shooting movies with Pentax Optio WP and WPi

Thu - December 15, 2005

shooting movies with Pentax Optio WP and WPi

I started to shoot paddling movies with my first digital camera - Canon PowerShot S40 allowed me to shoot about 30 seconds at 15 fps rate and with the 320x240 pixels resolution. All my early movies were edited from these short clips which were usually much shorter than 30 s. Later, I started to shoot videos with a digital camcorder (Canon Optura XI) and a bullet cam. However, I haven't shot any videos with my newest camera, Pentax Optio WP.

With a nice surprise I noticed movies posted by WaterTribe Chief, Steve Isaac, from an attempt to sail his Dreamcatcher canoe from Everglades City to Dry Tortugas. The movies were shot with his handhold new Pentax Optio WPi camera. I made links to two movies below. The first one is just a short clip with a sound of wind. The second one, much longer, includes Chief's narration. You can find more movies and pictures from his trip on the WaterTribe webpage.

I think that quality of both video and audio of these movies is really good and sufficient for on-line presentations. Both Pentax Optio WP/WPi models can record 320x240 movies at 30 or 15 fps rate. I believe that the movie length is limited only by a memory card capacity. It wouldn't be fare to compare them with a quality of my old video clips from Canon PowerShot since I used some aggressive compression to make files easier for downloading.

I am talking about technical issues here, but Chief's movies (and his future productions) are a real treat for enthusiasts of sailing kayaks and canoes and expedition paddlers. Let's see what Chief will do with his new toy next.