Hey WM2, I was looking at the specs provided on the Samsung Captivate Smartphone site. When it comes to the camera specs, this is what they have listed as features: [Auto Focus; Shot Modes: Single, Beauty, Smile. Continuous, Panorama, Vintage, Add me, Action, Cartoon; Smile Shot; Geo-tagging; Editing Modes; Camcorder; DivX®; HD Recording; HD Playback; TV-Out; Online Image Uploading]. My questions to you is, did you make any changes to the default settings? Reason for me asking; I have a Droid X Pro and when you go to capture video/pictures, it has a button on the side [albeit the phone is held upwards/sideways] and when you are ready to capture what you want; all you have to do is press this button. The capture is viewable either still picture or video, in the screen.
Should that not be the case with your specific phone, maybe there is a setting that needs to be adjusted in order to capture/record the event in the upright position???