Additional Camera Movie Mode Test

[cameradude]

I think there should be an additional movie mode test for the compact digital cameras.

Right now, the standard test of the movie mode is an Amtrak train rolling in or out of a station. This is a nice bright scene and is good for the test but I think another movie mode test should be added to test the "audio noise" in the video. The test can be as short as 3 seconds but taken in a quiet room.

I had a 5MPixel Canon that had no audible noise in the video, then I upgraded to a 7MPixel Canon and this one had bad noise in the video. My current 12MPixel Canon PowerShot G9 thankfully doesn't have audio noise.

Just be clear, the audio noise is probably from the camera's electronics. On my 7MPixel Canon Digital IXUS 700, it manifested as a slow frequency whir-whir. Quite annoying. Had I known this model had this, I probably would have chosen something else. I've also have heard mechanical noise from the lens iris adjusting to brightness of the scene in a Fuji camera.

So, to wrap it up, the Amtrak train test with the noise from the wind and the train completely obliterates any evidence of electronic and mechanical noises that could easily be heard otherwise. These characteristics of the camera's movie mode are important to measure I think.

BTW, this is a great site though. I've always read the reviews here first before buying any camera.

[Beowulff]

This raises an interesting point:The test can be as short as 3 seconds but taken in a quiet room.....

On my 7MPixel Canon Digital IXUS 700, it manifested as a slow frequency whir-whir.

So, to wrap it up, the Amtrak train test with the noise from the wind and the train completely obliterates any evidence of electronic and mechanical noises that could easily be heard otherwise. These characteristics of the camera's movie mode are important to measure I think.....

This is a good point raised about the camera's internal noises as it adjusts aperture and/or focus. We have a Canon A720 IS which makes a constant, rhythmic, soft whirring sound which you can hear on the soundtrack when the video's played back. It doesn't totally obliterate the intended sounds by any means, but is certainly obvious enough for people to comment upon. Apparently, this is an inherent fault with some of the Canon P&Ss which Canon don't wanna know about!

Cheers :)

[cameradude]

:rolleyes:This raises an interesting point:
This is a good point raised about the camera's internal noises as it adjusts aperture and/or focus. We have a Canon A720 IS which makes a constant, rhythmic, soft whirring sound which you can hear on the soundtrack when the video's played back. It doesn't totally obliterate the intended sounds by any means, but is certainly obvious enough for people to comment upon. Apparently, this is an inherent fault with some of the Canon P&Ss which Canon don't wanna know about!

Cheers :)

Yup, I could also add these P&S camera's movie modes originally started out as a chunky 320x200 or lower resolution -- an afterthought feature really. I thought I would never use it but I did end up using the movie modes. Nowadays, the movie mode is at least 640x480 which is really quite good quality. Kodak's current line of P&S cameras now feature HDTV 720p video resolution as standard. A 1080p resolution P&S wouldn't be too far off in the future. :D

These past few years, I've captured some very good memories on video with a P&S camera. Many of these more "spontaneous" moments would never have been captured if I had to carry along a clunky "camcorder". Some of the videos, unfortunately, clearly have the whir-whir electronic noise. Again, any of these audio/video "artifacts" are important characteristics of the camera model nowadays and should be tested and documented.

[JPW2020]

I have some experience of the varying quality of movie mode particularly audio probably because I've changed my camera a little too often over recent years. However, with the exception of some Canon cameras my experience is that most have the sound on movie mode as a low priority.For example on my Panasonic FZ50 the microphone is on the top of the camera body, not ideal , and the sound is very poor. With Canon some of their cameras such as the TX1 which I have or the S5 IS offer higher quality sound in this case stereo and a wind filter.On some you can hear some internal sound for example lens focusing movements within the body , or with the few cameras that allows zooming whilst taking movies,noise when the zoom is used.

I agree it would be nice to have more detail on the movie mode part of the review reviews and audio is an important part . However I am conscious that Jeff is looking to try and perhaps reduce the size of some reviews with a view to increasing his turnround of reviews generally in this increasingly competitive arena. In addition despite what I've said above,one must not lose sight of the fact that primarily these cameras are for taking photographs , if you need topnotch movie quality then you buy a camcorder particularly when it comes to good audio .

Some other sites do offer slightly more detail on movie mode (and different clips). Alternatively if you download and save the clip it is possible to obtain software that will analyze the movie and give further information on audio quality e.g , Avicodec http://avicodec.duby.info/ , for most movie files though not Quicktime.