Need help choosing a camera for video

http://angryrobot.ca/2009/10/15/the-panasonic-gh1-a-few-months-in. Might be too big for you? It's going to do http://angryrobot.ca/2009/07/04/gh1-update-2. Not sure how much they sell for now. My friend has an Panosonic LX3, which is a really nice P&S camera that also does 720P video. That said, 3 hours of video is crazy long. I'm not sure how big a card you would need to store that much video.

Almost all digital cameras use FAT32 on their memory cards, which has a file size limit of 4GB. That's the only movie length/size limitation on cameras these days.

3 hours was a bit of an exaggeration. However I don't know how much video my wife thinks is the right amount to be able to store. The manual seems to say that the ZS3 (I wrote LS3 on accident at one point up there) will shoot 4 hours of video on a 32gb memory card. I just don't know if it limits it to 2 minutes at a time or something. In my head, the ZS3 is the best bet for us based on size, price, and reviews I've read. The LX3 is awesome. But I think it's still just a bit high. On preview: zsazsa, that's what I expected. 4GB should be plenty.

Will the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS3 shoot video for as long as I want, or is there a limit to video length other than memory card size. Memory card file systems are formated in FAT32, which has a limit on file size of 4 gigs. This is usually the limiting factor in HD video length, which will vary depending on the quality of the video (higher quality resulting in less time. The Canon 5d mark II records beautiful full 1920x1080 HD but at a maximum length of about 12 minutes.) This is going to be true of any camera that uses compact flash based memory. I'm assuming you ment the DMC-ZS3 instead of the DMC-LS3 since that model is out of production. The DMC-ZS3 records in 780p so you are going to get longer than the 5d's 12 minutes but you are probably going to run into a limit around 20mins or so. The question you have to ask your self is if the stills or the video are more important. If the video is more important you probably want to just buy an HD camcorder, which will also be able to take decent stills. If you are going to be taking HD videos you also need to consider how you are going to capture and edit it on your computer if that is what you want to do. There are an annoying amount of different HD codecs and it is better to make sure you understand how to use the files you get from your camera before you purchase it.

Let me attempt to dissuade you from getting a camcorder and using it for stills. If you're currently used to using a still camera, stills from a video camera will look terrible to you. The clarity on even a good camcorder are much less than you can get from even a cheap still camera. It looks great for video, but we expect more from stills. Stills and video are related, but they require different things. Any tool you get is going to be optimized for one, with the other function hacked on with a greater or lesser degree of success. If you can decide which is more important, you know what you're looking for. If they're equally important, you need two tools.

The spec http://www.dpreview.com/news/0901/09012706panasonictz7.asp says about 15 minutes tops with the DMC-ZS3

Oh and another reason to have a video camera and a still camera. There will be times you want both! It's really fun to be able to show first steps, eating messes, etc., and those Flips make it insanely easy. Aren't they coming out with a wireless Flip or something?

Get the still camera that you want, and pick up a Kodak Zi8 video camera to go with it. Best of the flip class of cameras right now.

I have also considered the Zi8 or the flip. That seems like a good alternative. Though I'd still enjoy a new still camera. Dust on the lens drives me nuts! Thanks all.