Camcorder or Camera is better to capture both video/photo ?

[fjmr]

The good test of audio/video is human faces, human voices, piano, true black... the basis that we encountered daily.

Many things We encounter daily in My case is flowers, women, sea, sun birds and all can give us very nice videos and photos.
I cant see any noise or grainy at photo https://forum.videohelp.com/images/guides/p1517790/dsc00249.jpg
It is a telephoto taken without any tripoid.
It looks nice even for other people here and I cant understand if the photo taken with 1mpixel isnt good enough for making a dvd film that is I modestly imagine is only 720x480.
But... But...
The important is much clever for an amateur to carry one small camera in vacation
Is there enough time to take so many equipments and take a shoot while seeing the scene and talking with family friends and so on
The best judge is people and they like

dsc00297.jpg

[fjmr]

One should crash the snake and show the wood piece

sf.mpg

[edDV]

Today's camcorders are roughly equal to the first generation 1996-98 digital cameras for shooting stills. For some that is good enough. For others, better still quality is required.

[SingSing]

Today's camcorders are roughly equal to the first generation 1996-98 digital cameras for shooting stills. For some that is good enough. For others, better still quality is required.

Are you refering to those early day Afga ? Most of the still life digital Photos I saw/took are much clearer and vivid than fjmr posted. I think because even point and shoot have macro mode, that a miniDV cam lacks.

Most camera site like steve's cam, dpreview, megapixel, will shows both the photo and video sample of the reviewed equipment.

But most video camera review site, shows video, and still from the video, but not photo stills. Is this true or I just missed them in my search ?

[InXess]

Looks like you missed them...
You'll get better results searching for a particular camcorder samples or reviews instead of more general search.
Examples:
http://www.dvspot.com/reviews/sony/pc330-review/index.shtml

you can also read some comments about camcorder still quality vs. still digicam. Unfortunately samples are gone...

http://www.camerahacker.com/Digital/3_MP_Comparison.shtml

Although many manuf. try to combine both best results are obtained from a dedicated equipment. That's the nature of the beast. You'll get more refrigerating capacity from a dedicated freezer then freezer-cellphone combo (not available yet... or is it?) For a moment I forgot about refrigerator-media centers...
No doubt that coming years will show tremendous progress in combing camcorder with digicams and it is anybody's guess which is going to be a better choice soon.

[SingSing]

Thank you.

[Richard_G]

Why is it that it appears only guns1inger and I can see just how truly bad these example photos are? You all seem to be looking at the subject of the pictures and not the quality. They are grainy, noisy, full of artifacts, just about everything bad that can happen has. The owl shot demonstrates the diabolical dynamic range with most of the right side of the shot being burnt out.

It's been said so many times, if you want to shoot good quality video, use a video camera and if you want to take good quality stills, use something that you fill with a 35mm film.

For various projects where I need a still camera, I have recently bought a Fuji S2 Pro Digital SLR. Despite this being regarded as a professional standard camera, the quality isn't a patch on that produced by my 20 year old Nikon 35mm.

[ZAPPER]

I didn't say that any of the shots were centerfold quality, just that they were nice shots, and given that they are from a camcorder I would say that they are good enough for a snap shot. On the other hand, anything worth doing is worth doing right. That is if you want top quality photos you should start with good "Photo" equipment and exercise all of the science and art that goes into making a top image. Myself, I have given up on the dream of ever taking a pro quality photo, but the ones above of the food and the beach are good enough for me to show to folks if it was the vacation that I took.

[fjmr]

The photo of the food was taken at night indoors at a restaurant without any tripod
the ilumination was quite bad so I Think taking the conditions was not so bad.
Take another photo with a still cam to compare

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[fjmr]

one more taken with a still cam
Sincerely I cant see so much diference with other taken by camcorder and I repeat what I am discussing is to mount a film with movie and photos in a dvd.
That is folks, dogs bark while caravan passes.
But... But...
Lets go what is important photos for pleasure and life...

Do You see so much difference?


d6c5b2c008a09b88f9ca8010.l

[InXess]

I think everyone's got the point...

[garman]

I have a canon that shoots both video and photos. It does a great job on both. I don't think you sacrifice any quality when canon combine a camcorder and a still camera. Right now I own the Canon S1 IS. Great camera. I took a trip to the Canyons and the last thing I want to bring is another camera, plus batteries. All I needed was 1 camera and a photo wallet to get the job done.
I am currently looking at the S3 IS which has better features then my current one.
Here are some of the specs. 12x zoom lens, 6 megapixel sensor, the video is 640x480 @ 30fps, you can also shoot video @ 320x240 @ 60fps. Now that's cool.
Another great feature zoom function works when shooting video. Anyway have a look at dpreview.com and check the forum for some samples. The cost is about 499 US if you want something cheaper the S2 IS is about 399 US but no 60fps. Goodluck on your purchase -gari

[thecoalman]

Why is it that it appears only guns1inger and I can see just how truly bad these example photos are?

I'd agree with that and didn't post it as someone beat me too it, especially about the grain. I noticed that the still images were awfully grainy from Canon GL2 too but good enough if you were going to us them in the video, maybe for a shot of a DVD cover. Beyond that.... I'd use a regular camera. It is convenient though.

Here are some of the specs. 12x zoom lens, 6 megapixel sensor, the video is 640x480 @ 30fps, you can also shoot video @ 320x240 @ 60fps. Now that's cool.

I've seen a lot of video from digital still cameras and I'll have to say some of it is pretty good especially when you're using the 640x480. Trouble is that video doesn't compare to the results your going to get from a regualr DV cam. First the highest resolutions I've seen is 640x480 which would have to be reduced to use on DVD add to that it's highly compressed and needs to be converted to complinat MPEG2 and you have a mess on your hands. Great for computer playback, terrible for using on DVD.


Example 1.8 MP from Canon GL2 (on fine mode I think):

[SingSing]

I look at many photo and video on camcorder and camera review sites. The Canon cameras can take a better video than Canon camcorder can take a photo. This GL2 photo is worse than usual.

My focus is to seperate occassions between enjoy a vacation with minmum audio/video gear vs wedding / communion / graduation / homecoming.

[fjmr]

My point is that in a vacation the best is to take the minimum of kernel and if you make a dvd to show the results the difference do not compensate for the extra.
But if you want take this taken with the sony dsc92 still cam.

dsc00775.jpg

[fjmr]

or perhaps this with dscp92 still cam also

dsc00771.jpg

[fjmr]

:P
But sometimes is better to carry one cam only
Take this one taken with hc42 camcorder

dsc00265.jpg

[fjmr]

or even this

dsc00164.jpg

[SingSing]

You are pretty good photographer on subject matter. You should tried a fuji or canon digital camera, then you will get much better pictures, and see what other are talking about.

Don't get Sony, I have a W5 for a while, it's color is very Sony, human skin tone somehow look like plastic, it is similar to what you got, Sony most likely has a different color chart.

[fjmr]

I dont know if i will bother people but....
these things are to be shown
So take one more still shot with a sony camcorder

[thecoalman]

I look at many photo and video on camcorder and camera review sites. The Canon cameras can take a better video than Canon camcorder can take a photo. This GL2 photo is worse than usual.

To tell you the truth I wasn't even aware it had the still feature until I took it out of the box. :P When you get into the video though that's where it excels. I'll say it again, the video still camera produces comapres in no way to what you can expect from a good mini-DV cam, if you export this video to DVD you'll really find out it's limitations. Here's some screenshots from video, all but the first one are interlaced. The GL2 has frame mode but I don't have any examples from that and since they would not be interlaced the images would be that much better. Only trouble is you're stuck with a resolution of 720x480. Also note the pictures of the band are 16:9 so they may look a little tall and lanky.

This one was deinterlaced using image software:



Interlaced:





Very Low light:

[garman]

[quote="thecoalman"]

Why is it that it appears only guns1inger and I can see just how truly bad these example photos are?

I'd agree with that and didn't post it as someone beat me too it, especially about the grain. I noticed that the still images were awfully grainy from Canon GL2 too but good enough if you were going to us them in the video, maybe for a shot of a DVD cover. Beyond that.... I'd use a regular camera. It is convenient though.

Here are some of the specs. 12x zoom lens, 6 megapixel sensor, the video is 640x480 @ 30fps, you can also shoot video @ 320x240 @ 60fps. Now that's cool.

I've seen a lot of video from digital still cameras and I'll have to say some of it is pretty good especially when you're using the 640x480. Trouble is that video doesn't compare to the results your going to get from a regualr DV cam. First the highest resolutions I've seen is 640x480 which would have to be reduced to use on DVD add to that it's highly compressed and needs to be converted to complinat MPEG2 and you have a mess on your hands. Great for computer playback, terrible for using on DVD.


Example 1.8 MP from Canon GL2 (on fine mode I think):quote]

You should look at the Powershot S1,S2,S3 samples for video. These cameras have been touted for the video quality, and also has a built in stabilizer. The S3 is the sucker you should be looking at IMO, becuase it is there newest model. As for compression, canon uses the mjpeg format for it's AVI's, my file size for 8m30sec is about 1G. I have converted many avi's to a dvd and they look great, especially the outdoor scenes. -garman

[SingSing]

Recently, I did myself a favor buying a small digital camera, 5 Megapix, 2 GB SD card (1250 photos or 58 mins video) and one 1 GB card (625 photos, 28 mins video). It fits in my pocket (nobody knows I have it), take great photos and the video quality is at 640x480 , 30 fps, compressed to MPEG-4 at 8500kbps and that's very decent DVD quality) .

Can you clue us in on which one it is?

It is most likely a Casio, that do mpeg4. Most cameras at 640x480@30fps, only yields 10 minutes per 1 GB.

[SingSing]

According to this, "5:1 This ratio seems rather high when compared to the fact that analog video usually had to be compression at a 3:1 or 2:1 ratio using Motion-JPEG to be of acceptable quality. Yet DV25's 5:1 quality is about comparable to 3:1 Motion-JPEG quality. This ratio is fixed. " MiniDV video has more compression than a camera video.

Read more about miniDV at : http://people.csail.mit.edu/tbuehler/video/dv.html

[guns1inger]

It is comparing apples and oranges. The way DV compresses is very different to the way motion jpeg compresses the image. It is like comparing mpeg2 and mpeg4. Mpeg4 can do almost equal quality to mpeg2 in half the bitrate. So what ? Analogue video also has it's own issues which can make compression difficult to achieve while maintaining quality. Ask anyone who does VHS transfers.

As to the 28 minutes of mpeg4 video on a 1GB card - not at 8500 kbps you don't. At that bitrate you will get less than 16 minutes. Any bitrate calculator will tell you that.