Which camera has the best video recording ability??

[Monkiboy]

Hi Guys! I'm new to the board and I was hoping I could get some help here choosing a camera. I'm looking for one that's below $500 and my priorities are pretty simple. Here they are in order:

1) Video recording (unlimited length and high resolution)
2) I don't know how you call it..there is probably a term for this....but what I hate about my old digital camera is it takes forever to take a picture...i think it's taking a long time for the flash to charge up or something...i'm not sure...but I want to make sure that this new camera i'm getting can take pictures the instant i press on the button..or at least as soon as possible.

Thanks for all your help!!

Yorick

[Monkiboy]

actually...I've been looking at the Sony DSC-L1...it seems to be a nice compact camera with what i want..what do you guys think?? Any better alternatives that are about the same price? ($250 usd)

Yorick

[David Metsky]

1) Take a look at the Canon line. The SD300/400/500 have great movie modes. They offer 320x240 at 30fps unlimited and 640x480 at 30fps unlimited. There is also 320x240 at 60fps but that's limited to 60 seconds. The S1 also gets rave reviews for its high quality movies.

2) I think you are referring to shutter lag. You can essentially eliminate it with a dSLR, but that'll eliminate your movie mode as well. The Canon cameras with the Digic-II processor has very little shutter lag, it's a vast improvement.

-dave-

[gary_hendricks]

Hi Guys! I'm new to the board and I was hoping I could get some help here choosing a camera. I'm looking for one that's below $500 and my priorities are pretty simple. Here they are in order:

1) Video recording (unlimited length and high resolution)
2) I don't know how you call it..there is probably a term for this....but what I hate about my old digital camera is it takes forever to take a picture...i think it's taking a long time for the flash to charge up or something...i'm not sure...but I want to make sure that this new camera i'm getting can take pictures the instant i press on the button..or at least as soon as possible.

Thanks for all your help!!

Yorick

For your second question, I think you mean shutter lag. You can try the new Canon SD500 or a good DSLR. Of course, with a $500 budget, it's a bit tough. You can also look at this list of cameras (http://www.basic-digital-photography.com/top-10-popular-digital-cameras-under-300.html) that go under $300.

[Rhys]

The Canon S1 IS can take videos of up to a gigabyte and at the highest quality, this means 7 minutes.

I'd put samples on my website but for the fact people keep linking to them and that rapidly eats into my 2gb/month data transfer allocation.

As far as lag is concerned, I'm not that keen on the autofocus lag. I'd rather have a camera that allowed me to focus manually. As I said to Nikon - I want a camera that takes MF lenses and does not posess an a/f capability.