Over the last few years, the advancements we’ve seen in digital video absolutely amazes me. Since I recently converted all my videos to a format that can be displayed on the iPad, I’ve been watching a bunch of video with my son as he loves watching videos of our dog. Using AirPlay on the iPad streaming to the Apple TV, we can watch the videos on our 37″ TV.
As we watch the movies, I can clearly tell which camera we used to take the video. Some of the older video is just awful and is quite grainy like half of the videos we seen on the news from people’s cellphones.
My first modern day digital camera that I bought in 2003 was an Olympus Digital Stylus 300 that shot 3 megapixel still pictures with no ability to shoot video. My next camera that I bought in 2005 was a Pentax Optio S5i that shot 5 megapixel still pictures and 320×240 video. Since the 320×240 video was pretty awful, I had a Panasonic Mini DV camera which shot video about 4 times the resolution of the Pentax (720×480). However, the Mini DV camera became a pain to carry and a second device just wasn’t convenient. So when I saw the Flip that shot at 640×480, I bought one as I wanted to capture all the moments of my son’s life (like any good parent). The Flip worked well and we took a lot of video, but like the Mini DV camera, carrying a second device basically proved to be the end of the Flip.
As I wanted better video, in 2009, I went with a Canon PowerShot SD960IS
In just 8 years we’ve seen compact digital cameras go from having no capability to shoot video to overpassing standalone consumer video cameras. The consumer cameras we see today in some ways are better than commercial video cameras of just a few years ago.