Thanks Bob,

Sorry - I should have been clearer - I meant zooming in in Vegas, using Pan/Crop - e.g. for a group photo, maybe 30 people, panning across a single row of close-up heads/shoulders.

A 3.2 megapixel with 1600 x 1200 is roughly 4 times (2x2) a video frame, so there's a fair amount of "zoominability" without pixellation, so I thought 5 megapixels would be plenty.

Anyway, I'll do some online searching as you suggest.

Cheers.

Peter

If you want to zoom in in Vegas I guess the answer lies in some maths. Ideally you don't want the area you've zoomed into to have less pixels than than a frame of DV.

My wife and I own a Canon G2 camera. It's a point and shoot. We love it! The thing is fool proof. The auto features are dead on or you can go fully manual also. It is one of the best still cameras either of us have ever owned. I think the current model is G5 and it's a 5 o 6 mega pixel.

Going to a larger form factor look at the Canon Digital Rebel. This is a ground shaking camera. It's a 6.3 MP camera with interchangable lenses and no shutter lag time. BTW shutter lag is the only thing that drives me crazy regarding the G2. The Digital Rebel (from what I have read) runs like a 35mm camera. You can get it with a lens for $900.00. This is and will be a very BIG deal.

good luck
jack

3 years ago I chose a Sanyo 550EX (560 is the latest) as it supported 5 minutes of 640x480 15p or 5 minutes of 320x240 30p as MJPEG quicktime with audio (audio isn't good enough to use really) [totalling between 30minutes and an hour of video on a now very cheap 340MB microdrive). It had no optical zoom and was only 1.5Mpixels yet it had been in my pocket whilst on vacation where I wouldn't have felt on vacation with a camcorder. I personally see this as where HDV should be targetting itself using solid state recording, i.e. in digiCams but ones with better audio than today (sliding OT: !)!

Fuji, Olympus and Canon have had similar high fps digiCams too over the last years but all at double the price and invariably only with a 30second clip and rarely 640x480 modes. There is a Fuji (F700) model that has clip recording upto the media size (please check) and an optical zoom, even though this has taken years to arrive and overtake my old Sanyo (digital cameras don't normally justify these high data processing activities as this tends to shorten battery life). The highlight for me as a video amateur is the 640x480 30p mode of the F700. Perhaps there are better digicams as I guess I'm expecting the units I buy or recommend to be capable of so many things that perhaps they are masters of none. However I'm pleased with my purchase and I suspect without experience that the camera below is worth a further peek:

F700 specs are:
Fuji Finepix F700 Digital Camera, Battery & Card Reader Kit
UK £319.00 including VAT (sales tax)
3x Optical zoom with 2.2x digital zoom
Movie Mode with sound, excellent flash range
RAW or JPEG file format images
Full manual features in shutter and aperture modes
Very fast start-up and zoom
Achieved 88% top marks in What Digital Camera, October 2003

megapixels: 3.14
capture device: 3.14 Million Pairs 1/1.7" SuperCCD SR (6.2 Million in total)
picture size: 2832 x 2128, 2048 x 1536, 1280 x 960, 640 x 480, Movie 640 x 480 30 fps, 320x240 30fps with audio.
lens: 3x Optical zoom (35mm equiv to 35-105 mm ), F2.8 - F8.0 Digital zoom 2.2 x
focusing: Manual Focus 60 cm to infinity, Auto Focus, Macro Mode 9 - 80 cm.
flash: Built-in, Auto, forced, off, redeye reduction. Range: 0.2 - 5.0 m
sensitivity: Auto (160-400), ISO 200, 400, 800, & 1600
shutter: 30 - 1/2000
modes: Programmed AE, Aperture priority, Shutter priority, Auto, Manual, Exposure Compensation : -2EV to +2EV (in 1/3EV steps)
viewfinder: Real optical viewfinder
screen: 1.8" TFT Colour pixels: 134,000
storage: Removeable: xD-Picture card (16Mb supplied)
interfaces: USB 1.1, AV out , DC in.
batteries: Lithium-ion NP-40 rechargeable battery
compatibility: Windows & Mac
other features: Auto white balance & manual 7 settings + night scene, DPOF, Self timer 2 & 10 secs, B&W Chrome, Long period mode 1.8fps up to 40 frames, Final 5 mode record last 5fps up to 5 frames
dimensions: 108 x 54 x 28 mm
weight: 170g without battery and card
in the box: Camera, PictureCradle, 16Mb xD Card, Rechargeable Lithium Battery NP-40, AC Power Adaptor, Hand strap, USB cable, AV cable, Software (USB driver, Finepix Viewer 3.2, ImageMixer VCD, RAW File Converter LE).
optional accessories: Various xD picture cards, Case.



Sanyo (fisher) isn't a very popular brand in the western world for digiCams so I think many purchasers outside the pacific rim did miss out on witnessing the nice little Sanyo 500 series CF-2 microdrive capable cameras. NB the Fuji also has a RAW image type, which saves you the potential of JPG artifacting for your stills too. I'm clearly a sucker for spec sheets before reading reviews or comparing for myself, I apologise for that in my attempt to guide you Peter.

I hope you get what you want and maybe I'm helping you determine your purchasing criterion?

Thanks for all that info RBartlett.

Personally, I wish they wouldn't bother including "limited" video capabilities - I'd much rather use a video camera for this!

There seem to be some very nice cams around the A$1,000 mark - the Olympus 750 is impressive with 10x Optical zoom and 5 mPX, and there are several other good deals around. Fortunately I have no deadline, so I have time to search out the best deal for what I'm after.

Thanks again

Peter

If you want to take photographs of people, you'll have to look for a camera with the option of mounting an external flash, or it's red eyes all the time. My choice is the
Minolta DiMAGE A1

One feature of a digital camera not publicised is their ability to make a high res slide scanner. If they focus right down to macro and arranging the slide in a simple holder with a diffused light source (say a table lamp shining through a sheet of paper a foot or so behind slide) you can get resolutions of 2 or 3 thousand DPI.

> any recommendations for Makes and Models?

I own four (4) digital still cameras. Three of them are Olympus (D460Z, D520, & C730UZ) and one Minolta DiMAGE Z1. The Minolta (at $350) is a better camera than any of the Olympus (and the C730UZ was more expensive). Olympus has gotten progressively worse over the years. I don’t know what their problem is but after buying my third camera I swore not to buy them again. The C730 can’t seem to focus in low light and the auto mode is useless. It just takes blurry grainy pictures. I always have to shoot in manual mode with it. I bought it when it first came out but now there are lots of people who have complained about it. They have a newer C740 & C750 so they may have fixed this but make sure you purchase from a store that will allow you to return it.

The Minolta DiMAGE Z1 is an outstanding camera. It has a 10x optical zoom and you can go full manual with it if you need to. I just did a shoot in a church (very difficult lighting conditions) and the quality was just outstanding. The 10x zoom allowed me to shoot the action from across the room when needed. It got very high ratings in reviews (which is why I bought it) and I’ve been very pleased with it. I’m sure the Minolta DiMAGE A1 is even better (but out of my price range).

> I wish they wouldn't bother including "limited" video capabilities

Same here. I wonder how much cheaper digital still cameras would be without it? (and sepia mode, and all the other useless features I can add in post) What a wasted feature. The video is horrible and the audio is useless. When I was in the store buying my Minolta, a man was asking the salesperson, “...and you’re sure this camera has the video capabilities?” I felt like stopping him and asking why in the world do you care if your still camera has video capability? What are you going to do with 30 seconds of webcam quality video? Buy a camcorder if you want video.

~jr

I use a Sony 4.3 mpxl with the small cd-r disc at 2200 x 2200.
While I do not like some of the horizontal interference lines on some pictures with horizontal siding on houses the pictures drop right on the V-4 timeline and the zooms are not bad. Usually I can zoom to about 10 x 1 but pixelation does show up approaching this point. As far as I'm concerned 2200 x 2200 is the minimum size to use and I might go much higher in the future. If you do not zoom they look really sharp . I also found that the final evaluation must be perfomed on the tv set (large, not small as my monitor).

JJK

I've enjoyed poking around this site, it's full of pictures and reviews and very beginner-friendly:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/

I was looking for a camera that had excellent closeup abilities for some archiving work. After comparing several models from Olympus and Nikon I settled on the Nikon 3100. Only complaint is it is a bit battery hungry, otherwise I'm very pleased with this consumer level camera.

Here's what I consider to be the basic meat 'n potatoes for starting to look for a digital camera:

1-if you aren't going to do more than a little zooming with your pix in vegas or not more than a little cropping, then 3 megapixels is all you need. For quite a while, some, including myself, have considered the canon powershot s30 to be the best 3mp camera out there.

2-if you want to zoom in a lot, post shot, or do a lot of cropping then 6mp is equivalent to what you can do with 35 mm. In other words, you need at least a six mp camera to not notice any loss in quality that you wouldn't using 35 mm film. Use that to guage what level of mp you need.

3-once you get into the 5 mp and up range the major thing you really need to worry about it is how good the color is. Some of the new 4 color receptor cameras seem to be the cats meow right now.

Hope that helps,
Carson

I'm totally sold on my Canon 10D DSLR. The lenses are interchangeable with the XL1s(with an adapter), and the images rival the best 35mm.

Canon G2 here: total satisfaction, except they could provide the codec for their MVI.AVI files so we could open them in any app without having to render with 3rd party app before. WinMovie makes the job if you run XP though.
Currently, you got the G5 at a cheaper price than we used to pay for the G2 and it's even got more optical zoom and more definition.

I've seen Kodak, HP pictures and it's uncomparable with Canon.
I've heard only good things about Olympus cams too. And Nikons.
But even now, if I had to choose I'd go with Canon again.

With the Sony DSC-F717 you can do almost everything manually, also white balance. The main reason for me for chosing this one was that it has a 58mm filter thread, and as I use a Sony VX2000 as video camera, I am able to use the same wide-angle and tele. Well I personally like the F717, but I am mainly using it for taking stills to intercut with my video footage. Some people more interested in photographing self might eventually have an other opinion.

I spent 2 months researching this pretty thoroughly and finally took the leap about one month ago. Lots of products available and a number of them very good. None is perfect. The choice depends on the use(s) one has in mind. For me, I didn't need to go the fully pro path where lenses can be changed. The camera body alone for the low end on that type of camera costs at least $1000 and lenses start higher than that. However, the consumer end did not fill all my needs either.

I wound up buying a Minolta Dimage A1, as others have who replied in this thread. It's a "pro-sumer" camera. The lense is attached (cannot be removed to allow placement of other lenses). I find it to be a superb camera: lense (28-200 mm equivalent), two macro settings as well (tele and wide), image stabilization ("anti-shake" that is very impressive), wireless flash synch, amazing shutter speed range, unique (I think) 11-point auto focusing, complete freedom of operation (aperture, shutter speed, focus and more) if you want, digital effects control, digital enhanced bracketing, etc.

After using it for one month, I am very, very impressed. I paid $879 (pre-tax) because I wanted to buy it locally to get the support. I know it is available for less (on internet). I also bought an extra battery and another card (extra $$). Well, a bit long winded, but it gives you an idea of what this particular camera can do.

Regarding your question about 5 megapixels being enough to play with pan/crop in Vegas, you will very likely run out of material to look at before you run out of ability to zoom into the images that a 5 megapixel camera takes, assuming you use the highest quality image setting available when you take the picture (e.g., extra fine on the standard, fine or extra fine scale) and assuming your focus is correct.

Good luck with your decision.

JCG

http://dpreview.com/
From my findings, the best digital photography resource....
Has reviews on just about every digi-still cam available....and the reviews are extremely well done, with comparisons between competing models etc...There are also very good forums there for every brand which are VERY active and for the most helpful...

I personally have gone down the Canon 10D route (i've been in love with photography since I can remember and have had 2 slr bodies + a few canon lenses so the Digital slr 10D was the obvious choice for me....)

The models which seem to get glowing reviews are:
Fixed lense:
Minolta A1
Sony F717 (the F828 has just been released but has all sorts of controversy around it -picture quality and noise issues-)
an olympus model (forget which one...)

And then you move up to the DSLR with the Canon 300D, 10D and the Nikon d100 (a new Nikon will be released in spring the D70 to compete with the Canon 300D)

One thing to bear in mind though...if you are looking for creative photography and in particular very, very shallow depth of field (portraits etc..) you almost invariably have to go down the DSLR route: they have huge sensors -compared to fixed lense cams - which allow for a much shallower depth of field. Not saying that it can´t be achieved with the fixed lense cams, but the beauty of using an f1.4 or f1.8 aperture lense + "big" sensor makes it so easy....


Another very interesting (and humbling site...) is http://www.photo.net/gallery/

Browse through the portfolios and be amazed at the images people create...truly impressive images...

All the best,

Paul.

Hey you guys, thanks a lot - this is just the sort of info I was after - a mixture of tech spec and personal experience.

I am basically looking for a still camera to supplement my video activities - apart from stills on the timeline, there's CD Rom and DVD menu backgrounds. I think the 3.2 megapixel models would probably do most of what I'm after, but I have bad memories of buying something then wishing I'd got the slightly better one .... so I'll probably go for 5 mPx. There seem to be several great cameras at this level, so I'll do some more reading before making my decision....

thanks again - and feel free to keep adding to the thread - it's already a useful resource.

Peter

When you finally come down to making a decision, I recommend you test your choices instore and particluarly with regards to shutter lag (the time it takes for the cam to focus on subject and shoot the pic) If you are going to use the cam to take pics of people, particularly candids, the shutter lag is your worst enemy: I kept losing "that wonderful expression" because of it. Its mainly irrelevant for inanimate things like buildings etc of course...I still have a compact digital Olympus 3.2 MP which has been "great", but the shutter lag was too much (you can get round some of it by pre-focussing but it still had lag when pressing the trigger...). The shutter lag thing is really weird if you come from a film camera backround...
Another fairly important factor is the time it takes to write the pic taken to the card/file: can take up to a few seconds which means you have to wait between shots until the file has been written before you can take the next pic..
All things to take into account on top of the image quality issue...too much to learn, so little time...

Anyway, best of luck in your "hunting"!

All the best,

Paul.

Yes, thanks Paul,

Are there any other workarounds such as pre-focus to minimize shutter lag, and does it get better or worse as megapixels go up?

Peter,

The "sort of workaround" is to pre-focus by half pressing the shutter-release or trigger: this makes the camera focus on to whatever the subject. You have to keep the shutter release half pressed until you want to shoot at which stage you press the shutter/trigger fully... At least on my Olympus it worked like this, more or less...You do obviously run the risk of missing focus if the subject moves from the original focus plane, but the good thing about small chipped digicams is that depth of field is pretty deep anyway, so there is less chance to miss focus...There is still a slight lag when you fully press the release, but much more tolerable than waiting for focus + shutter release. I have missed loads of photos as a result: I would point the cam, press the shutter, nothing seemed to happen, kept pressing etc: I learnt eventually that the shutter wouldn't fire if the cam hadn't established focus and sometimes it seemed to go into "focus hunting" mode sort of thing...In fact this was a typical "User error": ie. my fault for not knowing how the camera worked!

As for how this varies between different cameras I cannot really comment (have only tried this Oly and now a DSLR) but I would venture that it is not a MP issue related; probably more a question of focus systems and electronics..(digital non slr cameras don't have mechanical shutters but electronic ones). In DSLR the shutter lag is in all intents and pruposes non-existant: the only real variable is how fast the lense focusses...some are lightening fast. The actual trigger feels like real time...

The choice of megapixels is an interesting question...If the intended use is for content in videos, you won't need 5 megapixels and arguably 3 is probably a lot too. If however some of these pics are going to print, then resolution begins to be important but more pixels (per se..) is not necessarily better: there is a very interesting review on dpreview.com on the f828 by Sony which is the first 8 Megapixel "prosumer" camera. In the tests you can see how it compares to 5 or 6 Megapixel cameras and it does not fare well aginst its more humble competitors: very noisy and has pruple fringing problems. The apparent consensus is that Sony cramed those extra pixels into a ccd which has the same size as a 5 megapixel camera, which is one of the reasons for the image quality problems...Some say that similarly the Canon G3 creates images which are "cleaner" than its big brother the G5: again I cannot provide personal experience or a "reliable" objective opinion. Canon's DSLR 1D is a 4MP camera and is used professionally by photo journalists, especially for shooting sports/fast action events.

lately I am increasingly sceptical about personal opinions regarding photographic equipment: it seems that many have that "allegiance" to "their brand/camera" syndrome, similar to Premier vs Vegas etc...which leads to all sorts of biased analysis. The dpreviews do however provide technical data which are at least a better guideline in my opinion. Anyway, it would seem that more is not necessarily better....

As always, the choice has a number of variables which need prioritising (is that a word??)
Size, convenience, weight, resolution, quality, "pose factor", ease of use, accessories needed etc etc etc...oh and also price of course...In my case, shutter lag eventually got on my nerves, and I missed the shallow depth of field from my slr days: in turn I sacrificed size/portability when I went for the DSRL (well that's not exactly true because I still have the more compact Oly but havent touched it since...) What was a nice surprise with the DSLR was the quality of the prints...But I'm sure you can get equally good quality from the so called "point and shoot" cameras (an unfair term IMO).

Hope that helps!

Paul.

If you do any kind of panning and cropping on the timeline you will soon find out that 3 megs will not cut the mustard.

JJK

Not wishing to start a huge debate here, but so far I've mainly used the pics from the 3mp Oly in vid projects and I am very surprised at how much you can zoom in on them (like zooming out from my daughter's eye to a half body portrait kind of thing)...;...And you can always up-res them if need be (just do it in small increments in photoshop for example...I have put a few pics from the 6mp canon in a new vid and actually down resd them to half the original size (render times spring to mind though I havent tested otherwise...) Anyway, I'm sure the more tech savy can post zoom factors / mp...I tend to do things by the "eye"..so take this for what its worth ;-) ( I don't wear glasses ...yet...lol).