G7 - No optical zoom with movies?

powerslave · Oct 2, 2006

Just read on digitalcamerainfo site that it doesnt allow optical zoom during movies? Is that correct? They allow this in the A700 series but not when you pay more for the G7?

I was really looking at the positives with this camera but thats just weird.....:-(

Kelly Mackey · Oct 2, 2006

powerslave said:
Just read on digitalcamerainfo site that it doesnt allow optical
zoom during movies? Is that correct? They allow this in the A700
series but not when you pay more for the G7?

The A700 series doesn't allow optical zoom during movies either.

powerslave · Oct 2, 2006

Oh I thought I read somewhere that it does...well they should enable this shouldnt they!

Kelly Mackey · Oct 2, 2006

powerslave said:
Oh I thought I read somewhere that it does...well they should
enable this shouldnt they!

Yep, optical zoom while recording movies would be a nice feature. I'm guessing that Canon has disabled it because of the noise of the zoom. If this feature is important to you, you may want to take a look at the S3 IS.

Cerebrus · Oct 2, 2006

The S2/S3 IS have a USM motor, so you cannot hear the noise of the zoom. Think this is the main reason why most cameras do not have optical zoom, the noise is too loud.

----
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Vik117408 · Oct 3, 2006

and that will defeat the clip sound information.

IMHO there are two points:

1. You seldom NEED zoom during video. Just stop, zoom, start. Then, stich the pieces into one movie file in any format.

2. If you still feel you WANT zoom, try to check the cameras with less noizy mechanics á la USM like S3 or manual zoom like Pana Z50 etc.

Vik117408 · Oct 3, 2006

somehow you manage to reply first about USM

Yes, ideally, you won't hear anything when zooming with USM, practically, however, depending on several factors, you might hear zooming noise even with USMs.

Thierry J · Oct 3, 2006

I can understand that noise of zoom mechanism is very disturbing; but why they prevent us from using the safety zoom (digital) feature??

It's only a software problem (solution) ;-)

sheedy · Oct 3, 2006

You can use the digital zoom while taking movies.

See the following link:-

http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Canon-PowerShot-G7-First-Impressions-Review/Modes.htm

Vik117408 · Oct 3, 2006

Actually, its not only software problem as it looks at 1st.

That the technologic & feasibility problem as well.
Digital (safety) zoom has to be:

sufficient for typical video uses (like x2 is probably unacceptable)
zoom smoothness and timing requires more complex CPU computations during continiuos video streaming (encoding)
digital zoom will make the possibility of using the joining of adjacent sensor photocells (to make advantage of sensor resolution toward low light sensitivity) more challenging
current sensor resolutions and overall processing speed (remember 30fps streaming at least is the requirement) just aren't there to take advantage of the future fully and with low R&D costs.

Vik117408 · Oct 3, 2006

sheedy said:
You can use the digital zoom while taking movies.

I would guess then either the digital zoom is not safe (i.e. reduces the IQ) or the solution couldn't take advantage of adjacent photocells utilization (i.e. cheapo way to say the customers: You can zoom!), thus the low-light video quality remains far from optimal (isn't that exactly what Canon as a maker of videocams would like to do?).

Thierry J · Oct 3, 2006

Re thanks!

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G7 - No optical zoom with movies?

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