[EdBrown]

I've been looking at the Camcorderinfo.com web site and I am starting to take interest in what it calls the Canon ZR700 http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...der-Review.htm
I can find no mention of it on UK Price Guide sites does anyone know if it is marketed under a different designation in the UK please?
If anyone has good knowledge of the Canon range my reason for opting for this one was that I want the camcorder to be useful for stills too and considered it to have a reasonable stills capability (by camcorder standards at least) combined with a good optical zoom, so if anyone knows of something that would do even better on the stills side of things it would be very useful.

[narke]

I would think (after a quick comparison of the spec) that the UK equivalent is the MV960.
I have a older model (MV750i) with a similar stills resolution of 1027 X 768 and have to say that results are poor compared to even the most basic digital camera. The new models may be better but I wouldn't count on it.

[EdBrown]

Thanks for that, looks like the MV960 is the UK equivalant, I appreciate that the still will be no where near digital camera quality but it's going to be better than VGA and it's a reasonable standby because I'm just fed up with carrying two units, worrying about two lots of batteries etc.. one day they will make a half decent combi but until then I'll have to settle for the best available so decent optical zoom is important due to low resolution.
If anyone knows of a camcorder with better stills ability then please say so.

[redsox_mark]

Depends on your budget.. Canon MVX4i takes 4 MP stills, £529 here.
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?s...D-E46501023430
Also has a physically large CCD which will be good for video quality, especially in low light. But costs about double a 960.

Or the Sony HC94, £425 (3 MP)

Mark

[EdBrown]

Thanks for that Redsox, I could possibly run to that; if it takes a 4MP still then that is impressive for a camcorder, pity they only gave it a 10x optical zoom though. Any idea what the comparison of picture quality would be if digitally zooming to 25x for instance? (presumably 10x optical & 15x digital)
I know it's not necessarily a straight equasion as some digital zooms ditch pixels from the peripheries to concentrate on the central subject but I wonder how it would compare with for instance a 0.25MP using a 25x optical zoom.

[redsox_mark]

I don’t know… I’ve found that 10x zoom is generally enough. (Unless you are a paparazzi, and do a lot of long range shots from your tripod). For video of course the extra MP don’t matter… for stills the extra MP will somewhat offset the loss from using the digital zoom, but I don’t know how to calculate the point where they cancel each other out.

Interesting in this particular league table
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/ratings.php

the top 10 (and 15 of the top 16) all have 10x zooms.

The Optura 600 is the US model of the MVX4I (number 4 in the chart).

Mark

[redsox_mark]

Just thought about this a bit more… to keep it simple let’s assume the digital zoom doesn’t do anything clever with pixels on the peripheries.

To take the 10x optical zoom and make it 25x total, the digital zoom needs to be 2.5x (not 15 – you multiply the zooms!). So for stills, as the Mvx4i has approx 5 times the pixels (4 MP vs 0.8), then it should be able to digitally boost the zoom to 25x overall and still produce a better quality still than the MV960.

Again this doesn’t work for video; for video the resolution is fixed and digitally zooming will always hurt the quality. But to shoot at 25x digital zoom you need a very steady tripod and smooth panning technique.

Mark

[EdBrown]

Thanks again, that seems a logical conclusion. I will have a close look at the review and probably dig a little deeper into my pocket ....going to Gran Canaria in September so might wait until then as it is likely to be about £100 cheaper out there (virtually tax free).

[redsox_mark]

I know the extra MPs will offset the loss of resolution of when using the digital zoom for stills… I don’t know if the camcorders are able to do the same for video or not. Video resolution is a fixed 720x576, so ordinarily having more MPs doesn’t help for video. But I wonder… if the camcorder has a 4 MP CCD, in theory it could do a 4x or more digital zoom and still have enough resolution available to do full quality video. Does anyone know if they are “smart enough” to do this? If so, then having a greater MP CCD could help with video quality (if using digital zoom).

Mark