Digital Video Cameras

Whether you’re interested in shooting DVD-quality MPEG-2 video or web quality MPEG-4 video, there are a few basic tips you can follow to select the digital video camera that’s right for you. For answers to all your questions about digital video cameras.

Shopping Tips

Digital video cameras use a charge coupled device, or CCD, to sample an image. Inexpensive digital video cameras use a single chip to sample red, green, and blue image components, while high quality digital video cameras use three separate CCD chips for this process.

A digital video camera with manual controls for the aperture, focus, and shutter speed provides more flexibility than a camera with automatic controls. Among digital video cameras with manual controls, many that have high shutter speeds are lacking low-speed options. A camera that can capture footage at 1/60th of a second will produce the best results.

Image stabilization is very useful feature for your digital video camera. This eliminates blurred footage caused by camera shake. Optical stabilization is preferable to electronic image stabilization. A digital video camera with optical image stabilization will use a gel or liquid-based prism that is mounted in front of the camera lens to bend the light so that the image falls on a set point on the CCD.

Most digital video cameras can shoot still images in addition to video footage. However, these images will typically be of a much lower quality than photographs from a still camera. In most cases, you will only be able to make 4 x 6 size prints. Look for color accuracy, light sensitivity, and color tone when judging the image quality of a digital video camera.