Does anyone know what captures video at 30 frames per second mean?

Question

does anyone know approximately how long it is?

Answer 1

frame rate is only half the equation. many digital camera shoot 30 fps but the pixel resolution is only 240x320 Mpeg1 compressed. The regular miniDV camcorder has a pixel resolution of 480x720. The other feature to look at with a digital camera is how it handles audio, some don't. Others used a highly compressed audio file, where as miniDV is DAT quality uncompressed stereo audio.  And again some digital cameras can't focus or zoom while shooting, both standard features of a camcorder.

Answer 2

If a camera can record at 30 frames per second, it essentially takes 30 still pictures in one second and shows it to you in sequentuel order. Think of it as flipping 30 pages of post its with your drawings on it. If you drew a picture of charlie brown kicking a soccer ball on 30 post-its and flipped through all the pages in 1 second, you will have a good idea of what this phrase means. Now if I told you to do the same cartoon on only 3 post-its, how do you think that cartoon would look compared to the one made with 30 post-its when flipped in 1 second? The 30-page cartoon would look alot smoother because you can squeeze in more frames of drawings.

30 frames per second has nothing to do with the length of the video the camera is capable of.  If there is any limitation on the length, you'll have to look at the detail specifications or ask a sales person about it. Most newer picture cameras with this feature will record video for as long as you have available storage. This means that it's dependent on your storage capacity (size of memory cards).

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

Video is actually a series of individual pictures, or "frames". The standard for the US is 29.97 frames per second (fps). That is sometimes referred to as 30 fps. That means that for each second of video, there will be thirty individual frames.  It has nothing to do with how long the video itself is, just how many frames you will have per second of video. If you are going to edit the video, or upload it to YouTube, 30 fps will be fine.

Is there more to your question? If I knew why you needed the answer, I could provide more specific information.

Additional Comments:

A digital camera that can record videos at 30fps will make a watchable video, particularly outdoors in sunlight. The indoor videos will be a bit grainy. You will have very limited zoom capability, in most cases digital zoom, not optical. The length of your videos will be limited by the size of the memory card, or in some cases, the firmware of the camera. The place where a digital camera excels is making still pictures.

A digital camcorder makes better videos and has an optical zoom of at least 10, sometimes greater.  The video capacity will be greater because the video is stored on a MiniDV tape, DVD or Hard Drive. Also, the audio will be better from a camcorder, and usually in stereo, due to a better microphone and recording technique. Most digital camcorders will also take still pictures, but the lack of a flash or shutter adjustments will limit the quality of the stills.

So, you have to decide which is more important. Great still shots and an occasional video of lesser quality, or great video and an occasional still shot of lesser quality. If both are important, get a digital camera for the stills (Canon Powershot's are excellent) and a camcorder for the videos (Sony and Panasonic are good ones).