Now video is king, I think the camcorder is poised for its big comeback

I was recently researching whether to sell my late father’s 20-year-old Panasonic NV-GS400 3CCD Mini DV camcorder that’s been consigned to a drawer for years. A browse of eBay found unboxed second-hand models listed at a respectable £120 ($160) and upwards. I guess there are filmmakers out there who value a 2000s-era handheld video aesthetic (or need them to play or transfer old tapes). 

But undoubtedly, the main market for video these days is social media. Instagram now prioritizes moving footage over the stills photography the platform initially built its reputation on. Content creators and influencers who want their reels to stand out might conceivably investigate the stickiness that authentically retro video gives.

With the above rattling around my brain, I wasn’t at all surprised to receive news to my inbox of a Kickstarter campaign for a brand new Yashica-branded Journey camcorder.

While not a high-end model like my Dad’s Panasonic once was, the Journey, should it be successful, could place affordable filmmaking in the hands of the TikTok generation. If, that is, they can be torn away from their smartphones with the temptation of a more ‘immersive’ filming experience.

This announcement follows on from the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo Cinema release at the start of the year, the similarly ‘Marmite’ upright Canon PowerShot V10 from 2022, plus video-first mirrorless cameras like its EOS R50 V, or competing Nikon Z30 and ZR.

The Yashica Journey’s difference is that with its cylindrical body, flip-out LCD screen and palm-sized dimensions it deliberately apes the classic camcorder design.

A glance at the specifications indicates that, like recent Kodak-branded point-and-shoot compacts, this is more of a re-introduction, rather than reinvention.

A 3x optical zoom providing the equivalent of a 16-50mm focal length is modest stuff, as is 2.2-inch LCD rotatable through 270° with video recording to microSD memory card. More positively, the 4K resolution device is portable as well as affordable. At a featherweight 167g, it can be comfortably carried in Gen Z’s jacket pocket.

With Panasonic, Canon and Sony having offered filmmakers high-end semi pro / pro video cameras in recent years, it’s interesting to see a more consumer-friendly budget-price option reappearing. 

Add the Yashica Journey to the Panasonic HC-VX3 and V900 at the tail-end of 2024 and the electronics giant’s HC-X1600 and HC-X1200 at the beginning of 2025, and could camcorders be the next image capture device that sees its stock rise?

With the Yashica having already met its Kickstarter target 10 times over at the time of writing with a full month to go, stranger things have happened.

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