Digital camera as a video camera?

[Rajesh Kumar]

I have a sony cybershot DCS-T9 digital camera (6 mega pixel, MPEG1 compliant). I was planning to buy a video camera but some one adviced me to buy a memory stick instead and use it for video recordings. The cost of the memory stick is much less as compared to a new video camera. What are the limitations in using a still digital camera as a video camera.

 

[The_Other_One]

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/sony/dsc_t9-review/

A 1GB Pro Duo card can hold about 12 minutes of video at the highest quality setting.

As is usually the case, you cannot use the zoom lens during filming.

Among these problems, I doubt the camera will focus either while recording.

The movie mode on digicam's is simply an added bonus, it's not a "real" recording feature. I found a snippet of video from the camera and I must say even a cheap video camera's quality is many MANY times better than that or most other digital camera's video feature. Plus the mics are usally pretty sorry in digicams.

 

[Geoff]

I cant speak for your digital camera, but the one on my S3-IS is actually very good, with a resolution of 640x480 @ 30fps/60fps, and it has dual mic's for stereo audio recording.

Usually the drawback is that it stores uncompressed video, so you can only fit about 8-12 minutes of video on a 1GB card, depending on the exact resolution and frame rate.

I'm not sure about yours, but I know my camera can zoom in with the optical zoom while recording.

 

[The_Other_One]

The Cannon S2 and S3's are in a whole other league when it comes to recording video(besides the uncompressed deal )

What I posted above was from a review based on the camera in question.

 

[computerhakk]

I have a sony cybershot DCS-T9 digital camera (6 mega pixel, MPEG1 compliant). I was planning to buy a video camera but some one adviced me to buy a memory stick instead and use it for video recordings. The cost of the memory stick is much less as compared to a new video camera. What are the limitations in using a still digital camera as a video camera.

Well, this is something you'd want to ask yourself. Is this like a one time deal? Such as going out hiking and would like some video clips? Or something you see yourself using in the long run? That'll pretty much sum it up for you as camera's are made for pictures and camcorder's are for videos. Most hybrid's favor one over the other, so a good camera probably isn't a good camcorder; vice versa.