reach and use the manual controls and buttons with ease while recording and not have to lose focus and move the camcorder at a crucial recording time in order to change a setting.
Some digital camcorders are not very user friendly when it comes to button placement and especially those control buttons that need to be reached while recording.
Imagine that you are filming your daughters first school play, and you need to zoom in on her solo performance, but in order to manually adjust the zoom button, you have to access an internal menu or move the camera off your child in order to reach the right button? By the time you do all that, the solo will be over and a once in a lifetime recording moment is lost forever.
So, when purchasing a digital camcorder with manual control always consider this, if you cannot easily access the