On Sat, 15 Jun 2002 05:01:05 GMT, "Yishai Weinstein"
wrote:

>I posted a topic of similar subject matter a few weeks ago, and was met with
>chilling silence. Perhaps this is the wrong forum? If so, I apologize.
>Either way, here goes again:
>
>I went into a Ritz Camera shop today to see what they had by way of MiniDV
>cams - pretty much nil by the way - and the guy working there said that the
>lens size and pixel count difference between a camera such the Optura 100mc
>and the Elura 40mc (or one of the ZRs) would produce only a negligible
>difference in image quality. If that's the case I'd go for the Elura 40mc,
>very much liking the small form factor. (And opting out of the gimmicky
>wallet sized picture printer...) But is the image quality really that
>close? My one stint in video production was with a Canon GL1, the 3 CCD
>beauty, minor only to the XL1. I realize none of these will match that,
>but do they match each other? Thanks for any input, thoughts, or personal
>experience.

Oh, can I resist...? 'Course not...! ;-)
"Canon-myopia" is too irresistible! ;-)
First, if your reference is the GL-1, it is rather
low as 3-CCD Mini-DV camcorders go (see:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder-comparison.htm
for comparisons with others, and:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/vid_pict_characts.htm
for picture characteristics and defects to look
for [use the "key" to see what camcorders supplied
the samples]). The XL-1 sits rather low in the
groupings for picture quality, also...
Second, depending on how the extra pixels are
used, the motion-video image of the higher
pixel-count camcorder may well be noticeably
sharper (XL-1 vs. VX2000, 100MC vs. TRV30, etc. -
see also the comparison of Sony *imaging types*, at:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder--comparison.htm
[the sharpness difference between 680k-pixels
and 1.5-megapixels is rather noticeable...])
BTW, "lens size" is not relevant - it is the
specific design of the lens and its "speed",
indicated by the maximum f-stop - so the salesman
got one part right...;-)