Very Nice Camera for Glider...Stills or HD Video

On Jun 10, 2:09 pm, Ed Winchester wrote:
77,

That's a very nice movie. What settings were you actually using for the
linked video? How long does the battery last, and is there some way to
power it externally? How long would the 16GB memory last when recording
HD like this?

Thanks,
Ed

wrote:
Tom Serkowki had a post on May 14 about this camera. I bought one from
6th St Camera for $373 delivered. Got a 16 GB SD card from amazon
with a cute little USB reader (Transcend) for $44.

Camera is a Panasonic LUMIX DMC-ZS3. Great features include 12X
optical zoom, VERY wide angle 25mm, image stablization and HD video in
either AVCHD Lite or Movie MPEG. It has a nice quality Leica lens but
it is a pocket camera. I took some JPEG stills with this camera and a
6 year old Sony I have with a much better lens and the old Sony
produces sharper pictures but this little job is great for taking in
the glider. You can hold the camera in one hand while flying and the
image stabilization feature takes care of jumping around around of
image.

Click on this for an example of HD video on You Tube. Be sure to click
the HD button on lower right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTLogEyqXg4

Regards,

77

Ed, this video was 201MB and lasted 56 seconds thus a ball park for
the 16GB card would be 60 to 65 minutes. However, the manual says 2
hrs and 52 minutes so not sure what the real capacity is. The manual
also states that you are limited to 2 GB of continuous recording..That
would compute to about 10 minutes per continuous shooting.I think this
is for some legal reason. I don't know how long the battery would last
shooting multiple 10 minute scenes but I believe it is rated at about
3 hours. I have not had it long enough to really test the battery
life. As to the camera settings, it has a shooting mode called
"Intelligent auto" which I used for this video. Can't tell you what it
was really doing. I don't know of any way to power it externally but
Tom Serkowski has one and I think he may be looking at that. There is
some very good scoop about the camera on one of the digital camera
review sites. If you want to know more google the name and model and
you'll see a lot of reviews.