nick2354 Posted November 4, 2008 Posted November 4, 2008 I am planing on buying a new video camera preferably a cheapy (less than $150) and after reading some posts on video cameras, I would like to know if their is any special qualities (that could capture the colour of stars better) that I should look for when buying one or should I just look for the one with the highest megapixels?
optimus Posted November 4, 2008 Posted November 4, 2008 Not sure of any particular models, but you will be wanting manual focus control (preferably with an 'infinity' mark/setting), preferably manual white-balance settings, nice wide-angle. Fireworks do a very good job of confusing video auto-focus systems and auto-exposure so it's good to have manual controls got get the settings correct - then you can adjust things so metallic stars are not over-exposed (so you get good saturation) and firedust stars are not lost in a sea of black.
JS92 Posted November 4, 2008 Posted November 4, 2008 you might want to restrict your criteria to a video camera with really good sound capture....or you could buy one of those external mics?
qwezxc12 Posted November 4, 2008 Posted November 4, 2008 nick, I can't speak for any specific camcorders in the price range your talking about, but many models have actual 'fireworks' settings: infinite focus, pre-set white balance and boosted saturation. I bought a Cannon HG10 in the spring for ~ $550 (interestingly enough they've actually gone UP in price since then) - it's a 1080i HD and records in AVCHD format on an internal HDD - perfect for anything I've done so far. It takes BEAUTIFUL fireworks footage. Here's a video of a shell I made for a July 4th party - it was shot on the 'fireworks' setting, downloaded to my computer and resampled into a 720p wmv file at a lower bitrate (to make it small enough to post)...still looks very good IMHO. The original video looked great. Video For low cost, the Cannon Powershot SD series digital cameras took decent video at 640x480 30fps...good enough that I never bothered to get a separate vido camera for many years - just used my SD450. All my older competition posts and gallery videos were shot with it.
tentacles Posted November 4, 2008 Posted November 4, 2008 Don't look for the camera with the most pixels. Look for the camera with the LEAST number of pixels and the largest sensor size. This results in larger individual sensors - which means each pixel gathers more light information in a given time period. READ: Better night performance. The canon SD1000 does quite nice videos at night. You can also put the "CHDK" firmware mod on it to give it a few extra features. I almost bought the SD1100 myself but opted for the Samsung NV24HD, which does nice h.264 1280x720x30fps videos. Hopefully the fireworks videos are nice.
nick2354 Posted November 7, 2008 Author Posted November 7, 2008 (edited) Thankyou for all of your replies. I ended up buying an AIPTEK AHD200It has a choice of 8, 5, or 3 MegapixelsIt can also record in HD. Here is a video I filmed tonight with it. Edited November 8, 2008 by nick2354
tentacles Posted November 7, 2008 Posted November 7, 2008 (edited) I hate to say it, but from reading some reviews of that unit, it appears to be one of the models that upscales standard video (848x480) to 720P.. All I've seen so far, though, is a clip from an action video (jet skiing) so it's hard to say. Panasonic appears to be doing this on at least one of their newer model digicams that advertises HD video. The older ones definitely did not. Here's a couple sample videos from the camera that I'm getting: http://img.photographyblog.com/reviews/sam...g_nv24hd_01.mp4http://dl.free.fr/getfile.pl?file=/NnTuALdM/720PNV24HD.rar Please note, that the sound cuts out when the zoom is used - this is fairly typical on non-camcorder type camera videos, because the sound of the zoom and focus motors is quite loud. The NV24HD has a wide angle lens that will be perfect for capturing those close shots at PGI. Found a video of the aiptek doing fireworks (apparently it was in HD mode) http://www.megavideo.com/?v=G9XH5XEE Colors a bit washed out and it tends to search for focus. Here's a link to a thread about the aiptek: http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/view_to...ighlight=AHD200 Edit: I thought I should add a commet on the video you posted - hanging out with guys that like to get into fights - serious or just fooling around - is a great way to get screwed hard. All it would take is to have a piece of fuse or a device (and you know the kind I'm talking about) on you, and some random cop (off duty cops can fuck your life up too) to ruin everything.. Who was it that was up to stupid shit about a year ago, throwing eggs at cars or something, and ended up arrested and in all kinds of shit trouble over it? He really wished he'd listened to reason sooner, even though he was very lucky about the judge's decision and got off easy. Edited November 7, 2008 by tentacles
nick2354 Posted November 8, 2008 Author Posted November 8, 2008 (edited) Oops I added the worng link. I was just watching some fight from some "wiggers" from my school that I was sending the link to a friend. Here is the real video and Im so sorry about linking the wrong videohttp://au.youtube.com/watch?v=uVfj6Z1LGuc Edited November 8, 2008 by nick2354
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