Using your camera - simple tipsMaking movies

Nearly all standard digital cameras have a movie mode and most record sound with movies too turning your camera into a mini camcorder. Switch the camera to movie mode, press the shutter button and the camera will start filming. Press the shutter button again to stop recording.

Movie quality

Even at the highest quality setting, the quality of digital camera video falls short of what you can expect with a decent full size dedicated camcorder.

For best viewing quality, transfer your movie to computer using the USB cable or a memory card reader and watch it on your computer's monitor. You can also edit it using video editing software, just like you can with real camcorder footage, or email it if it's small enough.

With some cameras, you can use zoom during filming, although sometimes just digital zoom as opposed to optical zoom. Digital zoom, as when taking still photos, reduces image quality.

Memory cards

Footage is stored onto the memory card, although recording movies can take up a lot of memory space.

Unless you set a lower quality setting, if you want to take more than a minute or two of footage you'll usually need a memory card with a large capacity, much larger than the camera's internal memory or small memory card supplied.

For example, an empty 512MB card bought separately will store anything between 10-25 minutes of highest quality footage in a typical digital camera. A small number cameras restrict the length of movie clips to 30 seconds each.

Watching your film

If your camera has a video-out function, and nearly all do, you can also view your movie on a TV if your TV has a video-in socket. Connect the two with the cable supplied, and switch your camera to playback mode to play.

You can also simply watch your movie on the camera's LCD monitor, again with the camera in playback mode.