My opinion: neither. I’ve never likes CMOS chips, so much so that I would actually advise you to assume that every post I’ve ever written in my entire life has been from an anti-CMOS perspective. Were it up to me, CMOS would have it’s own schools, water fountains, and bus seats in the back. That’s how much I dislike them.
Okay, I’m exaggerating a little. For still photo, I see no problem with CMOS chips. Even for camcorder use, don’t necessarily have a problem with them in certain situations. CMOS is actually a neat chip in the sense that it drastically lowers the price of getting a 3 chip camera. The problems with CMOS however is that it uses a “rolling shutter”, which I’ve discussed extensively in the past. Because of how this rolling shutter works, if you’re shooting on a slower shutter speed, these cameras can destroy images. movement such as running while shooting or riding in a bumpy vehicle creates an artifact called wobble. It’s hard to describe, except to say that it looks like you’ve got a blob of jello stuck to your lens. Rapid left-to-right movement creates a skew, where a straight object can appear crooked or off-kilter. Shooting in rooms lit only with old florescent lights will give you a creepy partial exposure that might look great in a horror flick, but will ruin your training or wedding video.
Now, if you’ve got bright enough lighting that you can set your shutter speed pretty high, these things are minimalized, but still, in my opinion the best option is to find a camcorder with a CCD chip setup. Because of this, I’ve really been leaning towards the XH-A1 series. That, and the fact that I already own several SD Canons, which means I have batteries and chargers that will work with them natively. A refurbished XH-A1 from B&H costs about the same as either of the cameras you’ve mentioned, and the CCD setup lends to better performance, again, in my opinion.
Now, I’m not just beating on CMOS because I’ve read up on it online, even though there are some great webpages to do so. I actually went to New York not that long ago, and visit the showroom floor at B&H. Not to get off on a bunnytrail, but it’s the most amazing place on earth. Anyway, I actually played with most of their prosumer/pro grade gear, and I came to the conclusion that I hated CMOS all on my own. If they ever solve the rolling shutter thing, I’ll be all over it. But until then, I’m still a CCD buyer. 🙂
PS-As was mentioned above, the more we know about your needs, the better we can make recommendations. Maybe a CMOS camera will work for you, but we can’t know until you tell us why you need a camera in the first place.
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