How to shoot slow-motion digital video without buying a super
expensive high speed camera? Are there *any* digicams under $3000 that
can do this? I am very dissatisfied with creating slow motion using
software, it is never smooth enough. Aaah, it was so easy with 8mm
film...

Hi morganf,

 I researched some pretty fancy digital video cameras, over $2,000 and
under $3,000, and none of them had a slow motion feature. I finally
found a clue as to why:
"In Hollywood, movies are shot they put a big roll of film into the
camera and have it record at a very fast frame rate, and then play it
back at regular speed. The effect is slow motion. In camcorder land,
it?s impossible to get slow motion this way. Now we find out why.
Part of the problem here is that people new to camcorders confuse
shutter speed with frame rate. The frame rate of a camcorder is the
number of times every second that the camera takes a picture of the
world it sees. The shutter speed represents how long the frame stays
open for to record any particular image. The shutter speed on
camcorders is variable; the frame rate is not. For example, you would
use a slow shutter speed in low-light situations to let in more light,
but in bright situations you would use a fast shutter speed to
restrict the amount of light coming in.

A film camera is a lot more versatile than a camcorder, mostly because
you don?t need to configure a film camera to connect to a television.
Since a camcorder must connect to a television, it must share the same
frame rate that the television displays, which is (basically) thirty
frames per second. Camcorders are built from the ground up to conform
to this standard, and it is impossible to change."

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/tweleve_questions_six.htm

You might find some tips here on some  creative work-arounds!
Slow motion video tips
Cineman
http://www.cineman.co.uk/slow.html
More tips
Ron Dexter
http://www.rondexter.com/

crabcakes

Hi morganf, 

The answer to your question is going to be "no such camera exists", at
least for the price you are looking to pay.

I can go into great detail about why, but that's not what you asked really.

There is only one actual variable frame-rate video camera, and that is
the Panasonic Vari-cam (
http://www.panasonic.com/PBDS/subcat/Products/cams_ccorders/f_aj-hdc27v.html
) and it does not come cheap. There are also high-speed cameras
designed for industrial application, but they aren't a camcorder, and
not really the same. There is also this product from Sony (
http://bssc.sel.sony.com/Professional/webapp/ModelInfo?id=24879 ) used
widely in live sports coverage for replay action. The camera is
US$62,000 and it still requires more specialist hardware which costs
about as much again.

The common video standards are well defined at 30fps (NTSC) and 25fps
(PAL). Cameras simply do not have any need to capture more information
than this, and therefore, they don't. The technical problems with
doing so, if they did are quite large two.

For video-based slow-motion there are two options:
1) Software
2) Specialised (expensive) camera equipment

Sorry I can't provide a better answer. Good luck.

Regards,
Sycophant-ga

I disagree with your reasoning.
Filmcameras normally need to run at a speed (frames per second) that
is the same as the projector. In the amateur world there used to be
some freedom in here. 8mm users would run at 16 fps, Super 8 at 18 fps
and 16mm and above would run at 24 fps. In Europe some cameras had a
25 fps setting to make conversion to TV/video easier (the European PAL
system is 25 fps). So, the freedom for a Super 8 user would be to
shoot at 24 or 25 fps to get a smoother projection at his own
projector running at the same speed. However, someone shooting 35mm or
Todd AO for large scale cinema would not have that freedom. Yet, slow
motion meant higher camera fps and not an instruction for the operator
in the movie theater to reduce projection speed (with a risk of
burning holes in the film). Likewise, stop motion meant to shoot a
still with a still camera and recording that on film at normal fps for
the time you need it in the projection.
In that sense the reasoning for a filmcamera (whose normal speed is
dictated by playback) ought to be the same as for a camcorder.
In short, we have to distinguish between recording fps speed and
playback fps speed.

Why would regular camcorders have no slow motion (by increasing camera
fps and playback at normal fps) then?
a) I guess (really guess) that electronics really would become much
more expensive. If the electronics in the camcorder are able to read
data from the CCD (the chip that acts like film), process it from raw
to something that will be stored, subsequently store it on some
storage medium 25 or 30 times per second, it should become much more
powerful if you want to increase camera fps 2 times, 4 times, etc.
b) I guess not many people would use it if it were available; you need
to plan shooting it and your timing needs to be right. In the old 8mm
days, it was on practically any camera, but I would say owners would
use the feature maybe a few times in the camera's and their own
lifetimes, if ever.

Well, if you know of a consumer camcorder that does slow motion,
please let me know. I guess the developers are putting their money in
increased resolution, however, which maintains the problem under a).