Canon Digital Still Camera Information?
 

i recently purchased the canon powershot S80, plan to use it to capture stills (and maybe crude motion clips) for use in a DV project that i'm mostly shooting with my GL2. my question: i'd like to get a better handle on this new camera's advanced features. anybody know of a forum along the lines of dvinfo.net where i could gather some quality still camera tips and tricks?

thanks,
phb

Thread moved to our "Still Crazy" digicam forum... welcome home,

Actually the Canon Powershot S80 is truly a groundbreaking camera because it features a high rez movie mode with full XGA resolution (1024 x 768) at 15 frames per secound. While the camera does not quite meet high definition specifications which would require a capture rate of 24 frames per secound nevertheless it is quite capable of shooting some very sharp footage. DVinfo has an affordable high definition forum that addresses general aquisition questions that may be appropriate to discuss the movie mode of your camera.

What do you want to learn?

i'd like to learn more about the advanced features--how to use the histogram, in particular.

phb

Start right here. Some books if you want to go into greater depth: "Adobe Photoshop CS2 for photographers", "Photoshop CS2 artistry", "Real world Photoshop CS2".

So which camera produces the better video The Canon powershot S80 or the Canon GL2 ?

actually, there's a histogram in the camera's viewfinder that i'd like to figure out how to use properly. i'll figure the photoshop part out after i get the camera operations under control.

phb

the GL2. no contest. the S80 image produces a lot of stair-stepping and artifacts, esp. if there's any movement in the frame.

phb

Of course the temporal resolution of the Canon GL-2 is higher because the S80 only shoots 15 frames per secound. But the spatial resolution of the Canon S80 is higher than the GL-2. The pixel count of the S80 is 786,000 pixels while the GL-2 is only 345,000. So the Canon S80 has more than twice the spatial resolution.

I do not know the specifics of your camera, but histograms basically tell you the distribution of the light. Generally, the goal is to avoid clipping--having a large number of pixels that are completely black, or white. This happens when the contrast or the saturation is too high.

I think you will find that the article I referenced is still relevant.

There's *so* much more to the equation than "spatial resolution," Tommy. Counting pixels is next to meaningless. Video from the PowerShot S80 is much more heavily compressed than video from the GL2, and besides, the GL2 is first and foremost a video camcorder, with among other things a much larger lens using fluorite elements, so of course it's going to produce better video. But this is all academic and nearly pointless (with sincere apologies to Paul and Emre for the momentary thread hijack).

Paul,
I picked up an S70 early this past summer as a camera to carry when I don't want to carry a camera. It's really been a terrific camera. The S80 seems to have a more refined industrial design, although its lack of RAW support makes it just a bit less appealing to me personally.

But as to your question...

The more prominent sites, such as Fred Miranda and Rob Galbraith, deal mainly in dslr gear lust chatter. Phil Askey's Digital Photography Review has some forums with broader topics (see: "Canon Talk") that might lead to your destination.

But basically the best teachers for these cameras are the manual and some dedicated experimentation. Work through some settings, pull the images into Photoshop and pay close attention to the EXIF information embedded in each image. It's a terrific instructor that faithfully records when and how you took each image.

Have fun with that S80!

In my humble experience, the worst miniDV camera produces better video than the movie mode on the best still camera.

dpreview.com
 

dpreview.com has a great site and they just did an in depth review of the S80. I also think the reviews they provide are better than the manuals in a lot of cases. I was disappointed that they got rid of the raw feature, but it's just been disabled and they might bring it back in a firmware update. Great camera though.