Cheap camera for recording drama/performing arts/music

[mrbios]

Our music department wants a new camera, the last one they had wouldn't allow you to zoom once you'd started recording (little panasonic thing)

 

They don't have much money and the little thing they use now is fine visually, audio recording could be improved but apart from that they just want to replace it because they can't zoom while recording.

 

To be honest they really need to spend some proper money on something decent but i don't think that's likely to happen....any suggestions?

[jinnantonnixx]

For better audio, you could use a separate field recorder and merge the audio to the video later.

Portable & Field Recorders | Musician's Friend

 

I use a Sony NEX camera, it has a manual zoom lens and the video is pretty good.