Bear in mind, digital still cameras are primarily designed for still photos and video cameras are designed for videos. There are trade-offs in cross purposing and multi-tasking them. I think three areas of comparison need to be looked at, Picture Quality (PQ), convenience, and cost.
First, convenience. The only thing lower on the food chain of picture quality is a cellphone, both for still and video, however, it is useful in a pinch. And, a cellphone is just so convenient to carry around. A camera is very convenient to carry, too, small and light weight, whereas the video cameras start to verge on bulk, mass, and weight. Size and weight are important to consider in not only diving, but travel. Again, digital cameras are so much easier to travel with, take up so much less weight and space.
Then there are the housings. I have no problem packing and taking my digital camera housing anywhere. My video camera housing is more of a project and I need to consider what I am after and how important is it to get the best quality video and memories. Consumer digitial camera housings win out in terms of less bulk and weight.
Second, PQ. I watched your eel video and I think the pq is as good as you will get. Standard definition (SD) is higher quality than the digital camera video:
Joe's Tug
Really no comparison when going with high definition (hd):
Grand Cayman East End Dive Report on Vimeo
So, it depends on what are your objectives? Do you just want to make some video to show friends and family and hang on the memories? What you are doing now is fine for that. I find that when I look at my videos, I have this unfortunate mindset of analyzing them and trying to figure out how I could do better.
Lastly, cost. Staying with your set-up now will save you lots of money. The sky is the limit with how much you could spend on camera, housing, and lighting equipment.
P.S. One last thing just occurred to me, editing. Putting the memory card into the reader and copying the video into the computer is so much easier and less time consuming than capturing video. Wow, there is hardly anything to editing camera video, whereas editing digital video is a major time consuming project, for me anyway.
I guess the situation all boils down to pros and cons, pluses and minuses, personal preference. This would be a good question to put to Brian at the DV Show,
brian@thedvshow.com.
