Cameras

With high-definition television finding its way into more and more living rooms, it's natural that consumer-level video cameras are beginning to follow suit. Consumer HD camcorders, though still somewhat rare at this point, aren't exactly new, but they tend to be pricey.

Consumer digital still cameras have long offered limited movie-shooting capability, and some digital camcorders have provided the ability to shoot decent-quality still images. But of late, those capabilities have improved immensely, and today you can make good videos with many digital still cameras, and good stills with a number of digital camcorders.

If I had any doubt of what could be achieved with an affordable camcorder and a bit of imagination, it was swept away while attending a high-school film festival. As I watched, kids from San Fernando High School in Southern California shared short live-action and animated films they had created with cameras, computers and software.

Choosing a digital SLR is a bit trickier than choosing a film SLR because you have all of the film-camera considerations, plus a number of digital aspects to weigh. One benefit, though, is that you can't go wrong with any of today's D-SLRs—they all offer lots of features, good performance and enough resolution to produce quality 12x18 inkjet prints.

From the moment it was created, photography has been inseparably connected to technology. Born of light-sensitive substances coated on a metal plate and now evolved to today's CCD and CMOS sensors, photography's growth has been measured as much by its technological advances as it has by the creativity of its photographers.

Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-R1 features an electronic eye-level viewfinder like those in high-end compact digital cameras, along with a swiveling/tilting two-inch external LCD monitor that shows the image live, just like the monitors on compact digital cameras. The big news is that this live image is produced by a huge (for an all-in-one camera) APS-C-sized, 10.3-megapixel, Sony-produced CMOS image sensor. This brings together, for the first time, the all-in-one convenience and live-view features of a compact digital camera with the imaging capabilities of a 10.3-megapixel image sensor some 12 times the size of the sensors found in most compact cameras.

I love digital SLRs and do just about all my shooting with them. D-SLRs have a couple of drawbacks, however. Dust can settle on the image sensor each time you change lenses, and you can't see the image live on the LCD monitor or tilt the monitor for odd-angle shots as you can with compact digital cameras.

There's no time to fumble with a camera when scaling steep mountains or cycling through deep canyons. With action sports attracting more devotees every year, the gear for capturing these athletic feats on camera is becoming more affordable. Of course, choosing the right sports video camera depends on the kind of action you're into and what kind of video quality you're looking for. Most helmet cams now are about 1.5 inches wide, up to six inches long and weigh less than a pound. So capturing your mad dash down a black diamond trail is as simple as strapping the camera on your helmet and hitting record.

When you buy a compact digital camera, you buy a camera. But when you buy a digital SLR, you buy into a whole camera system. That SLR body accepts a wide range of lenses, flash units, viewfinder attachments, optional power sources and other accessories, all of which add tremendous versatility. So to get the most out of your purchase, you should look at the whole system, not just a particular camera model, when deciding which D-SLR to purchase.

Whatever brand D-SLR you shoot, Sony's new entry into the market affects you, as it puts a very strong camera into the competitive fray. I had a chance to spend a couple of days shooting solidly with the Sony DSLR-A100, or Alpha camera, early this summer.

Are you clinging to decade-old gear or living on the high-tech cutting edge? Do you want to replace a worn-out camcorder or move up to a new system? Do you shoot once-a-year vacation videos or are you a video enthusiast? No matter which of the various video formats you choose, a new camcorder will most likely have more features and better resolution, be smaller and lighter, and cost less than the equipment you're using now.