Forums > Videos > Camera selection ?s

Posted: 28th Sep 2005
me, personally, i like my Sony Cybershot DSC-P73 very much indeed.

There may be a couple of threads floating around, some might be a little out of date, but have a look around and see if you can find one or two of them, some very useful and informative threads out there. 'Tis best to read through them, then bump them if you have more questions, than to create multiple redundant threads.

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Posted: 3rd Oct 2005
whatever you get make sure it's 3 ccd. CCDs are the chips that convert the light into a digital signal and with three you get on for red green and blue, 1 ccd cram it all onto one chip so the resoultion is worse. that's the only huge rule unless you are looking to spend more money

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Posted: 15th Oct 2005
Ninja: Won't (or very unlikely to) be able to get 3 ccd's with that budget, even second hand..

Elemental: 3 ccd's is a definite must have if you're thinking of footage good enough to be redistributed (e.g. selling footage on a dvd, to be watched on a tv screen.) Typical 1 ccd cameras, simply put, have sort of a checker pattern made up of red, green and blue sensors. The colour data is then interpolated and you have your picture.

To clarify what Ninja said, it's not exactly 'resolution' which is worse per se, but more 'colour fidelity' or even 'colour resolution'. Having 3 ccd's doesn't increase the density of the amount of pixels, but ensures that each pixels represents what is there to a truer degree.

You need to know what you're aiming to achieve with your camera- short/long clips? Final display on tv screen/ computer screen?

If you were aiming for shortish (15-30 minute clips) for display on a laptop screen, I'd recommend a digital still camera with video capability instead. As odd as it sounds, they tend to offer higher resolution (in terms of frame rate, or similar) than similarly priced consumer dv cams. This is because tv screens are 25-30fps, anything higher doesn't register (it drops frames). On a computer screen however, you will notice the difference between 60 fps and 30 fps.

Eitherway, there's a very good chance you'll find more useful information to help you choose a video camera at a dedicated website. Good luck.

Posted: 16th Oct 2005
@ ninja -

so things like optical zoom, lens quality, pixel count, card type, portability and ergonomics all don't matter?

A balance of all things is that which we desire...

"beg beg grovel beg grovel"
"master"
--FSA

"There was an arse there, i couldn't help myself"
--Rougie

Posted: 16th Oct 2005
Rhys: 3CCD's is a major thing though.. The top 1CCD camera regardless of all features (except maybe still shots) can't compare to the lowest 3CCD out there in terms of picture 'punch'.. Prices are coming down luckily.

For my own purposes, I'd probably love to have the IXUS 750 for video.. high res 30fps.. 60fps if you need it. and most of my video ends up on the computer anyway.. plus it's a super p&s digital compact stills camera.

Plus during the week I shoot with https://www.gearrental.com/camera_images/DSR250.jpg
and it's a #$% to carry.

Posted: 16th Oct 2005
(faultless advice, ry!! particularly about the effectiveness of still cameras' video fps.)
One word of advice if youse are gong for a still shot camera and comparing their video capability: check for whether they allow for focus / zoom changes during video capture, cus mine don't and it make me cry like a babe.

a babe!

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Posted: 16th Oct 2005
*stands corrected*

The only camera i know of that definitely allows zoom change while recording is the fujifilm finepix s9500 (might be called s9000 in other places, but not sure) - it has a manual twist zoom on the lens, much like an slr.

"beg beg grovel beg grovel"
"master"
--FSA

"There was an arse there, i couldn't help myself"
--Rougie

Posted: 17th Oct 2005
first : excuse my english....that's my first post in this forum...!

so , as bender said look if the cam get manual focus ! that very important for fire shooting !!!
the focus changes with the light intensity (more light => more precision) , so you can lost the focus because of the time of reflexion of your cam .
but for that kind of budget I'm not sure you can get a cam like this..in france i know its simply impossible , you must look for semi-pro cam !!!

and an other important thing : look for the sensibility if you prefer recognize the background in your video ! if the sensibility is too high and if you have not enough light , you wont recognise if your video is made in UK , japan or in front of your house...!
you'll just have a man with black background....(all the black are the same all around the wolrd I think..!)

I hope I had help you !!

good luck !!

Posted: 17th Oct 2005

Written by: MiG

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*stands corrected*

The only camera i know of that definitely allows zoom change while recording is the fujifilm finepix s9500 (might be called s9000 in other places, but not sure) - it has a manual twist zoom on the lens, much like an slr.

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A manual zoom! That's a great feature I think.. So much more responsive than the wide/tele button..

The ixus 700, 750 both allow zoom changes while shooting too. A bit tricky to get right though, because the focus often changes (or initial focus errors show up). By right the focus should not change whether you zoom in or not. I think you might be able to work around this by zooming in and focusing e.g. on the eyes, then starting the clip, then zoom out to frame it after.