Hey Tripdaddy, 3_boyjems, FullQuiver6, Gargoyle+3, tropelets, pikespeak3, Audra_V and 'Nick and Tammie'. (You guys replied a while back to my post on digital cameras)

Anyway, I have decided to create a digital album of the kids, and record everything as they grow up. They are already changing drastically every day and I don't want to lose any of it.

After the abovementioned post, I started searching the market and found that the prices were too high for the capabilities offered. Now the prices have dropped and I have decided to buy the Sony DSC-F717. According to the experts, it provides the best picture quality and very good capabilities for its price.

But I have the following doubts: Is this camera a bit too professional? Should I get a cheaper one that has average capabilities to do the job?

What do you guys think?

Kostas,

I would say that camera is in a gray area. It is a bit expensive for what you get, but it is a bit cheap for what you get. I would not say it is a bit too professional. I wouldn't say you are getting into professional until you get into the SLR style cameras. I would have a hard time spending that kind of money for that type of camera. The camera I am watching (and waiting) is the Canon D10. It is about $1500 now which is REALLY expensive, but you will get so much more of a camera that is professional quality than you would with the Sony. The Sony IS better than the point and shoot cameras out there, but how much better is a good question, and does it warrant the price?

Just my two cents.

Tripdaddy
Father of Sam, Rob, & Trey

Yes the D10 is a serious bit of kit! A really good camera according to the reviews.

I have been studying a site (www.dpreview.com) which has excellent testing and reviews of nearly all cameras. Take a look to answer your queries mentioned above.

Kostas5: I only have a digital camcorder. But with anything, I go to the consumer reports. My brother, who is a techie, is a big fan of Panasonic products. I just don't know about Sony anymore: they are so expensive and I'm not convinced their products, generally, are any better than Toshiba or Panasonic. I have also heard rave reviews about Toshiba products.

Mike.

GBG born 6/12/01

Do you create DVD's using your digital camcorder? I am thinking about getting a digital camcorder to make DVD's and am curious what others experience has been.......I have a firewire port, so it seems that the transfer/creation would be pretty simple.

Our triplets are almost 2 months now and are becoming more alert....

Any thoughts?

KOB

Brendan & Jack & Fiona

I have not created DVDs yet, b/c I don't have a burner....yet But I edit and create my own videos and burn them to CDs or back to tape. Yes, a firewire port is all you need to capture the video from tape.....well that and a ton of drive space. It does not take long to fill a hard drive with video files. But with a good editing software, it is a lot of fun. I have discussed this before, but I use Abobe Premiere which is a lower level pro-editing software. It works great. Then you must be able to covert your finished products to MPEG files to burn them.

Tripdaddy
Father of Sam, Rob, & Trey

Tripdaddy:

What is your final take on Adobe Premiere? Are you burning onto CDs that you can view on your DVD player w/ your TV? How big of a file can you hold on the CD - - i.e., do you have to encode to MPEG2 for the CD? Please give details. Thanks.

Mike.

GBG born 6/12/01

Mike,

I absolutely love Adobe Premiere. I used AVID a bit in college as I was a Radio-TV-Film major and of course AVID is the best, but Adobe Premiere is awesome for home use. Currently, I am only burning to CDs since I am still building up the guts/funds to buy a new computer with a DVD+R drive. I have only used the CDs to view on my computer or other family members' computers. My DVD player was an earlier model and will not play anything but DVDs and a few audio CD-Rs. I am not sure how much a CD will hold...never filled one....I only use CD-Rs not RWs so when I burn.....that's it....no more on that disc and I usually only burn one or two videos at a time. But I can tell you that I have burned about 10 minutes or video w/ audio and additional music tracks and I THINK it only took a little over half the space of the disc. I may be wrong, but that is my memory of it. So I would guess that it would hold between 15 and 20 minutes. Surely not enough for a movie, but plenty for an edited home video. I try to keep all my videos under about 6 minutes, as they are being sent to relatives and a good rule of thumb is to keep them short and sweet so you don't bore the audience. I end up cutting about 3/4 of what I shoot to make the final cut....sorry, that is not what you are asking though.

I encode them as MPEG files I believe. The software has the capabilities of being able to control the compression rate so that you can make the files smaller (lower quality) or larger (better quality). I thry to minimize compression so it looks good when wathing on the computer. The newer version of Adobe has MPEG2 capabilties, but I have not had a chance to play with the new version yet. To be honest, I don't know if you even would use MPEG2 for burning to a CD...I kind of think that is for DVD only.....but I may be wrong.

Tripdaddy
Father of Sam, Rob, & Trey

Also, Tripdaddy (and any others that are interested):

I am not sure if you know about this video encoder, but it is a good tool by Microsoft that reformats/converts .avi files from the camcorder to a smaller file size (.wmv) to share with family and friends electronically. Everyone seems to use the MS Media Player.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx

Let me know how it works for you.

Regards, Mike.

GBG born 6/12/01

I'll check it out...

Tripdaddy
Father of Sam, Rob, & Trey

Hey KOB,

both Hitachi and Panasonic have brought out DVD-CAMs. They record directly to DVD and allow you to edit on the camcorder itself(without a PC). They look really good but are priced very heavily.
Over here in Europe they are around 1000 USD for the cheap model and 2000 USD for the expensive.

I would just wait and see for a while. It is pretty new technology that makes life a lot easier, but prices will drop as others enter the game.

I have seen these and agree with you it may be too early....The digital camcorders are more reasonably priced so might be a better option...........

It is tough to keep up---I have an IPOD and now Apple came out with a new one with all kinds of bells & whistles. Just the same, this is a great toy.

KOB

Kostas,

I looked up the camera and it is pretty good. It blows mine away by a mile... I have been very happy with my cheap Kodak Easy Share (DX3600) for portrait shots of the kids. It is really challenged for landscape and other long distance work. If you plan to do only portrait type photography of your kids, the Sony F717 is probably serious overkill. If, however, you do a lot of scenic (I think I recall you saying you live in Greece?) photography this camera looks great!

I saw it on CNet (www.cnet.com) for $639 (USD). This strikes me as reasonable for a 5MP camera with a 10X zoom.

Regards,

John

http://webpages.charter.net/jnkspencer/index.htm

Hey John, over here they are not that cheap.
The best price I could find was 1020 Euros (about the same in USD).

I played with it the other day and it is a charm. Really easy and fantastic quality.

Here is it's review -> http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydscf717/

But despite that, my mind is still very much open to other solutions.

My requirements are as follows:
- at least 4 mp
- burst mode with around 2 per second (the 717 lacks here)
- movie shooting
- close-ups
- good quality lens with at least 3x zoom

The Sony is an excellent camera. SOny's use the Carl Ziess(sp?) lenses which are, arguably, the best lenses you will find in these cameras.

As far as your burst mode requirements, I do not know. When I was looking two years ago, the Olympus's had SOny beat on the burst mode numbers.

4 mp is more than enough.

If you like the camera and are comfortable with the price, it is a fine choice.

Surviving husband to Tammie who passed in March of 2009.
Now married to Nina.
Father of Samantha Nicole, Kayla Shea , and Dominic Paul born on 10/14/02
Step-father to Kristina Nicole born on 09/24/85
Grandfather to Riley Faith born on 5/13/06
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