I like JVC but matter of choice, go talk to someone in a good camera shop.

Richard1987,

Any of the main manufacturers provide good quality cameras, Sony, Panasonic, JVC or Canon. I prefer Sony personally. I would look for one with a 20x zoom and image stabilisation rather than 10x as you'll need the extra reach. Don't get drawn in by digital zoom numbers, it's a pointess addition and only used as a marketing exercise to make it sound better than it is. Most use hard drives these days that I don't like as they compress the video in to MPEG2 and isn't good for editing (I shoot underwater videos), but might be fine for your needs. If you do go for a hard drive camera, get the largest capacity you can get unless you want to get a seperate external hard drive for your pc to store the footage.

Darren

cheers Darren your full of information arent you.

are sonys worth the extra money over say Panasonic,JVC etc

are Lumix camera's as brilliant as theyre made out to be?

It's personal preference when it comes down to it. For still cameras, I've always preferred Canon and Sony for video. Ask 5 people and you'll probably get 5 different answers! I wouldn't say it's worth paying extra for Sony, the features and quality of the camera are the main thing rather than the name. I use mine underwater in a marine housing so it takes a bit of stick and I've always found them to be rugged and provide good quality video. I'm sure the others are just as good. I've never used Panasonic, but their 3-chip models are said to be good. I did look at them but they weren't up to underwater work when I was getting my last one. One thing with a safari holiday (to keep us on-topic!), humidity and dust is an issue so you need to make sure the camera is rugged enough to cope with a safari. One with a long battery life will be useful as well as it might be a good few hours before you get to charge it again. This is how mine gets used!!



Darren