Consumer
digital still cameras
have long offered limited
movie-shooting capability,
and some digital camcorders
have provided the ability
to shoot decent-quality
still images. But of
late, those capabilities
have improved immensely,
and today you can make
good videos with many
digital still cameras,
and good stills with
a number of digital camcorders.
Why this “convergence” of
digital still and movie
capabilities? Because consumers
asked for it, lots of R&D
effort (and expense) has
produced the technology
to do it, and, as Chuck
Westfall of Canon U.S.A.
(which offers both digital
still cameras and camcorders)
points out, “The
rapid advances in broadband
penetration and the resultant
increases in computer and
Internet usage worldwide
have created an ongoing
movement toward a new level
of popularity for digital
imaging of all kinds.”
What does it all mean to
you? We’ll get to
that shortly, but first
let’s look at some
of those improvements.
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