Color Photography

The second type of cameras is now also becoming indispensable for recording important events for later playback and archiving or review. With the wide availability of VCD and DVD authoring software programs, people are learning to edit their own videos and burning them into VCDs and DVDs as the equivalent of the family albums of yesteryears. They show them to friends and relatives and play back recent events during reunions and gatherings. In addition, many among the younger generation have made it fashionable to shoot their own videos, edit them and then post them to video sharing and social networking sites on the Internet. That way they get a very wide, i.e. global, audience or viewership. Many have in fact become “Internet stars” through their exposure via YouTube and their own FaceBook, Multiply, Friendster, Vox and MySpace webpages.

In general, there are two subcategories of digital video cameras: consumer and professional. First, let’s discuss the consumer-type camera. This is the kind that most people or families use for shooting videos. The camera models differ mostly in terms of zoom range (some as much as 220x optical zoom or better, plus digital zoom) and type of media used. The various types of media are the mini-DV (digital video) tape, DVD, and HDD (internal hard disk drive). The mini-DV is the most common type and offers 1 hour continuous recording at SP (standard play) speed and 1-1/2 hours at LP (long play). The DVD-recording camera does away with tape head wear and tear since it does not use tape, which you would need to rewind or fast-forward. It also offers much longer continuous recording time, depending on the video quality setting. The third type of camera in this subcategory uses a built-in hard disk and thus will allow extremely long recording durations without stopping. No more ejecting and changing of tape or DVD is needed. All of these cameras offer unattended interval recording, stereo sound (some with automatic 5.1-channel encoding), night shooting, and handy size. Most models can also be used as still cameras, with top resolution at 4 megapixels. They will let you save picture data to a replaceable memory card.

Now let’s discuss the professional subcategory. This type of digital video camera uses three charge-coupled devices (CCDs), whereas the consumer type uses only one. Professional video cameras are thus called three-chip cameras and deliver a much sharper and defined image than consumer cameras. The excellent sharpness is made possible by assigning one CCD for each of the three basic colours that make up a television or video signal: red, green and blue. In consumer cameras, the single CCD has to work on all three colours, necessarily compromising sharpness. The latest development in professional video cameras is the HD (high definition) type, which delivers an amazingly stunning, extremely sharp image. That is because the image resolution of 640 x 480 pixels of consumer and 3-CCD cameras is more than doubled in the HD cameras to 1440 x 1080 pixels.

Many popular brands that make digital still cameras also make digital video cameras: Canon, Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Fuji and Sanyo. The newer entrants are JVC and Sharp.