Digital cameras: Digital camera zoom while RECORDING video

Many Do!

Hmm, as I've seen it, there are MANY digital cameras that will do optical zooming while recording video. Sony DCR-TRV900, DSR-PD150, HDR-HC1-9; Panasonic Varicam, Ikegami, Hitachi, you name it; the list goes on and on. And they zoom QUIETLY. These cameras are primarily video cameras. Some of these are purely camcorders, but some are dockable to recorders or other back ends. They're digital, and they're cameras. Digital cameras. Camcorders and other video cameras are obviously cameras! The digital ones are digital cameras (even if they don't have a still mode in them)!

However, it may sound like you might be wanting a digital STILL(!) camera whose video modes allow optical zooming while recording. Since these still cameras with video modes, along with camcorders, are digital cameras too, then that means that these STILL cameras are digital cameras, while today's video cameras are digital cameras, too.

So the point here is that it would make sense and be a good idea for you and many other people to be better at differentiating between digital video cameras and digital STILL(!) cameras (many of which you already know happen to have a video mode), by making sure you use the word STILL as part of the terminology (as in "digital STILL camera"). Don't you think so?


To all you people who don't say "digital STILL camera": Come on, is "still" SUCH a hard word to insert for a better distinction? It isn't really that hard, is it?