You are looking at the new Canon Powershot A480 camera. It sports 10 megapixel resolution, 3.3x (37mm-122mm equivalent) optical zoom, large 2.5 LCD screen and many other features you wouldn’t normally expect to find on a camera costing less than $130.00.
I’m a macro photography fan. I like to see the tiny worlds that are always just under our feet or inches away from our fingers but go unnoticed. Well here is an inexpensive camera that will let me do just that. Canon lenses always offer sharp images and the Super Macro mode lets the user get in to 0.4 inches or 1cm for you metrics. That right less than half an inch from your tiny treasure. Other features on this bargain Betty, SD memory cards and the new SDHC’s, Custom settable white balance, and ISO range up to 1600.
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Canon Fodder, pt. 2
Today I focus on the new SD780 IS cameras. These beauties are very small, sleek and have some of the nicest body color options I’ve seen on any point and shoot cameras. The Red Satin finish is my favorite. I’ve spent a little time at Canon’s Powershot.com web pages and was surprised that nobody had reviewed these cameras yet.
Some of the new features on these cameras are almost revolutionary. One I find truly remarkable is the Face Detection self-timer mode. A new feature of the Digic 4 processor allows the camera to lock and track individual faces as they move throughout the frame, with that feature the shooter can now set the self timer, enter the frame and the camera will lock on, track and focus until the shutter fires. In the past, (a few months ago) cameras locked on whatever element was closest in the frame when the shutter button was depressed in self timer mode. With 12.1 megapixels and a 3x optical Canon Zoom, sharp Canon lenses and a 2.5 inch PureColor LCD you know you are getting top quality stills with these cameras. Add to that the upgraded movie modes on several models including the Powershot SD780 IS and it is a sure-fire winner. Yes these tiny cameras record in 720p HD and have a HDMI-C port to input directly into your HD TV or components. All that in a camera smaller than a standard deck of cards. Did you say cards? Yes these still use SD memory cards and even the SDHC high capacity SD cards for smooth streaming HD video.
Understanding SD Memory Speeds
So, if you’ve used a camera in the last, oh, five or so years, I’m sure you’ve dealt with the joy of memory cards. I’m here today to help you understand the fairly cryptic and confusing ways popular cards, such as Sandisk cards like the Ultra II pictured to the left, tell you how fast they are. This time around we’ll look at SD memory cards (this also applies to SDHC, which is just the High Capacity version of SD).
So, let’s take a look to our left again. See the 15 mb/s printed on the label. It’s really nice when manufacturers give us this, this tells us the fastest the card can write information. If you see the little partial circle with a number in it, in this case “4″, this indicates the SD card’s “class.” The Class tells us the absolute slowest the card will ever write our data, and it’s a pretty easy system. Class 2 SD memory cards will write no slower than 2 MB per second. Class 4′s no slower than 4 MB per second, and of course Class 6 no slower than 6 MB per second.
Now, there’s one other way people will tell you the speed of their cards, and that’s X speed. I’m sure you’ve all seen cards marked like “60x”, “100x”, or “133x” (this system is used for compact flash, as well). In this case one “x” means “1.5 KB per second maximum write speed.” These days, KB are yesterday’s news and we’re on to MBs, so this isn’t the most useful number ever. If you’re confused by x-speeds, just take it times .15 to get the MB per second, which is way more useful. 100x = 15 MB/s, 133x = 20 MB/s, etc.
New AVCHD hard drive camcorder- Canon Vixia HG20
We just received the new Canon Vixia HG20 HD camcorder. It looks very impressive. The camera sports a 60 gig hard drive and a SD memory card slot for recording to either storage format. Here is the rundown from the Canon HD camcorder website:
High Definition Video on Hard Disk Drive
Continuing Canon’s industry-leading reputation for technology and product quality, Canon’s latest high definition camcorders deliver the optical excellence, advanced image processing and superb performance found in our photographic and broadcast television lenses. With our Canon Exclusives, we bring more advanced features to our camcorders, enabling you to more easily take your video to a higher level than ever possible before.
Among our latest products is the Canon VIXIA HG20 Hard Disk Drive Camcorder. It combines the ease of recording video directly onto an internal Hard Disk Drive with the advanced AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) format. Its 60GB Hard Disk Drive allows you to record up to 22 hours and 55 minutes of crisp, high definition video (LP Mode). It also is a dual system camcorder, with the capability of also recording video and still images to an SDHC card as well.
The VIXIA HG20 boasts 1920 x 1080 Full HD, and has a CODEC capable of recording 24Mbps — the highest AVCHD bitrate –through Canon’s own Full HD CMOS Image Sensor and advanced DIGIC DV II image processor. Other exclusives are a new Genuine Canon 12x HD video lens, SuperRange Optical Image Stabilization and Instant AutoFocus and a host of other advanced features including an HDMI™ Connector. Enhanced and simplified controls give you more choices and easier operation. Remarkable image reproduction and advanced features are yours in this compact AVCHD Format Hard Disk Drive camcorder which easily goes along with you, wherever you are, to capture those unforgettable moments in life- in true HD.
For those of you on the fence about AVCHD for editing reasons, I found a website to help you along in the process. This is especially helpful for those people editing with an Apple OSX platform. Here is the website. Even if you are not interested in the products available on this site, there is a wealth of info for high definition video editing. HD camcorders are going to AVCHD more and more. Editing software is getting easier everyday.
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