Be Excellent To Each Other

Hi folks. Please bring unto me the collective knowledge of the BEEX hive mind.

I have a camera. It's (I think) a Canon EOS 550D, but it's not j. From of me to check.

Anyway, I want to take a few videos of the baby whilst he is still a baby, but I can't use the camera to take video as it can't handle recording to my SD card. There's a specific error message which I've looked up and it basically says my SD card is too slow (which makes sense as if I try to take three or more pics in less than about 15 seconds it stops working to record the images.)

What size/make/speed SD card would I need to use to take videos, do you think? Would it be prohibitively expensive? Would it be cheaper/easier to just get a cheapie have camcorder or pocket camera, or would that also need a super speedy SD card?

Do they even manufacture camcorders now?

Something like this should do the job:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Extreme ... 10+sd+card

That one's sold by Amazon themselves so it's probably going to be legit but avoid ebay or Amazon marketplace sellers as there are so many fake ones out there.

Your phone is probably the best video recorder you have (unless you're still using your ancient iPhone) because it may have a better mic than tbe DSLR and it'll be much more convenient for editing and sharing clips.

For SD cards, any decent Sandisk one should do you. The only thing to be aware of is the enormous number of fakes in the market. Buy from a reputable retailer eg. Amazon and not an Amazon Marketplace seller.

The ones you're looking for are generally referred to as 'Class 10' or '300x', although you'd want to make sure your camera actually supports them.

If you pop the card you have now out of the camera, what is its speed rating?

http://www.ebuyer.com/708922-lexar-plat ... 32gbbeu300

EDIT - Having had a look at the camera's Wiki page it supports SDXC so Class 10 cards should be fine. It's also a very nice camera, I'd imagine it'd shoot better video than the vast majority of phones.

Cheers all, that's really handy advice, and thabk you for the link, too!

I'm not sure what speed my cards are, they are Kingstone ones that I got from British Telecom's shop, but I'm not sure if any of these numbers denote a speed.

Thanjs for checking the spec of the camera to see if the faster one would be compatible, too, I can guarantee it would have taken me ages to try and work that out as I'd not quite know what to look for

My (ancient i)Phone won't record video, Doc, which is why I'm looking for a way to use the camera for the video

OK that's a Class 4 card, which theoretically should be OK for video but clearly your camera doesn't like it.

You can get 16GB Class 10 cards for about £6, so give one a try and see how you get on.

http://www.ebuyer.com/350691-transcend- ... s16gsdhc10

I'd expect that camera to shoot very good video, as a proper DSLR like that has something that you're never going to get in a phone, namely a decent, large, lens.

Lens > Megapixels IMO.

You think?!

Isn't that sort of less opinion and more fact?

Cheers for the further info! I'll have a loom at the one Mark posted from Amazon or one similar from Amazon stocks (not market place or just fulfilled by) as I need to get something else from Amazon and have been waiting to get to the £20 for free postage, so thanks all for letting me know what I'm looking for.

Even if in worst case scenario it still doesn't want to record the video it will hopefully record the pictures a bit quicker.

I'm pretty sure that it's a combination of quite a lot of things which goes to make a decent video camera. But I'd agree that the tiny phone lenses are a limiting factor even with whatever techno-bodges they use to try and improve matters.

I've still got a proper DSLR that I bought when Mrs Hearthly was pregnant (going back a while!), it's 'only' 3 megapixels.

Over the years I've periodically brought it out from its resting place under the stairs and taken a few pictures with it, comparing its output with pictures taken by compact cameras and smartphones with ZOMG SO MANY MEGAPIXELS.

Without exception I've preferred the pictures taken by the DSLR, particularly when you zoom in the 20 megapixel (or whatever) pictures just dissolve into a mulch, where the DSLR pics maintain perfect detail pretty much right down to pixel level.

In all fairness though, I haven't done it for two or three years now, so maybe smartphone technology has really come on in that time. For a long time though I used the DSLR for 'proper' pictures because I didn't feel smartphone cameras were up to it, but there was a tipping point a few years ago and I reckoned a smartphone was good enough, and I retired the DSLR from regular use.

I should hit the sarcastic interrobang harder.

There was a link on that listing that said there was a newer version out here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B014 ... ROKL5A1OLE

which seems to say it is faster, and £2 less expensive, also sold by Amazon. Would the first be better for some reason or would I be ok to go for the newer version, do you think?

(though this will bring me back under the £20 for free postage, so I'll have to buy two gel pens (gold and silver: very Christmassy!) to bring it back to £20.

Yeah I'd just go for the cheaper one, it should be fine.

Awesomesauce.

Thank you all again so much

You're missing the most salient point when it comes to video recording though. Sensor>lens>pixels. The 550D, while a decent camera, has a 5 year old sensor and one that absolutely is not optimised for recording video. Good quality pictures? DSLR all the way. Video? A recent smartphone will knock an entry level DSLR into a cocked hat.

Just had a look at some clips of 550D video on YouTube and I'm not sure I'd agree really. I'd say modern phones are arguably better in some respects but the overall look is better from the DSLR.

Well you'd have to shoot sample clips with a few different devices and compare them I suppose.

Why are we assuming that a modern smartphone built to the lowest cost possible will make a better job of recording video than a high quality DSLR that's a few years old?

I'm reminded of my HTC One X (which was the ZOMG HIGHEND SMARTPHONE of the time), which recorded passable video but the audio quality was so abominable I tried to RMA the fucking thing to HTC. (In fact I recall posting an image taken from Sony Vegas Movie Studio, where you could see just by looking at the waveform of the audio track that it was an absolute clusterfuck.)

Ok, well an entry level DSLR and an ancient iPhone that doesn't work are all I have and can afford, sadly, so I am more than grateful for the advice everyone has given so at least I can get a few videos of my baby before he grows up too quickly. I don't expect them to be perfect, and they are really just for me to cry over when he is taller than me and striding out into the world on his own, and I do hope that this will allow me to do that.

Why are you suddenly assuming a smartphone is built as cheaply as possible and a DSLR isn't? All consumer electronics is built as cheaply as possible. The main difference is that the iPhone is a top end device and the 550D is an entry-level SLR.

I've owned many, many EOS cameras, and many, many iPhones. For video, and even in the right circumstances for photography, the sensor in the phone is vastly superior - especially with a 5 year old camera.

Oh, don't get me wrong! I have exactly the same camera, and it's great! I do agree with Grim... though that your phone is probably as good if not better at doing video.

Get your filthy words out of my mouth, bitch!

And put your cock back in there

It's probably not.

The iPhone is a phone though, it needs to be much less than a centimeter thick and do all sorts of other stuff. So the actual camera components, the sensor and lens are hugely compromised to keep both their cost and size down.

Which is why video shot with phones all has that same, rather flat look to it.

Because video was an afterthought on many DSLRs until quite recently; arguably, it still is on most of them. By the very defintion of having a swinging mirror, DSLRs are not really accommodating to video; you can't shoot video through the viewfinder because physics. They rarely have good mics and the CCD sensors are optimised for stills, not video recording. They almost always suffer from terribly distracting autofocus hunting, unless the light is perfect, and typically the autofocus motor whine is audible on the soundtrack. If you switch to manual focus, you need a really really steady hand to refocus slowly enough -- which is why things like this exist. DSLRs also often output in silly formats like MJPEG, which are huge and clumsy to edit, whereas a smartphone will give you something sensible like MP4. Smartphones also have a plethora of accessible on-device video editing software (iMovie for iOS is great for basic stuff), whereas that space is under-served on desktop software (Final Cut is a beast to learn and use.) Smartphones also have apps to do clever-clever stuff like software video stabilisation.

Stills and video are more different than you think, and DSLRs are uncompromisingly tilted toward the former. This is why companies like Panasonic have made a decent living out of cameras like the GH series, which are mirrorless SLR-style bodies that put video first and stills second.

Further to all of that, because Mimi's phone is old, I should note that in her specific case the DSLR is probably the right answer. I was talking about more generally, and in particularly comparing stills cameras to relatively modern phones. However, for completeness, I must add:
Are you entirely sure? Every iPhone since 2009's 3GS can shoot video as a standard feature. Just how old is your phone?!

She's got a 4S, I believe.

How do camcorders fit into all of this? I have been thinking about what would be best to start experimenting with shooting video for YouTube, like reviews of LEGO and stuff like that. Not necessarily on the super cheap.

I bought one of these a couple of years ago for my AMAZING YOUTUBE CASINO VIDEOS. Cost less than £200 from Currys IIRC.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/panasonic-hc-v210-review

Shoots massively better video than anything I've ever seen a phone manage. Proper optical zoom on it as well.

I'd definitely recommend even a relatively budget camcorder over a smartphone. Just things like proper buttons for stopping and starting recording, and a proper rocker for zooming and all that sort of jazz makes a big difference.

If there's an updated version of that Panasonic one I linked above I'd say go for it.

I'm sure everything you've said there is entirely valid Doc so I'm not going to argue with you in that regard, so all I'd say is I'd be interested to compare 1080p video footage shot with Mimi's DSLR, with 1080p footage from a modern smartphone.

I'm not entirely convinced the smartphones would be churning out better quality video.

Yup, well remembered .

It is, however, on the way out, and won't record video.