digital video camera shopping

January 3, 2006 3:29 PM

Advice on buying a digital camera with video functions, please.

I want to be able to shoot snippets of home movies, nothing more than a few minutes long at any one time, but still of a quality that will look OK on a TV. I want to be able to do this rather spontaneously (just grab the camera and shoot) and I don't want the unit to be too bulky for travelling. I know I don't want a separate camcorder, I want a decent video function on a digital camera. I know what I want in a still camera, but what should I be looking for in terms of video functions and capabilities, what questions should I be asking the salesman? How much memory minimum? What type of memory (is it all flash)? What's the most future-proof file type? Should I go a plug in microphone as well? What about image stabilisation?

There don't seem to be many products aimed specifically at my situation, either they're cameras with a bit of video chucked in, or their full-blown camcorders. Unless there are models you could point me towards?

posted by wilful to shopping (9 comments total)

While it's certainly possible for you to be overwhelmed with data the standard for digital camera reviews is dpreview.

From my perspective you have a few options and some more decisions to make.

You can go with what is primary a point and shoot digital camera with a large storage capacity that can take short clips (most cameras can do this these days), and trade off quality and features in the movies....or

You can go with a digital video camera that can shoot and store digital pictures to a seperate memory card, the trade off here is a bit different. You generally get the same capacity picture volume wise but your still picture quality often suffers.
posted by iamabot at 3:47 PM on January 3, 2006

The most future-proof format is DV, what all the camcorders use. Unfortunately that is a format designed for multi-GB tapes and is not thrifty with space — it needs 3.6 MB/s. So a 512 MB flash card is going to hold 2'35 of video. Not good. Given that, I don't even know if there are digicams that shoot in DV.
posted by smackfu at 3:51 PM on January 3, 2006

thanks iamabot, I'd already been to dpreview, the problem is that they don't seem to cover video function at all well.
posted by wilful at 4:08 PM on January 3, 2006

I recently bought a Nikon Coolpix S3 as my compact "snapshot" camera. I've been quite happy with the results. With a 1GB SD card, it will hold nearly 30 minutes of video (QuickTime format) at 640x480 resolution, more at a lower res.

I think most of the recent high-end compacts will do the same.
posted by AstroGuy at 5:10 PM on January 3, 2006

Well anecdotally I can tell you we've been happy with our Canon SD400 and a 1GB SD card, I can't say that we use it for video all that often though. My parents just bought a DV camcorder that contains the aformentioned SD card for digital stills. Our experience was that the digital stills weren't all that nice. Their camera uses a 3.1mp sensor, I'll see if I can track down the brand/model. They aren't the most technically savvy folks so it's certainly possible they didn't have it set up terribly well.
posted by iamabot at 5:15 PM on January 3, 2006

The problem with the video on digital cameras such as Canon and Sony compacts isn't the images so much as the sound - truly awful through the tiny mic in the camera, with wind and body sound abundant.

You can get digital camcorders that also take a still image at a decent resolution?
posted by A189Nut at 5:31 PM on January 3, 2006

I just got the Canon SD450 as my compact (tiny) point and shoot and the video on it is pretty amazing (good enough for a TV, I believe). I use it exactly like you're planning to -- just for little snippets of video when it makes more sense (i.e., I got some great fireworks pictures on New Years and also some great video light shows). I don't want a camcorder, so this is perfect for me.

My camera uses tiny secure digital (SD) memory cards. A189Nut is correct to a certain extent... there isn't a jack for an external microphone -- the little microphone is located on the camera. Therefore, if you're outside in howling wind, you're going to pick up the sound of the wind. However, I think it's quite reasonable indoors.

The other thing to consider is the size of the memory card -- mine included a 512MB card. I will definitely upgrade that to at least a 1GB card. From what I read, the Canon's compression rate for video is less than ideal (about 2MB per second of video). AstroGuy's CoolPix camera sounds like it has a much better compression rate, but like I said before, I'm OK with that because I'm not really looking to shoot 30 minutes of video on here... just a few little snippets.

With a 1GB card at highest quality, I can get between 8 and 16 minutes of video for a TV, but that can go all the way up to almost two hours if I go for the lowest resolution which is good if I just plan on sending some video via email.

Also, make sure there the camera doesn't have internal time limits to length of video -- the new Canons (SD400 and SD450 for example do not you can record until your memory card is full), however older models (S330, for example, does have a limit for filming that was between 15-30 seconds per recording session, even if you still have more room on the memory card.)

Hope this helps...
posted by jerryg99 at 6:13 PM on January 3, 2006

One other tip, unless you have a really knowledgeable salesperson that you trust, I would pick maybe three cameras that you are interested in and then go to their respective web pages and read the product manuals for specifics. Most of them are available as PDF documents... just skim through them to the technical specifications that you're interested in. I also find the customer reviews on sites like Amazon.com helpful, although I take those with a grain of salt.
posted by jerryg99 at 6:24 PM on January 3, 2006

The Canon PowerShot S2 will record 640x480 at 30 fps in stereo. Also records CD-quality stereo audio, which is great for recording music practice sessions.
posted by omnidrew at 8:26 PM on January 3, 2006