Zoom vs Zoom

[m1.carson]

Hi,

A good friend has just bought a Fuji with 10x optical zoom for approx £150, but in an electrical trade mag that was sent to me, it had a digital video camera that recorded direct to DVD internally and was 34x optical and 1200 digital zoom, again for approx. £150, no need for an SD or transflash card.

Why aren't you all using the video cameras.

Max.

[zan]

I daresay we all will soon enough! I was listening to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year podcast last night (think the link's in this group) and they mentioned the same thing. With video cameras improving as they are, stills photography in the future may well just be a case of filming an entire sequence and choosing the best frame for a still. I think at the moment the quality's not there yet for commercial use, but it probably won't be long.

I doesn't seem quite the same to me, and I think it'd be a shame to lose true stills photography as a medium (especially after all the effort to learn it!), but technology marches on... Guess we'll see soon enough!

Zan

[glsammy]

I used to think exactly the same.It seems a no brainer, 34X zoom against 10X at best. That's until you look further into it. As Zan said, the quality isn't there, yet!
You can capture a half decent snap shot, but it wouldn't stand up to a DSLR image.

[jimmer]

Hello that is what you do now with ccd camera for astronomy the webcam or whatever takes loads of frames and you stack them all on top of each other and the best frames are kept and the bad discarded in a program called registax. I used to use a video camera years ago because I thought it be better that photography but to me there is nothing like looking at a photo, for one there is no setting up to do to look at them. If you want an exellent zoom and good lens anti shake camera go for the panasonic tz3 it is on offer on 7day shop.com I had the tz1 I loved it I used it more than my heavy nikon regards Jim

[m1.carson]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies, some of which seem to yearn for the good old days, others saying the videos aren't of good enough quality for commercial use, being a photographic moron, I can't see myself ever printing more than an A4 sized photo, so commercial quality won't enter into the equation.

jimmer, I don't think with photo's captured directly to DVD there's any setting up to do nowadays.

Thanks again,

Max.

[Hobjob]

What is the number of pixels of this video cam ?

What is the number of pixels of a dSLR ?

I think that may give a clue

[m1.carson]

ER , Hi hobjob,

I've just been through the bin [with someone holding my ankles], and it's 0.8Meg, um, now I'm even more confused which isn't difficult.

The video is a Samsung vpdc171, on the same page is a Samsung digital camera L80 which is 8.1Meg, please don't bother to answer, I'll have to do some digging around why they have such a difference in resolution.

Thanks all,

Max.

[eeyore]

its because the video image is only on screen for a fraction of a second so each image does not need to be particularly high quality - even broadcast quality cameras are only arround 2mp

wheras a still is being subjected to detailed scrutiny and thus needs a higher resolution to provide detail etc for the eye to percieve.

[m1.carson]

Cheers eeyore,

Saved me researching it, but it makes me ask if still cams will take video's then why they dont make video cams capable of taking good stills, the ccd's must be dirt cheap now.

Max.