My 11-year-old son, Louis, has spent a lot of this wet summer making stop-motion animation movies with Plasticine and a digital camera. Using a digital camera is not ideal and I would like to buy him a digital camcorder for Christmas as he enjoys making films and I feel he has a talent for it. I know little about camcorders but it would need to be able to have a stop/start/pause function to enable this sort of film-making. Can you please help? I can spend up to £200.
Shona Bluhm, Shropshire
I wonder why you think using a digital camera is not ideal? I contacted Jack Schofield (the computer editor of the Guardian) and Charles Arthur (the editor of Technology). They both wondered if a camcorder was the best thing: "I would question whether you actually need a camcorder at all to do stop-motion films," says Charles. Think about it: when Aardman Animations makes a stop-motion film, it doesn't use film cameras, because every frame is 24 individual pictures. For this task, you are better off just buying a decent digital camera, a tripod (so the frame doesn't jerk about) and an enormous storage card (you can get 2GB cards, able to hold thousands of large pictures, for about £16)."
On the subject of tripods, I want to recommend a little one that Sony does: the Sony VCT-MTK compact travel size tripod. I'm not sure what scale your son shoots at but this is perfect for table-top use, and folds up to a tiny size. It costs about £16, you can pick it up on Amazon for (currently) £12.70. Jack Schofield also thinks that rather than a camcorder, what your son needs is a digital still camera (it's the same thing as a digital camera but people in the business say that to differentiate it from a film camera). And that is what your son already has.
If you are keen to buy him a camcorder, perhaps because it fulfils some other purpose, then Charles Arthur suggests looking at the Flip by Pure Digital Technologies, £99, (theflip.com) - it's tiny, but note that an even tinier version is due for Christmas - or the Kodak Zi6, £130, and due to be launched on November 1. These are very low frills, low cost but with "usable quality". You ask about a stop/start/pause function. All camcorders have these, but I think you mean that you want it to be able to shoot single frames, which is what you need for stop-motion animation. Very few camcorders do this - the Sanyo ID shot does, but costs more than £1,000.
Your son can use any camcorder to make his films, but he would have to use it with a computer (in live video-feed mode, ie with no film, tape or memory card in it) and a framegrabber programme to freeze single images. I think you would be mad to spend this much, even if you wanted to. The experts in this kind of animation all seem to think that a webcam is the best for a beginner.
A really fantastic guide to choosing a camera, by Mike Brent and Eric Scott, can be found at stopmotionanimation.com/handbook/3.htm (the website is, anyway, an absolutely brilliant site and has a forum where you and your son can ask questions of other keen animation makers). In this guide, webcams are actually recommended as the "cheapest and simplest way to go ... I always recommend that beginners start out with a webcam and a framegrabber."
The Unibrain Fire-i camera (if your computer has a firewire connection) is highly recommended. It costs about £90 and comes with its own tripod. You can buy it from the Apple store online (tinyurl.com/45aswq). Or there's the Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000, £80, (logitech.com, although you won't find it there) if you have a USB port. The Pro 4000 has been superseded, but you can still get it from sellers at Amazon.
Although you haven't asked for this information, and just for anyone else who is interested, here are some links to animation programmes (most are free): Clayanimator.com/english/stop_motion_animator.html; boinx.com/istopmotion; Kids Animation Maker for Macs (tinyurl.com/4e47pj); freeserifsoftware.com/software/3dPlus/; anim8or.com/main; dakinewave.com/virtualstage; bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bamzooki.
Some updates:
With regard to the column about body books for children (September 20), Catherine Dillon wrote in to suggest Babette Cole's The Sprog Owner's Manual (Red Fox, £5.99). She says her sons "have enjoyed it hugely over the past few years. They got it as a present from my mother when they were about four and six. They are now eight and ten and still love to read it when we visit her in London (we live in Ireland). It is informative and funny and a wee bit gross. Phrases from it have entered our vocabulary ('Put your coat on, good sprogs must be kept dry')."
Many of you wrote in about moths (September 13) to mention the use of conkers to keep them away. Actually we use this method in Italy, but I thought it might be too hit and miss to recommend, but apparently lots of you say that it works - put them in the wardrobe and chests of drawers. They do dry out though and will have to be replaced the following autumn. Many of you say that conkers placed in a room will also keep away spiders.