digital cameras

[singularity2006]

I'm not too into cameras, but I know the Sony's have digital camcorders that also do stills.

[Signal2Noise]

I don't find vid-cams to be very good at taking stills. I always recommend getting both a vid-cam and still-cam. I do have a Canon still camera that takes little mpeg videos w/ sound. It eats up a memory card in no time but is pretty good. I also have an older Sony digital video camera that can take stills but the res and the quality sucks. Great for movies though. For your textures, I would recommend checking out the 4 megapixel Canon S40.

Good luck.

[dmeyer]

Even a modest still cam will take better still photos then the best camcorders out there.

For just texturing, make sure to not go less than 3 megapixel.

[mr2monster]

you might want to look into the Mustek DV3000

3.1MP and it does both stills and movies in .avi

looking around the net i see it has awesome reviews. the only reviews that are bad about it are the people that expected to get a camera in teh same league as the nikon 5700 or something.

its about 150-200 bucks and has a flop out LCD screen.

its REALLY hard to get right now because people are buying them up. tehy official release isnt even until may 15th. but ther are some people that are selling them now.

I just bought 2... hopefully they are everything they are cracked up to be.

you can check out some sample vids and pics that they took with the cam here:
http://www.vtops.com/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=131

[Soulcialism]

mr2monster: thanks a ton for the suggestion - i read up on the dv3000 and i think i might pick one up, they look awesome, and exactly what i'm looking for. i'm super excited to get it.

[Fingolfin]

Why is the camera so cheap?

[mr2monster]

im not sure... Ill let you know when it breaks on me.. if it does.

seems to be rather well built for what it is. better than my last kodak pos. and perfect for my onboard video camera uses.

Ive already used it on my bike. stuck it to the gas tank with a suction cup and tripod bolt.

very high tech ;) :lol:

Ive already got my moneys worth out of it so i wont be so discouraged if it does happen to break ina month.

it comes with a 1 yr parts 90 day workmanship warantee so im pretty safe for the next 3 months i guess.

[Fingolfin]

AH!
I think I got it now.
I took a closer look at the spec and found out that it stores video in avi format.
I guess you just hook it up to your computer (via USB) and drop it in.
I thought it was a miniDV camera requiring you insert a tape.
It works the same as a digital photo camera but with video.
Cool.
They just need to add video/audio out so you can play back on TV/VCR instead of just computer .avi. That would sell like hotcakes at that price!

[singularity2006]

did u guys see that one camerai in the general forum that took like something like insanely large images with such a high resolution that the file sizes are 5MB or something a file? =D

[mr2monster]

There is a Vid out that you can play back on your TV..

you have to use the cam to play it back though.

:-D

[unclebob]

I have and like Olympus digi-cams. You can get 3-10x optical zoom, 2-4 digital zoom and make short video with sound. Uses compact flash media for storage. USB for connection to computer and a port to hook up to the video input of a tv.

a good source for digi-cams is DCResource at www.dcresource.com/ (http://)

he has a great selection of reviews (the digi-cam companys send him cameras for review) along with comparasions

bob

[Sharky0815]

You might want to take a look at the Fuji Finepix S602. It´s not too expensive, takes great stills and with a 1 GB Microdrive you can take up to 30 min of Video at 640x480 with Sound. There are a few drawbacks with the Video, read http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/fuji/finepix_s602-review/index.html to know more. All I can say is that it takes great stills and you have a lot of control, something you don´t get with cheaper cameras.

[mr2monster]

whoa... dont buy memory cards (SD specifically) from there... tehy are about double price from other places.

http://www.buy.com/techtv/retail/product.asp?sku=10324276&loc=&rp=true&rpcc=CSPPR&PageFormat=7#product

[mr2monster]

well i recieved my Mustek DV3000 yesterday and i must say it is more than i expected for the 150 price tag... it works great and seems to hold up pretty well... I already dropped it off my bike at 15mph and its still recording.

The vid quality is about as good as internet vid.. nothin you could make a movie with.

The pic quality is about par with mid range digicams.

The software included is okay. i mostly hate the interfaces... Thats Ulead for you though.

The build quality is great for such a cheap camera.. i mean great.

the battery life is pretty good.. it runs on 2 AA batteries and has lasted me about 25 min of record time so far and i have more life still..

The 32MB card that comes with the camera holds about 500 low res pics, and 250 ish high res pics. It holds about 5 min of high resolution video and about 13 min of low res video. the FPS = 15

The only main gripes i have about the camera are that you cant zoom WHILE you are recording and that the cam isnt that great in low light. Ive since then come up with a fix about the low light situation that is not a problem at all and is actually better because it uses an external battery for the lighting so it doesnt cut into recording time.

Other than that i would recommend this cam to everyone. it is a great toy to mess around with and get some stuff on the internet, its nothing like a Nikon Coolpix 5700 or anything though so dont get your hopes too high. It is perfect for screwing around and getting a smaller size vid on the internet. or even pics of junk you are selling or just cool little pics. Bascally anythng you dont want to screw up your good camera for you can use this..

[RenderSlave]

I would not recommend getting a video camera to take digital still photos, especially if you want to use it for textures!

Most DV video cameras will compress the video “mpeg1, mpeg2, mpeg4 or avi” so you can get more time on those cute little tapes. The HI8 and VHS-C are analog tapes, so they have even worse quality. The compression is fine for moving video images on a TV, but not as nice if you want a crisp still image. Video cameras often say they have a built in digital cameras, but when you take a “digital picture” with a video camera it is really still just a compressed video still frame.

If you want decent digital pictures you need to buy a decent digital camera. I bought a cheap digital camera a couple years back and I hate it! The quality is bad, the battery is always dead when I go to use it, it is so aggravating! You should get a digital camera that has a 2 or 3megapixel image. Some cameras will try to sell you with features like Digital zoom. You don’t want digital zoom you want an optical zoom. Optical zoom will zoom in closer and capture a true close up image. What an optical zoom does is take an image and crop out the area that you are supposedly zooming in on and resample it up. This lowers the quality and is something you could do in Photoshop. A SLR digital cameras is the best choice for professional quality photos. Unfortunately they are also the most expensive. So you get what you pay for.

I haven’t looked into cameras or video camcorders in quite awhile so the info and specs may have changes a bit. Just something to look out for, I hope I was able to help.

[Fingolfin]

I just got to use my friend's digital camera this week.
It was awesome!
It is an Olypus model (not sure the exact one)
It has a whopping 5 megapixel feature!
I took pictures on the second best qualtiy level (can take over 100 pictures) and they came out clean and huge!!!
I didn't even try the highest quality (only takes 16 pictures!).
Lots of features.
I just hooked up the USB cable from the camera to the back of my computer and it recongized the right away.
It sees it as another drive. Open the drive and you see all you pictures. SO EASY!
No software required.
I need to get a digital camera now!

[mr2monster]

that is how the Mustek DV3000 is...

there is no transfering or anything, you just plug it into a bus port and it reads it as a removable drive.. .then just open that drive and open the Imaging folder and blam there are your pics.

then its as simple as putting them to your computer if you want them there..

some machines will require a driver for it but some wont.

The DV3000 also doubles as a portable drive.. you can stick any other kind of file on the SD or MMC and transport it around. then plug it into the otehr computer and voila! copy your files to the new computer.

makes transfering files from one computer to the other a breeze.. no burning CD's or stickin it onto a floppy. its considerably faster than both of those methods too..

[johnnynightlife]

for $700 or so, this camera will take pics that are VERY high quality, and it will take video as well. This camera is what they call a "PROSUMER" camera, which is above consumer, bordering professional. I bought it, and am still amased at the quality of the pics, and ease of use. depending on what size card you buy, obviously depends on how much video you can record.

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