Here's the deal: I'm buying a digital video camera, primarily for video. I've narrowed it down between the TRV11, which I can get for $1029 or the TRV20 that I can get for $1400. The only real difference (that I am concerned with) is that the TRV20 produces megapixel stills whereas the TRV11 is 640x480. My primary interest in getting the camcorder is video on a trek in Nepal.

Now-- if I could have stills that would look decent in 4 x 6 size, and if only the TRV20 could give me that (in one unit!), it might be worth the $400. But if the reality is that I could get barely passable stills from either megapixel or 640x480 then the $400 is a waste to me-- I'd just use the still functions for the web and bring a small 35MM (Olympus Stylus Epic).

I've read lots about megapixels and how much is "needed," but I'm anxious to hear the advice of others on this particular situation. I'm somewhat of a picky photgrapher (I have an SLR and did take a B&W course once), but am satisfied with clear, well-composed in focus shots for my trip pictures-- the kind of thing the Stylus Epic could deliver. In other words, I'm a snapshot shooter, but maybe a bit more picky than most.

Thanks--

-- Arlo Devlin-Brown (devlin_brown@yahoo.com), July 13, 2000

Answers

A megapixel vs. a 640x480 image will give you over 3 times as many pixels (640x480=307,200), so that's a no brainer -you knew that. The real question is should you buy a more expensive digital camcorder to get somewhat crappy stills? NO! I don't have a digital camcorder, but all reports I've seen so far point to the quality of their stills being rather marginal compared to a digital camera with a similarly sized(resolution) sensor.

Buy the camcorder you like based on it's ability as a camcorder and your belief in how many action sequences you'll film. Nothing is more boring than hours of video footage of stationary objects. Stills do a much better job of capturing typical travel settings. If you expect to encounter a lot of people or wildlife doing interesting things then video is the way to go. If you only expect to need short sequences of video, you might just consider a digital camera with a movie mode. This has the advantage of granting you a more decent lens, but probably robbing you of some optical zoom capability. Frankly, if it were me, considering video's limitations and that a regular Hi-8mm camcorder is a lot cheaper I'd buy a reasonably priced HI-8 camcorder for around $350-$400 and spend the other $600-$1000 on a good digital camera with a movie mode and a large media card(s) or microdrive. If you like a smartmedia based camera I believe there's a new card reader on the market that will transfer smartmedia card images to the 350MB to 1GB IBM microdrives in the field without a PC.

Dumb question? How are you planning to recharge these technological marvels? I've never seen a cigarette lighter jack on a Yak...

Traveling light is a great thing, but there's something to be said for having two separate devices in case one croaks while trekking up the side of a mountain saddled on a yak... Yuck. :-)

An inexpensive conventional film camera might be a great backup unit and would provide the highest quality stills if you got some really nice shots. The biggest problem would be managing all the film and the processing costs can be a bit depressing when compared to digital camera usage. APS can cost $16-18 a roll including film & processing. Ouch! 35mm can easily cost between 1/3 and 1/2 of that. So around 40 rolls could easily buy you a digicam and nearly limitless images.

Good luck and have a great trip.

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@surferz.net), July 14, 2000.

I agree fully - it's the old addage of, "don't send a boy out to do a man's work!" I wouldn't trust a video camera to take stills, and I have done it just to see how bad they'd look. They were worse than I imagined!

The best way to think of a situation like this is to ask yourself a simple question: "would I use a waffle iron to cook an omlet?" If the answer is "no", then why use a bad quality video camera to capture stills when a film or digital still camera is meant to do that job? I don't trust ANY digital still camera that says it can take .AVI or .MOV files - it's not MEANT to do that job well - its function is STILL IMAGERY. Don't be fooled or taken in; you'll lose your treasured memories.

The previous post had a great technical point, too - charging! You have to deal with voltage converters, and yaks don't take well to being plugged in to.

Have a great trip and bring along your film/digital still camera.

-- Sue Bald (destiny3@ix.netcom.com), July 14, 2000.