Video quality of Canon SD300?

Along with many other things about the SD300, I was impressed to see
640x480 video with 30 fps and (especially on a Canon) unlimited clip
duration. Does anyone have much experience with the video capture
feature of this camera who could give me an idea of how well it performs
in this regard?
I've had some cameras that could only produce video that was
unacceptably dark, or with excessively fuzzy audio.
I'm not buying it for the video, but it's a great bonus if does a
good job of this.

Thanks,

J.S.

Jorl Shefner wrote let it be known in
:

Along with many other things about the SD300, I was
impressed to see
640x480 video with 30 fps and (especially on a Canon)
unlimited clip duration. Does anyone have much experience
with the video capture feature of this camera who could
give me an idea of how well it performs in this regard?
I've had some cameras that could only produce video that
was
unacceptably dark, or with excessively fuzzy audio.
I'm not buying it for the video, but it's a great bonus
if does a
good job of this.

I've had an SD300 for about a month now and have used the
video feature quite a bit.

First, the audio capture is pretty damn good. The sound comes
out crisp and clear and the pickup is impressive. Last
weekend, I was getting a video of two people speaking about
50' from me and it picked up their voices!

The video appears to be the same quality as the still images.
Fairly sharp. The files it creates are pretty large (about
1.7MB/second of video) so you'll need to use the included
software to convert them to another format if you want to
email them or anything. For instance, I was able to make an
80MB .avi file into a 7MB windows media (.wmv) movie.

A few things to consider: It will NOT change focus as you
'film'. Once you press the shutter release button, focus is
locked for the entire video. Other than that, and a tendancy
to show VERY strong verticle streaks when a bright light
source is in-frame, I've been pleased with the results from
such a small handy camera.

From what I read before I bought it, you need a 'high speed'
SD card if you want to do continuous movies or high frame-rate
shooting. I use a Sandisk 512MB Ultra II card and can get 4.5
minutes of video on it!

Conclusion: I dind't buy it for the video capabilities either,
but from what I've seen, I've been impressed!

How long you can capture video? until the memory is full?


On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 14:32:01 -0600, Curt Bousquet
wrote:

Jorl Shefner wrote let it be known in
:

Along with many other things about the SD300, I was
impressed to see
640x480 video with 30 fps and (especially on a Canon)
unlimited clip duration. Does anyone have much experience
with the video capture feature of this camera who could
give me an idea of how well it performs in this regard?
I've had some cameras that could only produce video that
was
unacceptably dark, or with excessively fuzzy audio.
I'm not buying it for the video, but it's a great bonus
if does a
good job of this.

I've had an SD300 for about a month now and have used the
video feature quite a bit.

First, the audio capture is pretty damn good. The sound comes
out crisp and clear and the pickup is impressive. Last
weekend, I was getting a video of two people speaking about
50' from me and it picked up their voices!

The video appears to be the same quality as the still images.
Fairly sharp. The files it creates are pretty large (about
1.7MB/second of video) so you'll need to use the included
software to convert them to another format if you want to
email them or anything. For instance, I was able to make an
80MB .avi file into a 7MB windows media (.wmv) movie.

A few things to consider: It will NOT change focus as you
'film'. Once you press the shutter release button, focus is
locked for the entire video. Other than that, and a tendancy
to show VERY strong verticle streaks when a bright light
source is in-frame, I've been pleased with the results from
such a small handy camera.

From what I read before I bought it, you need a 'high speed'
SD card if you want to do continuous movies or high frame-rate
shooting. I use a Sandisk 512MB Ultra II card and can get 4.5
minutes of video on it!

Conclusion: I dind't buy it for the video capabilities either,
but from what I've seen, I've been impressed!

D Cheung
http://www.opaltonsolutions.com

D Cheung wrote let it be known in
:

How long you can capture video? until the memory is full?

Yup (assuming you have a 'high speed' SD card). I can capture
640x480 with sound @ 30fps for 4.5 minutes. It doesn't appear to
depend on any buffer memory, but writes directly to the SD card.

I haven't actually tried it yet to see if the battery lasts long
enough, but AFAIK that would be the only limitation.