[gggg]

Originally Posted by Carly Drew

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the whole HD Video thing. I like having the option available, I love the quality of the resulting video, but I don't like that it's driving prices even higher up and that it seems... well... a bit gimmicky? I've used several Canon DSLRs with HD Video capabilities now, and I've not ever felt the need to use it.

HD Video, gimmicky???!!! Well you would not say it was gimmicky in a video camera so why is it gimmicky here?

I find the sniffiness in some quarters about the pointlessness of video on "proper" stills cameras very tiresome:
- it costs hardly any more to include (whereas build quality costs a lot more) - it is mostly software - marginal cost is pretty low, I'd guess.
- stills from HD video can be a pretty useful source of pics in some circumstances.
- anyone seen the Canon prototype/proof of concept a while back that was effectively a video camera which let you pick any still at pretty much the same quality as the best stills camera? This will be the future. (Wish I could find the link to it - I'll keep searching)

Remember these are CONSUMER devices and convergence is key. If you want to be a specialist in the future you'll end up with specialist kit that will cost more (due to limited demand), and unless very expensive pro kit, will be less capable than high end general consumer kit.

And who wants to carry two devices when one can do the job of both, and in many respects do it as well as if not better than the "dedicated" devices can?

I'm afraid that to me, the "I'm not buying that wonderful camera because it has a function that costs next to nothing and I don't need and I'd like to suspect it may have compromised what a real camera should be for" brigade really do have a strong whiff of "I'd rather cut off my nose to spite my face" about them.

But then again we all have our own "snob" cut-off points, don't we. I find it amazing that the majority of pics on Flickr now are from iPhones, not "proper" (i.e. dedicated) cameras. I know this proves my point about convergence but - well, they're not real cameras are they? ;-)
But I can see that my view here might be something to with not being familiar with iPhones and their photographic capabilities, just like the anti-video brigade above are in the main probably not very interested in/familiar with video.( I've yet to meet any video enthusiast decry the availability of HD video in DSLRs.)