Best camcorder upgrade from the Canon Vixia HF R800?

[archie10]

Hi guys, Looking for some purchasing advice. I picked up a Canon Vixia HF R800 a few years ago when I was considering picking up video and YouTubeing as a hobby. I went for that camera as it was cheap but from a decent manufacturer and featured an external mic input (3.5mm jack). I figured it was a great safe bet to see whether I would actually use it. A few years later and I'm really enjoying learning about video. I think it's probably time for an upgrade. Even though I realize they've kind of fallen out of favor, I would love to stick with camcorders rather than DSLRs or mirrorless. I like the idea of a workhorse / dedicated video tool.

[rs-eos]

I also like dedicated video equipment.

If you look at say a Vixia HF G70, or any in Canon's professional line (e.g. XA 70), they would be huge improvements over the HF R800.

What you choose to purchase though will really depend upon what use-cases you need.

e.g. if you do filming outdoors, or often move between indoors and outdoors, ND filters will be necessary.   And while the Vixia HF G70 has built-in ND filters, you won't have full manual control.  Perhaps that's OK though.

If you do want full control, it looks like you'd need to step up to at least the XA 70.  With full control, you can set the aperture to anything you want, and then manually set the amount of ND.

Other things to note:

• The HF R800 has optical zoom with more reach than the other models mentioned above.  So if you plan to capture subjects very far away, that will be a challenge with newer equipment as their maximum zoom is less.
• Depending upon where you want to go with audio, Canon's professional line offers many more audio connectivity options and settings.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

One thing that might really help us with a recommendation is your budget?