What a fun trip. You will have lots to photograph. If your budget is tight you might want to look at the Canon 75-300mm lens. Most of your photos will be shot from a long distance so the 300mm zoom will come in handy: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage... If your budget is a little flexible the 70-300mm IS (Image Stabilized) would be better so you reduce the chance of blurry pictures from camera shake: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...
i am interested in purchasing a high def camcorder. however, i do not have a blue ray burner on my computer, just the standard dvd burner. is it pointless to get an hd camcorder without the blue ray burner?
If the camcorder records in AVCHD and you have a Blu-ray component player you can copy the footage onto your computer and burn the file directly to a standard DvD. You can play this disk on your Blu-ray and it will play back in HD. The player decodes the footage for you.
while doing research, i discovered that the camera i want to purchase is not compatible with vista. what exactly does this mean? if i have vista as my os, i cannot purchase this camera?
It is not that the images are not compatible, it is that the communication between connecting the camera directly to your computer running Vista “might” have issues. Most times there are updates available for cameras that help with this. You can avoid all that by getting a multi card reader. This eliminates the need for connecting your camera to your computer to copy the photos over.
Depending on if it is the USB cable you are referring to and it is a standard USB....they are available at your nearest BestBuy. Take your camera with you and an associate will help you match up the correct cable.
First check with Movie Maker's site and down load the latest updates. These most time includes updated codecs. The Kodak ZI6 has been out almost a year so there might be an update. The other option is to find a conversion program to convert your footage to a extension/compression used by Movie Maker. There are many available on line.
After I take one picture, It takes forever for the camera to get ready to take another picture. What is this called and how can I find a camera that takes less time between pics?
It is usually referred to as refresh time or buffer time. It is the amount of time it takes for the camera to move the captured images from the internal buffer to the removable media (Memory stick/card). Two things can help speed this up a little regardless of type of camera. First...rechargeable batteries (or ones with higher milliamps) Second...faster memory stick/cards.
Compact cameras are the slowest in regards to refresh rates. D-SLR cameras are the best. Entry level D-SLRs will allow you up to 3 rapid shots per second (FPS) with 1-2 seconds write time to memory. Higher end D-SLRs will keep shooting and writing until you take your finger off the shutter button. Some up to 6 Frames Per Second (FPS).
If you transfer footage to a DvD by connecting through the A/V inputs on a component burner the footage will be dropped down to Standard Definition. If you transfer the footage to a computer and burn the AVCHD file directly to a disk and play it on a Blu-ray play it will maintain the HD quality.
You will find a listing of Mac compatible camcorders at this site. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1014 iMovie is the most commonly spoke about editing system on Mac blogs.
You might want to take a look at the SW series of cameras from Olympus. The SW stands for Shock and Weather Proof. For example, the Olympus 850SW can take photos while being fully submerged to depths of approximately 10 feet (3 meters). For more about the 850SW follow this link: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage... You can also get Underwater Housings for some cameras to go deeper. To see more about housings look here: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...