So, I did a short review of the SD900 a while back, but I didn't get in to the quality of the video much. Well, as it turns out, it's pretty good.

My wife has been using it for video lately. She's had lots of good things to say about it. In general, the overall quality, usefulness, and convenience of the feature has surprised us and we've largely stopped carrying around our older Sony miniDV video camera.

She is exceedingly impressed that on such a little device with video as a secondary feature that it should work so well. Low light conditions aren't a huge problem for it, but it has no options for dark conditions like some video cameras do.  We have no complaints about the  audio or video quality, but wind is definitely picked up by the little microphone.

One big think we don't like about video is that once it's going you can't change zoom and the focus doesn't appear to update, either.  There is no audible alert when out of memory and it stops recording so you may not notice that you aren't recording and thus miss something By default, videos are mixed in same folder as images, which is a pain for unloading the cards.  We haven't looked in to ways to change this.  The camera certainly has a bunch of on device categorizing options that normally aren't that useful when swapping cards frequently.

Since the Canon SD900 is Small and light, vibration is an issue but not as much of one as we originally expected.  Part of this is because it can easily be braced and we don't get tired of holding it, unlike a 2 pound DSLR with a 3 pound lens.  That allows use to remain more steady than with a heavier camera.  It does not have any image stabilization, though, so the best that can be done is with a tripod, which it has a mount hole for.

Laurie has found many occasions where she's been trying to take a still with it but realized that video would be much better so she just flicks the dial and shoots.  This can be done without hardly even disturbing the image framing.

The video worked surprisingly well at an aquarium, which is both low light and high contrast conditions.  Although, there was general trouble with it focusing through glass that the DSLRs don't experience. Interestingly, though, it could see through some of the murky waters much better than our own eyes could, which made for some fascinating views.

If you'd like to see some video the camera has taken, Laurie's podcast has a few videos that were taken using it.  In particular, Episode 14 with Otters at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Episode 13 with Jellyfish, also at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Posted by Shane on April 13, 2007 8:15 AM | Permalink