Hack for the a85? Better camera?

I want to buy a P&S. The problem is that I want it to have good video performance as none of my current cameras have that ability, hah.

I know there is a hack to let the a75 take 3 min 640 videos, this is what I am looking for. I would prefer it to be a slightly better camera such as the a85. Is there a hack for the a85 that would do this?

Hell, is there a camera in the same price range($220 area, I can get a new a85 on EBAY for that much.........) that can do this? or am I looking in the wrong direction, is there a better camera? I don't know anything about the S series stuff..........

Cheers and thanks.

I cant answere your question.. but I can add to it... does ANYONE know of a hack for an A85 that will speed up the response time... I just want it to 'snap' as soon as i press the button.. not 20 seconds later (or so it seems sometimes).

Anyone, anyone... Beuller, Beuller???

Spelchek,

Two things to speed up picture taking (if you haven't already done them)
1. In the record menu , turn off the review option
2. Get a high speed memory card, something like a PQI 40x or better.

Doing both the above certainly speeded up my Powershot a lot when it was driving me nuts for exactly the same reason!

Dave

You may not find this too moral boosting (:p ) but if you want to have good video capabilities, please have a look at Sony compact/ultra compacts. You can take unlimited video at 640*480 I think depending upon available memory... canon is not making any serious efforts to improve video I guess ....

I use a Canon camcorder. Works great!

I believe the Canon S1 IS has a good video mode. 640X480 and limited by CF capacity.

This is new to me ! Thanks for letting me know

UK commando... thanks for the answere, but i dont think i made myself very clear... I was talkng about shutter-lag.. the a85 seems to take forever to actually shoot after you press the button... I think you might be talkkng about shooting pics in rapid succession... (but i might be wrong).

I've found that action photography is very hard becauise of this lag between prseeing the button, and the shot being taken.

BTW.. im pretty sre I read somewhere (a dig phto mag i think...) that high speed cf cards wont make much dofference in compact dig cameras Iie the write-time is camera limited.. not cf card limited)

Thats correct, if you use a card faster beyond camera's write capacity you wont see any performance improvement.

You need to buy a DSLR if you don't want the shutter lag.

Thats true to some degree, there are some P&S that behave like DSLR but are basically SLR but with fixed lens, and a second smaller sensor in the viewfinder or something, but once you get up into that price range for a P&S might as well get an actual DSLR.

S1 IS gives you decent video with 640*480

It takes 4 AA batteries and CF cards.

1 hour per clip max
1 gig per clip max (about 10 mins)

It's hard to handhold it, because it's small. Ok performance, but for the price you may be better off with a camcorder. It also isn't mpeg4 (Have to check on that)

Cheers

You can try turning of the AiAF and just set the camera to use centre focus: this removes the delay while it picks the best focus points.

One key to getting quicker response time is to hold down the shutter half-way, then press. This still may not help with action shots, but it might give you a fighting chance. Shutter delay is one of the reasons I went to a DSLR.

gsm x2