Digital Camera or Digital Camcorder?

[Shaolin]

As some of you know I bought a DSLR recently, but am now thinking of buying a point and shoot for other occasions. I'm wondering if anyone had experience with both a Digital Camera and a Digital Camcorder?

I love to take movies while I'm on trips, but I also want the convenience of snapping some pics of people as well. I've read that some Digital Camcorders now take pictures, and I'm wondering what the opinions are about taking pictures with a Digital Camcorder?

I was thinking of getting the Canon A1000, but if I do decide to go to Digital Camcorder direction, some suggestions would be great!

Thanks.

[Melinda]

We use our point and shoot to take movies. Believe it or not, the quality isn't half bad. Might be another way to go?

[djayz]

Same here, I use my point and shoot for movies, quality is decent enough for small clips and what not and the DSLR does the heavy lifting on the still photo side.

What I've found, mind you this was a couple years ago, is that video cameras that take pictures, their quality was not that great. Video quality was good but picture quality was around a 3mp range, similar to what the iphone's pics looks like.

Things may have changed now so maybe check out both items and see what they are like. Video cameras are so small now that you can't even tell the difference from them and photo cameras.

[Mitsu3000gt]

If the end use of the movies is just showing friends, family, etc. on the internet, a TV, or your computer, any decent P&S camera will do that for you. The cameras built into the video cameras are very average. Lots of the P&S cameras will do 720P now too, the only thing to watch is that some of them have really crappy compression methods.

[Shaolin]

Thanks for the replies guys.. Initially I thought of this because I'd like to take a video of me and the family skiing down the Indoor ski hill in Dubai, and the fact that I don't think I will want my DSLR around my neck while I'm skiing.

I don't intend to do anything fancy with the movies, I just wanted something easy to carry around that could take reasonably good pictures and videos.

If Camcorder picture qualities suck, while video quality is great compared to Digital Camera picture quality being good and video capabilities being good enough, then I'll go the Digital Camera route instead (Which is the cheaper route anyway).

I think I'll keep an eye out for any major sales from now until I leave for Dubai at the end of May. I should've bought that A1000 when they had it going for 130 bucks a couple weeks ago!

[Dr_Funk]

I have the olympus 1030SW, and it takes 30 fps and 680x480 movies..so its better than camcorder quality!! And there is no length limit, so you can shoot movies as long as you have memory...

[soupey]

ive been playing with the canon tx1, its a bit slow taking pictures but the video quality is great, 1280x720, files can get big since it uses mjpeg compression, but SD cards are cheap so its not really a biggie, its my "going out" camera now tho.

[clem24]

+1 with all above.

Vid cams are great at video but average at pictures. I have a Sony hi def camcorder. Video is superb, but still pictures still leaves a lot to be desired - noisy, grainy, soft lens, slow, very basic metering and WB, etc..

Digicams great at pictures and generally "good" at video.

The only issue is that most P&S cams can't zoom while filming (the TX1 mentioned above being one that can). But it's a discontinued beast. The other issue with the TX1 is the shitty video codec they use, which results in huge files and eats memory fast.

And do not wear your dslr around your neck while skiing.... If you wipe out, your camera is toast. And you could probably get hurt too. And you also probably don't want to be sticking your eyes through the view finder while burning down the hill.

As for the indoor Dubai thing.... Dood you live in ski country man!!! World class skiing is at your doorstep! Why would you want to go down a slope that is 10x worse than COP, 10x more expensive, and 1000000000x as packed?!?

[Shaolin]

Clem, I know the ski hill is going to be crap haha. We're doing it just so we could say we did it .

[lil*tymer]

Get a nikon d90. DSLR with 720p movie mode.

[clem24]

Originally posted by lil*tymer
Get a nikon d90. DSLR with 720p movie mode.

[C4S]

I would like to ask this dumb question as well ..

As I decided to give up using 5DII .. ( movie is the only function I need from 5DII .. )

For DC .. I just noticed some can ZOOM and AF when taking movie .. but both my panasonic and Fuji F100 ... I need to pre zoom and pre focus, then take movie ...

what other DC can zoom and AF while I am recording?

G10? LX3? some Fuji/Casio ?

Just need a handy one ... for small clip ..


Thx...

[aquamarine]

Originally posted by clem24

What's that for?

[Mitsu3000gt]

The Canon S2IS, S3IS, S5IS series can zoom while taking movies, and the Fuji P&S cameras with the manual zoom lenses can zoom while taking a movie. Both are a great general purpose cameras.

[lil*tymer]

Originally posted by clem24

Sorry

[911fever]

I have a Canon 850IS and its got great quality for recording videos as a semi-advanced point and shoot digital camera. I recommend it.

[clem24]

Originally posted by aquamarine


What's that for?

He just said he doesn't want to take his DSLR skiing.