This is one of the decision which many of us have to make. A handycam or a digicam? I say so ‘coz once even I had to take such a decision once, I took it after a lot of research and fact-finding and blah.. blah.. How did I arrive at my decision? Read on..

But before that..

Statutory Note What I am going put forth here is my ideas on handycams and digicams and there use for a common user. In this post when I say a digicam or a handycam, please note that I am not referring to high end equipments. I am talking about entry level stuff and may be a shade higher. Please do not confuse the facts stated here to be completely applicable for top end professional cameras. Objective of this post is to help a common user understand various facts associated with two kinds of cameras and help him make an informed choice of his new equipment. Owners of the cameras may understand a thing or two as to why the output of their cameras is not as good as the other.

Lets go on now .. shall we..

First and foremost is ‘Why?’ I mean why in the world do you want a camera (still or a movie, whatever). Do you have your answer ready?

So, if you are the kind of human being that I am aware of, your answer could be one of the following:-

You see, I keep going places and I want to bring back those moments to show off… or

I am just blessed (or shortly going to be) with a kid and want to record every single step of his growing up and gift a CD/DVD/Blue Ray Disc/HD-DVD (list goes on) to him on his eighteenth birthday (or may be when s/he expects his/her kid)… or

I am/would be a photo-enthusiast.. or

Blah.. blah..

These may also be prefixed or suffixed by other nouns like ‘you fool’, silly, damn it, *&^%$%^#@ and other unprintables.

Think again and tell me just one more time. (you may spare me with those unprintables this time, please.. thanks for being so considerate.. you are so kind)

Its obviously for recording memories.. but if you look closer there is a slight difference in all the answers. OK.. before I start of on pros and cons of these two wonderful equipments who have the ability to freeze the time, let me give you some basic ‘gyaan’ on whats inside them.

The Gyaan

A major difference is in the sensor chip. If you have read my previous post (although that is not the only place where you could get that knowledge) I had mentioned about the sensor size. For a majority of compact digital still cameras normally available, the sensor size is less than 1/2.7 inches, measured diagonally, that is smaller than half the size of the nail on your little finger. Now, most of these handycams, poor chaps, only posses 1/6 inches,that works out to be three times smaller than that of digital still camera. Certain advanced models or prosumer handycams, employ three sensors, one each for Red, Green and blue colors. But their size remains same, or goes further down.

The sensor size is kept small in handycams because the video is usually recorded in a frame size of 320x240 pixels (remember good ol’ VCDs? They use this size) or 640x 480 pixels which is double the size. You have seen VCDs playing on a TV, haven’t you? And if it were recorded properly, it was damn good, wasn’t it? At least till the time DVDs came in and took all the glory. A DVD frame size is usually 768 pixels wide, so you see, a video recorded at 640x480 is pretty close to being called a DVD quality video. The problem is space requirement. I mean this frame size requires four times more memory as compared to that of 320x240 size! Here is a little math into why of this fact:-

(320x2) x (240x2) = (320x240) x (2x2) = 320x240x 4

And tell me, when 320 size is giving you good enough video, why do you want bigger size? And 320x240 pixels can be easily accommodated on a 1/6 inch sensor. That’s why that size sensor is given to the poor fella called a handycam.

Lets talk about the DigiCam now, this chap has a 3 times bigger sensor and for a reason. Ever paused a video? Unless the video has no motion, how does it look? All pixellated, blurry?? There are two reasons, one, the 320 pixels were stretched to fit the TV or PC screen. Two, I would not discuss here. But this doesn’t happen when you look at a digital still image. Yep.. you got it right, the image did not need to be stretched, not at least like the video.

So now, that we are a little more educated, lets discuss pros and cons of a handycam vis-à-vis digcam.

Handycam

Pros – Can record long videos, keep them in tapes, convert to CDs etc.

Moving pictures bring old memories to life. You can actually watch your kiddo take that first step over and over again – something a still pic will never be able to do.

Cons – Once recorded, how many times seen??? May I request owners of handycams to share their experiences on this fact.

Tapes rot with fungus.

Usually can’t find someone to convert a tape to CD and does good job at it.

What about editing part of it? While professional level editing is not required, we do want to leave out ‘certain’ parts of a footage which were ‘accidentally’ shot. And it does take time. And you can not, obviously print a movie ;)

Digital Camera

Pros Make high resolution, high quality still photographs. You CAN print a photograph and show it to anyone without the need of a PC/player and tv.

You do not need to sit in front of tv/pc through the entire length of the picture, coz there aint any length of a pic. You can savour it for hours if you wish or get over with it in a flash.

Cons Pictures present only moments. Images can not make for action sequences.

Well, as of now I can think of only this one thing against still photograph.

Now lets see how these chaps figure in each other’s turf:-

A handycam for a still photograph As I explained above, the sensor size of a handycam is three times smaller than that of a digcam which poses serious limitations on fidelity of the picture.

“But my handycam gives 5MP still pictures” you say?? Well it does. But guess how? Guess.. guess.. Once again, as explained in earlier post, it is done by interpolation. The handycam processes 1 or 2 MP image and stretches it to 5 or 7 MP. But quality of these interpolated 5MP images will never be anywhere close to a true 5 MP image. For that matter, you can take a 1.1 or 2 MP pic from your mobile and put it through Photoshop or some other imaging software and stretch to 10 or 20 MP, but will it be good enough? If it were, we would never have higher true MP count asking for exorbitantly more money. Then there are issues regarding sharpness and fineness in pixels of a handycam and these too are way behind compared to digicams.

What does it all mean?

A Handycam can not be used for good digital still photography.

A digicam in handycams shoes Hmm.. so now do we say the obvious .. that since digicam has better pixel count on the sensor, it should give better movies as well, sans the space?? The answer is yes.. and .. no. A digital camera has optimized hardware and firmware (the software embedded into the hardware.. feeling wary??) for recording digital still images. It does the job of compressing a still image in to jpg or bmp very beautifully and efficiently. While same may not be true for compressing movies. The compression algorithm in digital camera for movies is usually not as efficient and the result is usually inferior to that of a handycam.

Length of recording time is a major issue.

Built in functions of a handycam for video like titling etc are usually not available as in a handycam. There are hardly (at least I do not know) any digital camera which can record in 0 Lux (or nil light).

However, if you will not be shooting extensive videos and want to challenge Steven Spielberg, a digital camera with modest video capability can do the job for you.

My experience is, at any given time, you do not need to shoot a continuous video of more than five minutes. Give or take two minutes. I am not talking about covering a kid’s stage performance and the like.

The space constraint, infact, was a blessing in disguise for me, coz I did not go on shooting unnecessarily. In a way, editing was done while shooting itself. Also, many digicams do provide basic cutting, joining of movie clips in the camera itself – a feature that handycams do not have.

Last but not the least.. the price factor.. There appears to be a difference of about 3 to 4 thousand bucks when you compare the two types of cameras of same level. I mean, you may get a decent digicam for about 10k while an entry level handycam would cost around 15k.

Does all this mean that there are absolutely no cameras that can do both with same finesse? Answer is … they are definitely out there. There are cameras which can do video as well as still with same ease. Problem is.. they are as costly as they get.. coz they get into professional category. Infact if you bought a handycam and a digicam, your wallet be lighter by similar amount.

So there you are.. Allow me to repeat my question.. why do you want that camera? (I hope those expletives will not be used this time ;-) )

P.S.

1. After a lot of research, I finally decided to go for a still camera and am proud owner of Canon S2 IS.

2. Readers may ask related questions in comments or mail me at graphix at anditworkedforme dot com...... Coming Up Next... Symbols, Icons and Functions in Your Digital Camera..