Powershot S2 movie size and ISO noise

[ale_g]

Hi All.
I am new to this forum (this is my first post).
Before bying the new powershot S2 I would like to know if there is any way to record more than 8Min of movie with a 1G card?. Is there any setup to record 640x480 at 30fps but with something like 22K mono sound?. Does it expand the movie lenght?.
I am also a bit concerned about noise levels at high ISO (200/400).
Will it make any difference if we take pictures and print them at a size of 10cm x 15 cm? (like 4x6 inch)?.Will I be able to shoot at 400 ISO indoor and print them in that size without seeing noise?

B. Regards
and Thanks
Alejandro

[Akysten]

OK, to answer your questions...

Movie mode.. yes, you can set the sound for 11khz, 22khz and 44khz.. but the savings isn't that much. With 6 minutes remaining on my card, I was able to sqeeze out 35-40 more seconds by lowering the sound quality to the lowest setting.

So you MIGHT be able to squeeze 45 more seconds... but the best option is to get a 2gb card.

As for the noise, most digicams start to degrade at 200ISO. I know there are exceptions.. For the most part, 200iso should be find for printing 4x6.. 400 is pretty noisy.... I suppose you could use noiseninja to clean it up a bit.


The jury is still out of the video of this camera. I hope to test it this weekend.

[C-Digital]

Took S2 highest quality video of bee on flowers. An older model Canon ZR40 digital camcorder captured video of butterfly.

Camcorder digital video was downloaded via firewire connection as MPEG2 file.
S2 video file loads into computer without conversion.

Result was obvious immediately. Opinion - Canon S2 beat Canon ZR40 camcorder in color clarity, brightness and sharpness. Left little doubt where the future is headed once the flash memory capacity limitations are solved. Audio was not tested.

[Akysten]

Being that I am the owner of a ZR40(though now disassembled in a box.. long story...) I can talk about this...



When you converted it to MPEG instead of AVI, you lost 30fps, so they appear at the same smoothness of motion... outdoors, while the resolution is a little lower, (720x480 to 640x480)what you say is accurate... it looks pretty darned good.

HOWEVER, take the s1 or s2 indoors, and it gets grainy and the colors can get... well, exagerated. The better the indoor lighting, the better it is, but in general... the s1/s2 stacks up well outdoors, but can't compete indoors in poor lighting.

[ajay67]

S2 video is not suppose to beat the performance of a video handycam. but for what it can do (both still & video), it's an excellent purchase IMHO. i bought a handycam because of the special price which i can't refuse at the time. but when i hv an S2, i'll definitely use S2 more to take still/video for the convenince, compared to my handycam. it's such a hassle to archive a miniDV, compared to flash memory. for the memory capacity issue, i intend to buy a portable harddisk storage.

which consumer cam doesn't hv noise issue at ISO400?

[C-Digital]

The alert to the AVI quality difference resulted in a change in the Pinnacle Studio Plus settings so uploads from camcorder to computer were in AVI format to match that of the S2.

Composite attached contains portions of two video frame grabs. S2 and camcorder were placed on a tri-pod some 7 feet from the figures and books. Light source was overhead light fixture with 3 - 60 watt bulbs located just to the left and above the tri-pod. Room has brown paneled walls which reduces reflected light.

Purpose was to capture an image in poor lighting to see how the two compared. Quality was not a goal, just a simple comparison. BMP frame grabs were converted to JPEG images to reduce their size. Side by side comparison indicated conversion gave a fair representation of original for this comparison.

Will leave it to the viewer to decide which is the S2 portion.