Camcorder with Inbuilt Digital Stills Camera

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

Thanks jpd2

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

marjon

 

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