Camcorder with Inbuilt Digital Stills Camera

[marjon]

Hi

I am currently getting fed up of carrying both my camcorder and digital camera when I go out and constantly switching between them.

Can anybody recommend a good quality camcorder that can take stills at or greater than 3 mega pixels (do they exist yet).
Or is there a website where I can specify options I would like on a camcorder and it return a list of matching camcorders.

I currently have a Canon MVX1i and an Olympus C3030 so the new device need to have at least the quality output of these two devices.

TIA

marjon

[cerebros]

I'm afraid that you're going to be stuck if you expect good results from the camera side of these devices. While I think some camcorders are now capable of stills with slightly more than 3 megapixels I think you'll probably find that the results aren't nearly as good as a dedicated 3 megapixel camera.

[MarkE19]

IMHO I don't think there are any camcorders that give good results with still images. A camcorder is designed to record video, and this is always going to be fairly low resolution compared to a good quality photograph. Video is just not designed to be high resolution - well not until HD video becomes more readilly available. Therefore any device that does both jobs is going to be a compromise on at least one of the two.
If quality is important to you then I think you are going to need to continue to carry both a camcorder and camera. Newer camcorders are getting better with megapixel CCD's, but IMO they are still not good enough to replace a dedicated camera. But it really does depend on what you consider to be 'good enough'.

Mark.

[marjon]

The video quality is more important than the stills quality to me.
I only intend to use both for family footage and snaps.

My other alternative is to capture stills from my video (any advice or program recommendations?).

@ cerebros
Can you remember the name any of the latest camcorders that are capable of stills of around 3 megapixels?
Then maybe I can go to the highstreet and test the quality etc.

marjon

[ptek]

Samsung have 2 models (although hit by a ugly stick), both have dedicated lens/CCD's for DVC and DSC functions, DSC needs to be capable of controlling(and manually) aperture,ISO and shutter speeds to mimic a SLR camera.

A single lens unit is not capable of this, although the megapixel DVC create a acceptable still image, it would not compare to a cheap DSC camera, and a DSC does not produce a good video movie (maybe in time)

So carry 2, its always safer if one fails when on holiday

Capturing Stills from DVC Tape only good for web page thumbnail !
SD Capture fair to medium quality

Hi Marjon

I am in the same position as you trying to find a compact camcorder that will replace both. I am currently trying to chose between the Panasonic NGS150B or the Sony DCRHC90E, (unless I get better options)

Panasonic do a range of 3 ccd cameras that should give excellent video quality but can also produce a still image ranging from 1.7 meg pixel (1520 x 1142) in the GS75 upto the GS400 at 4 megpixel (2288 x 1728).

or Sony do a nice camera the HC90 that has 1 x 3.3meg pixel ccd.

Still trying to decide which I am going to buy, but either I am sure will give excellent video for a consumer user and good still images at a 10x zoom rate as apposed to a 3x on a average still camera. These should be good enough unless you are planning to blow up large prints.

[marjon]

Thanks jpd2

I now have a starting point and a couple of options to attempt to road test.

marjon

[cerebros]

Originally Posted by marjon

@ cerebros
Can you remember the name any of the latest camcorders that are capable of stills of around 3 megapixels?

Sony's HC90 is 3.3 megapixel I believe. Off hand I can't recall if there are (m)any others

Marjon

I have just dicovered another camera that is very compact and give 5 mehapixel stills the JVC MZMC500 giving max picture of 2560 x 1920, this sells for £699