N
nosledyetwyo
Member
Im curious what everyone thinks is the best camera to take sledding. I really want to take some pictures on rides this year just don't know what kind of camera to get.
Best Camera for snowmobiling?
- Thread starter nosledyetwyo
- Start date
G
Good to Go
Banned
One you can figure out by instinct...that you'll actually carry...that you can afford.
I look for a camera that will cycle up fast and be ready to take the picture.. a couple of seconds is to long when you're trying to grab a shot at the last instant.
Which is best..? Or, which is best for YOU..?
I look for a camera that will cycle up fast and be ready to take the picture.. a couple of seconds is to long when you're trying to grab a shot at the last instant.
Which is best..? Or, which is best for YOU..?
You are stuck longer then that.... no rush needed. ha ha
I use a Canon S80. It is kind of old, but it takes great pictures on auto mode. It also has manual stuff for getting all artsy and for taking night shots.
I am looking closely at the Panasonic zs3 or zs1.
My camera is a 28mm on the wide end, but only has like a 3x optical zoom. It is not nearly enough when trying to get pictures of people coming up a mountain, or any sort of distance. Longer zooms are nice and image stability is a great function to have if you do not have an DSLR.. and better even if you have one.
I keep mine in my handlebar bag, though it is getting dented from lack of packing.
As GTG said, one that you can use easily and quickly, preferably without having to get off of your sled or take your pack off... Takes too much time, for me anyways.
T
Top
Well-known member
Greetings nosledyetwyo,
Offered for your consideration is a Panasonic DMC-ZS3 Lumix, compact size 12X lens 25 mm with a 4x digital. You can zoom in and out while shooting video and a single button is all you have to touch to start the video process.
We enjoyed our first Lumix so much that we purchased a second Lumix camera a year later, as well.
Good luck on your purchase!
Craig.
Offered for your consideration is a Panasonic DMC-ZS3 Lumix, compact size 12X lens 25 mm with a 4x digital. You can zoom in and out while shooting video and a single button is all you have to touch to start the video process.
We enjoyed our first Lumix so much that we purchased a second Lumix camera a year later, as well.
Good luck on your purchase!
Craig.
Olympus shock proof waterproof cams
I'm a big fan of Olympus Stylus Tough series.
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_digital_sw.asp
Cams are waterproof (under water even to 10-33ft), shockproof (5-7ft drops), and freezeproof (-10). No more worries about slamming the cam into the bars, cam freezing up in the cold/low batt power in cold, or worst of all, getting wet and being rendered useless. These cams are super durable, I'm pretty hard on my cams and have a graveyard of broken cams through out the year. These last. I will warn you and say that sometimes the pics aren't perfect, but I'd say 95% of the time I get the shot and I'm always shooting high speed action in snow storms, flat light, ect..
Here's a couple Sample shots from last season with taken with an Olympus Stylus 850SW. I picked up a Stylus 1050SW this summer for $149 from buy.com recently. You can get them pretty cheap right now. Search around.
I'm a big fan of Olympus Stylus Tough series.
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_digital_sw.asp
Cams are waterproof (under water even to 10-33ft), shockproof (5-7ft drops), and freezeproof (-10). No more worries about slamming the cam into the bars, cam freezing up in the cold/low batt power in cold, or worst of all, getting wet and being rendered useless. These cams are super durable, I'm pretty hard on my cams and have a graveyard of broken cams through out the year. These last. I will warn you and say that sometimes the pics aren't perfect, but I'd say 95% of the time I get the shot and I'm always shooting high speed action in snow storms, flat light, ect..
Here's a couple Sample shots from last season with taken with an Olympus Stylus 850SW. I picked up a Stylus 1050SW this summer for $149 from buy.com recently. You can get them pretty cheap right now. Search around.
S
sunbather1969
Well-known member
olympus
our whole family has em mines a 1030 sw shockproof waterproof my fave the battery long lasting
our whole family has em mines a 1030 sw shockproof waterproof my fave the battery long lasting
That's what I was wondering. I was looking at a sony DCR sr-47 but the reviews says the video quality is lacking and doesn't have video stabilization. I don't want to spend $500 on a camera either.
E
eazyduzit509
Active member
I made the mistake of getting a touchscreen camera, i think it was a panasonic 8MP from walmart for about $150. DO NOT get one. Even with bare fingers it didnt like to work, get a few flakes or drops of water on the screen and it flips out and selects random crap and dosnt sense your finger, froze up all the time, lost some good pics/vids.
I'd have to agree with GodToGo...what works for someone else might not be what you like...you should narrow down what features are important for you and go from there...
For example:
is a good optical zoom important or can you live with a 3x zoom?
how compact do you need it to be?
do you need it to be water proof?
will you want to shoot video with it too?
do you want to use regular AA batteries or can you live with a rechargeable?
and so on...
if the optical zoom is most important, I'd go with the Canon SX10is...it has a 20x optical zoom, it is fairly compact although a little larger that all of the 3x zoom cameras, it takes AA batteries so you can carry around extras and not need to charge, it takes pretty good SD footage if you want to shoot video, etc....if you want to also shoot HD footage with your camera you can step up to the SX1is...it is basically the exact same camera except the sensor is different (CMOS vs CCD) and it is a couple hundred bucks more..
keep in mind the 20x optical zoom is pretty impressive...it is roughly equivalent in reach to a 600mm lens on a standard SLR style camera....if your buddy is far enough away that you can't zoom in on him with this camera you probably can't hear him either...
..
oh yeah, they retail around $400 but can be found online in quite a few places for $300 or so....it is a lot of bang for the buck...
but if your top priority is waterproof then this is not the camera for you...I take mine on my sled a lot and haven't had an issue yet, but Im sure it is just a matter of time until the condensation does something bad...I've got approx 15,000 pictures on mine so far and it is still clicking along just great...
if you NEED waterproof, then you'll be stuck with the 3x zoom flavors, I'm not aware of any waterproof super-zoom handhelds...
again, I'd go Canon here...As far as HD cams go the HV line is hard to beat...the Canon HV40 is the offering for this year and retails at nearly $1000 but can be had cheaper online....the HV series began a number of years back with the HV20...that little cam was ahead of its time....there have been little changes to the cams in the HV line that followed, the HV30 and HV40....I picked up a new HV30 last spring for $550....the HV30's are getting hard to find but if you can find one in the $500 price range you need to snatch it up...
Canon is my preference but that's all it is...what you really need to look at if you want to get into HD cameras are your needs, much like the point and shoot cameras....
For example:
What type of media do you prefer? (tapes, or harddrive)..don't even bother looking at the DVD ones...lol
Are you going to edit the footage?
What type of software are you editing with?
How much horsepower does your computer have?
What kind of finished media will you store/share your footage on? (DVD etc)
What will you watch your edited footage on? (HD TV, computer, regular TV)
How much time do you want to spend editing?
etc...
The biggest negative difference between HD footage and SD footage are the file size and required editing time...The files are HUGE compared to SD footage and the compiling time is dramatic compared to SD, if you don't have a relatively powerful computer (newer than 4 years old or so) your computer will probably crap the bed when attempting to edit HD footage...
Do you want to mess with MiniDV tapes or do you prefer the harddrive/flash memory models?...each has its advantages/disadvantages...
in general:
the tapes models
are cheaper but you have to buy tapes all the time....
you need to play back the footage to get it onto your computer, 1 hour tape means it takes one hour to get the footage on your computer
the file sizes are much smaller than the flash memory files, so it doesn't burden your computer as much to compile footage
you have a backup of your footage...if you ever lose the files on your computer you'll always have the tapes to get the footage again..
the flash memory models
are more expensive, but you only need to buy a flash card that can be used almost indefinitely
the format that the flash cameras saves the video files in are HUGE (longer editing times) and the format isn't compatible with all editing packages, although most packages are catching up....
don't lend a good backup method...you transfer the files to your computer and clear the card for the next shooting session....if your computer craps out you lost your footage...Id certainly invest in a 1TB external harddrive to back up to if I used a flash memory device....that's right, I said 1TB, the files are that big...lol....heck, even the footage off of my tape model runs about 1GB per minute, yup 1 gigabyte lol....if you've got a one hour tape of HD footage you'll need 50 to 60 GIGAbytes to store it...
another thing to consider:
if you aren't going to watch the footage on an HD TV then nearly all of the advantages of an HD camera are lost....if you do have an HD TV then the footage is pretty amazing compared to SD....but you need a method to pump the HD footage into your fancy TV, burning a DVD isn't going to cut it...you'll need to either hook up your camera via firewire directly to your TV, burn a Blu-ray, or have a device that can play media files directly to your TV...and if you find a cheap way to burn Blu-ray's please let me know....lol
I could continue to babble, I think this is my longest post ever...uggh, I think I've got carpal-tunnel now...hope some of the info helped....
For example:
is a good optical zoom important or can you live with a 3x zoom?
how compact do you need it to be?
do you need it to be water proof?
will you want to shoot video with it too?
do you want to use regular AA batteries or can you live with a rechargeable?
and so on...
if the optical zoom is most important, I'd go with the Canon SX10is...it has a 20x optical zoom, it is fairly compact although a little larger that all of the 3x zoom cameras, it takes AA batteries so you can carry around extras and not need to charge, it takes pretty good SD footage if you want to shoot video, etc....if you want to also shoot HD footage with your camera you can step up to the SX1is...it is basically the exact same camera except the sensor is different (CMOS vs CCD) and it is a couple hundred bucks more..
keep in mind the 20x optical zoom is pretty impressive...it is roughly equivalent in reach to a 600mm lens on a standard SLR style camera....if your buddy is far enough away that you can't zoom in on him with this camera you probably can't hear him either...
..oh yeah, they retail around $400 but can be found online in quite a few places for $300 or so....it is a lot of bang for the buck...
but if your top priority is waterproof then this is not the camera for you...I take mine on my sled a lot and haven't had an issue yet, but Im sure it is just a matter of time until the condensation does something bad...I've got approx 15,000 pictures on mine so far and it is still clicking along just great...
if you NEED waterproof, then you'll be stuck with the 3x zoom flavors, I'm not aware of any waterproof super-zoom handhelds...
again, I'd go Canon here...As far as HD cams go the HV line is hard to beat...the Canon HV40 is the offering for this year and retails at nearly $1000 but can be had cheaper online....the HV series began a number of years back with the HV20...that little cam was ahead of its time....there have been little changes to the cams in the HV line that followed, the HV30 and HV40....I picked up a new HV30 last spring for $550
....the HV30's are getting hard to find but if you can find one in the $500 price range you need to snatch it up...Canon is my preference but that's all it is...what you really need to look at if you want to get into HD cameras are your needs, much like the point and shoot cameras....
For example:
What type of media do you prefer? (tapes, or harddrive)..don't even bother looking at the DVD ones...lol
Are you going to edit the footage?
What type of software are you editing with?
How much horsepower does your computer have?
What kind of finished media will you store/share your footage on? (DVD etc)
What will you watch your edited footage on? (HD TV, computer, regular TV)
How much time do you want to spend editing?
etc...
The biggest negative difference between HD footage and SD footage are the file size and required editing time...The files are HUGE compared to SD footage and the compiling time is dramatic compared to SD, if you don't have a relatively powerful computer (newer than 4 years old or so) your computer will probably crap the bed when attempting to edit HD footage...
Do you want to mess with MiniDV tapes or do you prefer the harddrive/flash memory models?...each has its advantages/disadvantages...
in general:
the tapes models
are cheaper but you have to buy tapes all the time....
you need to play back the footage to get it onto your computer, 1 hour tape means it takes one hour to get the footage on your computer
the file sizes are much smaller than the flash memory files, so it doesn't burden your computer as much to compile footage
you have a backup of your footage...if you ever lose the files on your computer you'll always have the tapes to get the footage again..
the flash memory models
are more expensive, but you only need to buy a flash card that can be used almost indefinitely
the format that the flash cameras saves the video files in are HUGE (longer editing times) and the format isn't compatible with all editing packages, although most packages are catching up....
don't lend a good backup method...you transfer the files to your computer and clear the card for the next shooting session....if your computer craps out you lost your footage...Id certainly invest in a 1TB external harddrive to back up to if I used a flash memory device....that's right, I said 1TB, the files are that big...lol....heck, even the footage off of my tape model runs about 1GB per minute, yup 1 gigabyte lol....if you've got a one hour tape of HD footage you'll need 50 to 60 GIGAbytes to store it...
another thing to consider:
if you aren't going to watch the footage on an HD TV then nearly all of the advantages of an HD camera are lost....if you do have an HD TV then the footage is pretty amazing compared to SD....but you need a method to pump the HD footage into your fancy TV, burning a DVD isn't going to cut it...you'll need to either hook up your camera via firewire directly to your TV, burn a Blu-ray, or have a device that can play media files directly to your TV...and if you find a cheap way to burn Blu-ray's please let me know....lol
I could continue to babble, I think this is my longest post ever...uggh, I think I've got carpal-tunnel now...hope some of the info helped....
Last edited:
Canon PowerShot D10 waterproof camera
Similar threads
