Susiej

Update: The video feature on the camera will look like crap on a HD TV. Thankfully, Canon does have a point and shoot camera with 10x zoom that does truly take HD video. Only one of its kind so far. It is the Canon PowerShot TX1 7.1MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom I really need ONE camera.

I think I’ve figured out a way to save a bundle of money on the family video camera investment. First, let me give you some background:

There are HD video cameras available that are built for widescreen TV viewing — but don’t let that fool you. Once you edit, and add music and add digital stills, you won’t be able to burn your movie into the HD format. This is important to understand. Once your movie is burned, it will still look grainy and fuzzy when you play them on your HDTV, even though you used an HD camcorder. But mini DV tapes and mini DVDs will look great when you play them on your computer monitor.

The best quality format is still mini DV tapes. Tapes. Not those mini DVDs. That’s as far as we’ve come with this technology. Cameras that use those mini DVD discs are not a shortcut to DVDs — many are unable to be played in your home DVD player. You can plug your camera into your TV and watch the movie — but to watch the mini DVD, you’ll have to run the movie into your computer and burn it into a compatible format for your TV so that you can play it in your DVD player. Tape, ironically, will give you better quality.

My home video camera was a Samsung SCD6040 DuoCam MiniDV Camcorder w/10x Optical Zoom & 4.1 MP Digital Still Camera. It was brilliant! It had two separate lenses; one for the mini DV tapes and a separate one for the 4.13 MP memory stick. I had one device to carry for all of my needs. The only drawback with this camera is that when I switched to camera mode/movie mode, it would often take about 15 – 20 seconds of lost filming time. They don’t make them with two lenses anymore.

I dropped the camera right before Christmas. The camera still worked, but no longer could take movies. The repair cost was a minimum of $250. This broke my heart. I didn’t want the extra expense of buying a video camera, I missed my camera. I kept replaying the dropping scene in my mind for weeks — “where did I go wrong?”

My nephew said he could fix it — it would be a snap. I brought him my camera and mini screwdrivers on New Year’s Eve. He worked and worked — he worked so hard. Alas, there were leftover parts when he finished screwing those tiny made-in-China (really by Elves) screws. Nothing worked. Not even the camera. I wanted this to work out for him, I think, more than the camera. He needs a confidence boost — this incident, however, did not create the way for that to happen.

So, I began the painful quest and research phase of finding a new camera. I used my local library’s EBSCO database to look at all the magazine articles and reviews on video cameras. These brilliant camera experts helped me to narrow my decision down to to two cameras: Canon HV20 3MP High Definition MiniDV Camcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and Sony HDR-HC5 4MP MiniDV High Definition Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom. Both still have that built-in camera feature so that I could continue to carry one device around for all my family photo needs — plus — they let me take digital still and movie simultaneously! No more 15-20 second delays. I checked around the Internet and found a high price of $1000, and a low price of $449.

Still, it didn’t feel right –I didn’t hit the send button just yet. I decided to head to my local camera store and see the camera. (I hate shopping, I would rather go to the dentist than listen to a salesman talk to me about a camera.) The first thing the salesman did was to burst my bubble. He said, “If you want to take great pictures, you’ll still have to buy a separate camera. They don’t make them with two lenses anymore — so your digital pictures come out of the same lens as the movie.” Plus, he said, the digital still would only be 2-3 MP. “I can sell you my cheapest camera and you’ll get 8 MP.”

Two cameras. Life as I know it will be forever changed. Plus, how much more is this going to cost me?

I pretended to agree with him, and reluctantly, went over to the digital camera area. I am not a photographer, and I could care less about ISO DS and MPs. But I love my kids, so I want lots of pictures of them. My plan was to learn as much as I could, and then rush home and order the Canon HV20 while I could still get it for $449.

While looking at digital cameras, he showed me several great point and shoots in the $200-$300 price range. Blah, blah, blah. But, I perked up my ears when he started talking about the optical zoom. I thought of the lake… “How far can this zoom,” I asked? Ten times. Hmmm. This could be nice. Then, the idea of 8 MP started to entice me — wouldn’t those pictures look great. I started asking more questions. So many great features on this Canon PowerShot SX100IS. Macro settings for taking exceptionally great detailed close up shots, and face recognition, and image stabilization (Makes the pictures look great even when I’m not steady.) The mode could automatically adjust for snow scenes, beach scenes, pets and kids, portraits. Plus, I was intrigued with the manual focus feature. Pioneer Woman says you should never use a flash — and being able to adjust the camera so that the flash doesn’t automatically pop up for indoor shots is something I need to know.

Then, I turned my attention to the camera’s built-in video features, which is now a standard feature on most digital cameras. This one shoots VGA (640 x 480 at 30 fps/30 fps LP) and QVGA (320 x 240 at 30 fps) for up to 1 hour or 4GB) or QQVGA (160 x 120 at 15 fps) for up to 3 minutes. This is pretty good. I considered that my Samsung SCD6040 only captured 30 frames per second and 680K pixels for video. And once I burned the movie to watch on TV, all the DV quality is lost anyway. And, this digital video format, which is stored on the memory stick rather than tape, is much easier to upload onto You Tube, and the quality is great on the computer.

When I record movies, I rarely record longer than 1-2 minutes. You won’t see me at the zoo filming monkeys (National Geographic does that way better than me.) I don’t record entire concert performances, and not entire soccer games. I’ve learned long video makes for very boring videos. Short clips here and there, just to capture the voice, the way they say the words, mixed in with awesome digital stills, makes much better movies. This is exactly what a digital camera’s movie function will bring me. They key lies in great editing and music. Less video is always better than more.

Maybe I can still have my dream of holding just one camera after-all. And now, we’re talking $200-$300 rather than $449-$1000! You probably have this movie feature on the camera you already have right now. Start using it. You’ll capture some great moments.

So, never impulsive me, went home to do some more research. I studied all the Amazon.com reviews and learned that the Canon PowerShot SX100IS was great, a nice combination of a point/shoot and an SLR. The reviewers often complained about a lot of noise (blurry colors showing up) and that it does awful in low light. Many referred to the Canon PowerShot Pro Series S5 IS 8.0MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom as a much better camera – especially for low light. And it has a 12x optical zoom, rather than 10x. Still thinking of the lake shots. And it allows me to shoot pictures in raw. I checked the reviews, many more, and much more positive than the SX100IS.

The Series S5 ranged from $40 – $100 more than the PowerShot SX, and Amazon had it for $319. BestBuy and Circuit City and the camera store price was around $399. This is the one I’m buying as my all purpose, home movie and digital still camera.

If you still want to invest in a true camcorder, you can’t go wrong with the Canon HV20 or the Sony HDR-HC5. For me, I can get by with the movie feature in the Canon PowerShot Pro Series S5. This will greatly simplify my life, because I’m no longer using tape, making editing much less time consuming.

So, no one is allowed to say anything cute, or beautiful or funny until UPS comes.

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