Camcorder for pictures ?????

[BillG_in_TX]

MikePA,

I agree for the most part, but how do you easily enlarge the movie files? I never use the digital zoom for stills (well, almost never), and the S1 won't use it for movies - but the S2 will. Seems like it might be handy - if a tripod is used. Even with the Image Stabilization, full optical zoom is pretty shaky without a tripod.

 

[MikePA]

Hi Bill,

I agree about the movie file. I've never tried that. I also agree about the tripod for those max zoom pictures. At a minimum, having an object to rest the camera on.

 

[BillG_in_TX]

Eddie,

You might have seen this before, but here's a link to a previous thread where I posted pictures of my neighborhood hawk. There's also a picture of my camera with the 1.6x add-on lens. It's not the new one that Canon sells for the S-1, bit an older Canon lens that I adapted. It's a lot bigger than the new version. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[milkman]

Something else you might consider for the long zoom shots, even with image stabilization it will be a handy item to have along and it is light weight.

 

[Michael_E_Tx]

Eddie, I tend to agree with MikePA about digital zooms. However, for what it's worth, here's a shot I took earlier this evening, before sunset in decent but not strong light. This was taken with our S2 IS with full optical zoom and full 4x digital zoom. That comes out to 48x zoom without a teleconverter. As you can see, there is hardly any detail, but you can sure tell it's our resident cardinal. This pic has been enhanced by upping the contrast and some sharpening in what is called post processing. Mr. Cardinal was 45 ft. away from the camera.

I love my S2 IS. Now is an absolutely best time to buy one, before they disappear after the new S3 IS finally reachs the shelves.

 

[orangebluegreen]

Somewhere I read (I think it was in a brochure of FAQ’s from one of the stores like BestBuy) the zoom on a digital still cam is not directly comparable to that of a camcorder...meaning a 10X still was not the same as a 10X camcorder. They said it was more on a still cam. It’s been a long time since I’ve been reading up on this stuff so forget why. I THINK they said because of either the CCD differences or starting out with a wide angle vs. 50mm to begin with....I thought I might be able to find that info, unfortunately it must be buried somewhere. Maybe one of the guys who have both types of camera might know. I still use 35mm SLR film and scanner for critical stuff, but quickly becoming obsolete.

I was not aware they had 30-50x optical zooms now. Sounds great, but I wonder if they meter enough light in, I have trouble with my 10-12X? optical 30X digital Sony TRV81 getting enough light, but it’s getting old and technology keeps improving. Probably the cheapest digital cams are better in picture quality than my camcorder, but I still like the versatility. A 30-50x zoom would have to be done in bright sunlight on mine. I usually turn digital zoom off and never use a tripod at 12x, 30-50x I would think is getting to tripod territory if you want any clarity.


This is an interesting contrast. The horse is about 50 feet away while the house approximately 500’ away. I had to cut down the quality because of the 100k TBN limit.
I have some pictures of a pair of Cranes that nest nearby. The shots were about 600 feet away, if I find them on my hard drive I’ll post them. I know they were not very good.

 

[EddieWalker]

You guys sure got some great pics there. Thank you.

Steph and I went for a walk last night to look for birds. She's still afraid to wonder too far from the house on her own. LOL

We learned that we have Indigo Buntings all over the place. Bright blue little things. Very quick, very pretty and until she started looking at every single bird, neither of us had any idea.

We also have Painted Bunting, Summer Tanager, Sissor Tailed Flycatchers, Red Tailed Hawks and her favorite, the Ruby Throated Humming bird just to name a few. I told her we probably have a hundred different types of birds on our land and she's gonna identify all of them!!!

We looked around for prices on the Cannon S2 and found it from $300 to $360 at various stores. Ebay has them for less, so that might be the way to go. I'm watching a dozen differen actions right now to see what they end up selling for.

One seller has over 135,000 positive transactions!!! That's the most I've ever seen by far.

Thanks again for all the advice and help.
Eddie

 

[BillG_in_TX]

I checked the optical zoom specs on 2 cameras, and although I don't know if they are exactly comparable, here's the numbers:

Canon Optura 600 camcorder (10x) approx $1000 - the zoom range is from 6.1mm to 61mm.
Canon S2 IS digicam (12x) approx $400 - the zoom range is from 36mm to 432mm.

Also, the Optura specs say that the maximum still image size is 2304x1736, which would appear to be 4MP, but reviews say that the actual resolution is 1MP. I don't understand how that works, but evidently the still images from a camcorder are always going to be lower resolution than one would think from the specs.

 

[EddieWalker]

Bill,

Thanks for the comparison. The S2 really does seem to be the best deal out there for big optical zoom for a reasonable price. I'd really want to have something even bigger, but for what we're doing, I can't justify spending 2 grand of a camera for the sole purpose of taking pics of birds.

If I can find one on Ebay for $200, than I'll buy it. I'm in no rush, so I'll just watch and wait. LOL

Eddie

 

[MikePA]

buy.com has the S2 for $352. amazon has it for $350.

Also, I am not aware of any digital camera with more than 12x optical zoom, regardless of price.