After seeing the stunning quality delivered by the Pentax K20 D (see previous post) how's about a camera that allows to build your own movies:
The camera has a large sensor (e.g. Micro Four Thirds, APS-C or DX).
There's no seperate movie mode but a burst mode that is able to capture 24 JPEG images per second for 1 to 3 minutes.
The JPEG compression quality is user selectable (e.g. LOW, MEDIUM, FINE, BEST).
If the camera is set to burst mode an electronic shutter is used. The camera starts recording pictures when the shutter is pressed. It stops when the shutter is pressed a second time or if the buffer is full.
The image size in burst mode is 1280 x 720. The 720p are proportionaly downscaled from the entire sensor width. An image at that size saved with a JPEG quality setting of "90" is around 0.5 MB. So this camera would produce around 12 MB/s ( 0.5 MB x 24 images/s). If the camera had an internal RAM buffer of 2 GB it could store almost three minutes of continuous recording.
When the burst recording has finished you have three options: 1) Press the "Playback" button to play back the recording from the RAM at 24 fps. 2) Hit the "OK" or "SET" button to save the movie to the card. 3) Press the "Trash Can" button to delete the recording. If you select "Save to Card" (or if you don't select anything within 30 seconds) the buffer content is written to the memory card. A 16 GB card would hold about 24 minutes. Since the JPEG quality is selectable one could decrease the quality for longer recording times.
Every burst recording is stored in a seperate folder on the card. To make a movie you need either QuickTime Pro ($30) or Photoshop CS3 Extended or After Effects. Choose image sequence, select the first image in the folder and click OK. Next enter the frame rate (24 fps) and you're done. Now you have a high quality 24 fps movie that can be exported to any QuickTime codec including lossless ones for further editing in a video editor program.
Sound can be recorded in high quality with an external device (a hand clap can be used for visual synchronisation in the editor) or the camera has a built in microphone or a mic input and stores a seperate 16 bit 48kHz audio file into the burst folder. Since the sound and pictures are recorded simultanously you just have to import the audio file into the video editing program
I will keep an eye on the camera releases at Photokina 2008. If there's a model that allows 24 images per second high quality JPEG recording at a size around 720p I think I'll look no further.
