vixia HG21 is a feature-filled high-definition camcorder that acts and feels like a workhorse. And for such a small camera, it produces great video image quality.

The HG21 sports a 1/3-inch CMOS sensor, the same size as Sony's HDR-CX12 ( Macworld rated 3.5 out of 5 mice ), and the sensor size has a positive effect upon the image quality. In low light and especially in well-lit situations, the HG21's video is of high quality and the image is remarkably clear for a consumer camcorder. I've seen camcorders that have smaller sensors, but the results suffer.

There's now a wide variety of affordable HD camcorders on the market, with many fantastic features (see our buyer's guide for all the details). But what would the perfect camcorder look like, good for both consumers and aspiring prosumers? A composite of what's already out there (but rarely in one place). Here are some ideas.

Must Haves

Panasonic's small and conveniently packed HDC-SD100 HD camcorder uses a three-chip image sensor, a rarity in the consumer camcorder market. But the HDC-SD100 uses that three-chip sensor to make up for each individual sensor's anemic 1/6-inch size. (By comparison, that's about half the size of the sensor in Sony's HDR-CX12.) There are many great features on the HDC-SD100, but image quality isn't one of them.

The HDC-SD100 is very comfortable to hold and shoot. Panasonic uses a lens ring that gives the HDC-SD100 great manual controls, and the ring is even more intuitive than the HDR-CX12's manual dial. You can use it to control the focus, iris, shutter speed, and white balance. The manual tools provide an easy way to deal with challenging shooting environments when the stock camera responses just aren't enough. It's much more effective than jumping through menus.

Sony's HDR-CX12 HD camcorder is in the top tier of the company's consumer camcorders lineup. Recording to a SDHC memory card, the camera sports a 1/3-inch imaging sensor--a rather large size for a consumer HD camcorder--and HDMI output. It records AVCHD video at a data rate of 16Mbit per second, which is good, but not at the top of the heap. And video from the HDR-CX12 imports into iMovie '09 without a hitch.

Overall, the shooting experience with the HDR-CX12 is quite comfortable. For manual adjustments as you shoot, Sony thoughtfully included a great control wheel. Generally speaking, it's much faster and more natural to use an analog wheel than it is to fiddle a little joystick or click through menus using buttons when you want to manually adjust focus, zoom, exposure, shutter speed, and so on. The intuitive controls make it much easier to shoot in challenging situations or when you want to do more than just capture basic home movies.

Podcasting means many things to many people: self-expression, self-promotion, or even a career. Regardless of what you plan to do with your podcast, you must produce a quality show if you expect anyone to listen-especially given that there are more than 100,000 podcasts to compete with.

This article focuses on audio podcasting. Remember that you're creating a podcast, not a music album, so simplicity and voice quality are most important. Your audience needs to be able to understand you and your guests. This requires reasonably good equipment, good techniques, and good post-production.