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Shooting Video w/ Pentax W30

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The B
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Shooting Video w/ Pentax W30

Postby The B » Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:24 pm

I just got one of these puppies for my B-day. I still need to get a memory card for it. I'm deciding between the 2GB and 4GB SDHC. The deciding factor will be battery life. No point in getting the 4GB if the battery craps out before writing more than 2GB worth of data. Anybody know how much video you can shoot before the battery dies? Thanks.

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Postby mossman » Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:49 pm

i have the w20 and 4g - no problems what so ever. go for the 4g

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Postby Drande » Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:27 pm

I have both 2Gig and 4Gig cards. 2Gig card is too small+about max 30 min of shooting and you will loose some time for mounting camera and lounching kite and etc. Battery easely handles 4 GB card but if I remember correctly max size of video can bee 3 Gig -I dont know why. And most important thing ....choose the fastest card what you can get, because with too slow card video can brake after few minutes off shooting.

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Postby The B » Fri Dec 07, 2007 5:12 pm

Guess I'll go with the 4GB card. With regards to speed, is the Standard SDHC 4GB card from SanDisk fast enough for desired performance or do I need to get the Ultra or Extreme formats? I see that they have different speed ratings. There is a decent price difference between the formats so I dont want to go too overkill on the card.

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Postby harleyboy » Fri Dec 07, 2007 6:36 pm

I was curious about these cameras. Do they work well? I have a canon non-water proof digi cam with video. I know that if I zoom at all the quality of the video degrades dramatically. It only looks good if I shoot video at full wide angle(i.e. no zoom). Is this cam the same?

Regarding memory cards...if you are going to shoot 30 second or less clips I don't think the speed of the card will matter that much. I use a standard card in my cam and it works fine. However, if you think you are going to be shooting several minutes at a time or you plan on just leaving it on then I think the faster card is the way to go.

We have this problem with still cams when shooting burst frames (i.e. 10 frames / sec). The camera will have to buffer the data while the card catches up. So if you are shooting one pic at a time then fast card is not required. High frame rate then get a fast card. So similar rules apply.

Mark

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Postby Feng » Fri Dec 07, 2007 10:01 pm

If you swich off the screen you can fill your 4Go.
I actually have a 8Go.
The camera stops filming after 4Go (1 hour !!) but if you stop (to get some rest) you can restart the filming and get anothe firm.

I

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Postby tplowe56 » Fri Dec 07, 2007 10:37 pm

You can use 8gb cards also. I got one at Amazon for $65. Holds 120 minutes. The W30 will only recognize 4gb, but you can still fill it with 2 hrs of video, just, not all in one session. Just like the previous post stated. Battery life has never been an issue for me. Just make sure to shut the monitor off before shooting. W30 takes great video, has worked great for me. I use the CamRig to attch the W30 to my kites. http://www.camrig.com is a great resource for using the W20/W30. http://www.camrig.com/howto.php#settings for lot's of how to info.

Clip of my 7 yr old son wakeboarding behind me on a kite:

http://www.loweprofile.com/video/2007/KiteTow.wmv

not a ton of wind, I'm on a Door64 & he's on a Session 141.

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Postby gonewiththewind » Fri Dec 07, 2007 11:35 pm

harleyboy wrote:I was curious about these cameras. Do they work well? I have a canon non-water proof digi cam with video. I know that if I zoom at all the quality of the video degrades dramatically. It only looks good if I shoot video at full wide angle(i.e. no zoom). Is this cam the same?
It sounds like your camera must have a digital zoom only. Don't ever use digital zoom. You need optical zoom. Some cameras have optical zoom, but when that runs out, they continue to zoom further digitally. Go into your menu and turn off digital zoom to avoid this. It is never worthwhile to use digital zoom. If you want to digitally zoom in, you can do that later in photoshop if you want, but at least you have a good photo to work with. This camera has an optical zoom.

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Postby fishy » Sat Dec 08, 2007 12:30 am

def go for the 4gb card, the battery is fine with this, and will give you about an hour of good quality video, you can get 8gb cards i think, like somebody else said previously but the maximum video you can do is about 4gbs, then you have to re-start recording also, you can turn off the screen when recording which saves lots of power, useful for continuous filming, just press the ok button 3 times to do this.

if you are using with a camrig be careful as my w30 has copped out twice and i have had to send it back to pentax for repair and it took f**kin ages!
still a good piece of kit though.

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Postby KiteSurfingKen » Sat Dec 08, 2007 1:00 am

I picked up the 8GB card for my W20.
If you go past 3.99GB the Video will be corrupt and unusable.
This is a real PITA because it means you have to bring the kite down and stop and start the recording before 1 hour elapses.

I would get the 4GB card (as when it is formatted, it is actually less than 3.99). I have not run out of batteries even when using the 8GB card.
However I have forgotten to bring the kite down and lost a number of videos.

The problem has to do with the camera engine itself, not the QuickTime format.

My W20 is in for service since the battery cover door leaked and damaged the sensor. I am still not sure if Pentax is going to cover it under warranty. (fingers crossed).

Good Winds,
Ken


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