Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Canon Powershot Sx10 Is Movie Mode - Is It Worth Having?

By Peter Sneckint

There are quite a few of the Canon PowerShot cameras which possess some of the greatest video capture capabilities out there. The video option on these cameras is what Canon has dubbed the Movie Mode. It unfortunately has a one gigabyte file size limit, but before we get to that let's talk about the different movie mode options.

When you go to record, you will have a number of choices. First of all, you have VGA, and this is a mode that lets you record at 640 x 480. VGA stands for Video Graphics Array, and while it has been in use for some time there are still many that do not know exactly what it means anymore.

QVGA stands for Quarter Video Graphics Array and is sometimes also called Quarter VGA, QVGA, or qVGA. The resolution of qVGA is 320 * 240 and these types of displays (computer monitors) are found on mobile phones, PDAs and other types of hand held devices. It's called QVGA because it offers 1/4 of the 640 480 resolution. The VGA standard was first developed by IBM.

The Canon PowerShot allows you to chose between 15, 30 and 60 frames/second when recording in movie mode, depending on the resolution you have selected. However, you will always come up against the 1GB limit, no matter which mode and frame rate you chose. This 1GB file size limit is for the size of any one individual recording. You will be able to continue recording until the memory card is full or the file reaches 1GB in size, whichever happens first.

The ETA for the one gig limit at full VGA and 30 fps is around nine minutes. Though you can take as many movies as you want, they will all hit that limit eventually.

If you're using a Canon PowerShot for video, you will probably be uploading your content to the web. YouTube still has a 10 minute limit on video length. And frankly the attention span of most people will wane considerably sooner than 9 minutes! If you want longer movies, you have a couple options. Reduce the frame rate to 15 fps. That may work for you but remember that the slower frame rate will give you a lower quality image.

You could also go to QVGA quality which will reduce the resolution. If you want, you can try lowering the quality of the audio as this will guarantee a smaller file size. A faster frame rate will also do well, as it will give you a high quality video even at the lowest resolutions.

Meaning you could record longer than 9 minutes and still have very good video quality. Again, you should try this option too and check the results. One thing is certain though. No matter what setting you use the quality will far surpass any of the small handheld video camcorders that have been designed primarly to squirt video onto video sharing websites. The main reason for that is the lense, closly followed by the astounding technology delivered by the PowerShot in such a small package.

About the Author:

0 comments:

Post a Comment