Canon G9 - how to zoom in and out in movie mode

[ejg62]

I have used the G9 for pictures and recently tried movie mode. The quality of the movies is very good for a still camera. My question is how do you zoom in and out while shooting a movie? I have tried the zoom feature for pictures and that does not work. I need to set the distance prior to starting the recording and once done I cannot change it until I stop the recording.

Does anyone know how to zoom in and out in recording while in movie mode?

Thanks

 

[GotNoOcean]

I've been researching the G9 lately for possible purchase this summer. It seems you can't zoom in movie mode. Here's a link to a review mentioning that shortcoming.

Canon PowerShot G9 Review: 11. Movie Mode: Digital Photography Review

Hope it's still otherwise worth it!

Cheers,

 

[NTSilver]

You zoom the same way you do when you take photos, with the button with the lever where you take photos on the front right side of the camera. I just tried it and it definitely works.

 

[Baconated]

I have not read the manual to verify this but when I'm zooming in movie mode with my G9 it looks like it is doing a digital zoom only. So, if I start the movie with the lens at a wide angle I can "zoom in" but, since the zoom is digital, it looks pretty bad pretty quickly. While filming I can zoom back out to the original focal length when the movie started.

If I start filming with the lens zoomed in then I can not go any wider than that because the lens really isnt moving. Kind of lame, and I wish it wasn't the case.

 

[shep]

Name a digital still camera that you can use the zoom in movie mode. It would be news to me. From my experience, there isn't a digital still camera out there that can zoom in movie mode.

 

[MadKap]

You can use zoom for shooting movies with the G9... but you cannot zoom in and out while shooting the movie. Set the zoom level you would like for your movie and then begin shooting; you will be stuck at this zoom level for the duration of your filming. It's too bad and I can't see why it has to be this way, but at least you can choose the initial zoom level. You can always pick a zoom level, film, stop filming, pick a new zoom level, and then stitch them together afterwards though of course there will be a small time gap. I hope this helps.

 

[Taxgeek]

I asked the same question and a friend verified - no optical zooming while shooting. Also, he told me and you might want to check, no REFOCUSING while shooting. That would totally bite.

The Canon S1 IS (older 3mp still camera) zooms (optically - you can hear the zoom motor on your sound track, lovely) and refocuses while shooting. It's quite good for UW video, but a little noisy in the dark. I still use it and haven't upgraded because I can't find a newer camera that zooms/refocuses while videoing.

It shoots 640x480, 30fps, clips to capacity of card (i'm up to 8g now, which is about an hour of video), has easily accessed custom white balance and focuses really close. It eats batteries for breakfast (1 set of 4AAs per dive) and its still photos are pretty darn bad (super noisy and long shutter lag). They cost about $175-200 on ebay now, and Canon makes a housing.

 

[Rescue Diver68]

You can use zoom for shooting movies with the G9... but you cannot zoom in and out while shooting the movie. Set the zoom level you would like for your movie and then begin shooting; you will be stuck at this zoom level for the duration of your filming. It's too bad and I can't see why it has to be this way, but at least you can choose the initial zoom level. You can always pick a zoom level, film, stop filming, pick a new zoom level, and then stitch them together afterwards though of course there will be a small time gap. I hope this helps.

Sounds like the same way the G5 works in video mode.

 

[Ozzie Andrew]

Surely features such as zooming and refocussing whilst videoing would be software-based, so a firmware update could overcome these shortcomings.

Is it worth a concerted push for people to contact Canon with these suggestions ... the more requests they get, the better the chance for them doing something to help ?

 

[cfelliot]

From G9 Manual

Page 102:

Maximum Size: 4 GB/movie

Page 103:

Even if the clip size has not reached 4 GB, recording will stop at the moment the clip
length reaches 1 hour. Depending on memory card capacity and data write speed,
recording may stop before the file size reaches 4 GB or the recording time reaches 1
hour.

Page 104:

The focus and optical zoom settings remain fixed for subsequent frames at the values selected for the first frame.