2. Its called Ex. Tele Conv. What it does is sample a part of the sensor that is the physical size of the video being recorded. (1920x1080 or 1280x720). This means that the crop factor is increased from around 2x to around 4x, effectively doubling the focal length of your lens. This also means that the sensor is not downsampling, so there is no moire, aliasing, or rolling shutter artifacts.
3. It is not as good for still photography or timelapses as a canon dslr, mostly because the buffer time on long exposures is pretty bad, as is the noise handling. BUT, there are hacks that allow it to record 1fps avchd (actually maybe just mjpeg), which is a super convenient way to record timelapses, although it doesnt allow the resolution or quality of using RAW still images.