BJV Posted December 25, 2010 Posted December 25, 2010 Hi All,I am looking for some suggestions for a small High Definition Camcorder, with out breaking the bank. Any ideas??Thanks,BJV
dagabu Posted December 25, 2010 Posted December 25, 2010 BJV, For fireworks, a lot of us have been switching to cameras due to the old saying, "Its better to have a small and poor quality camera that you always carry then a nice SLR that is left at home." I have the Kodak Z950, it works great and others use the flip. Both have HD.
davis050594 Posted December 25, 2010 Posted December 25, 2010 Sony has some hd flip type cameras for $140 I saw, that means that the other brands should be much cheaper now. I've heard good things about the flip type cameras. I don't think you're going to get great fireworks video until you get into a camera with a lot of settings. The cameras with a few default settings tend to be set for daytime viral type videos.
Updup Posted December 26, 2010 Posted December 26, 2010 Well, that video from my "Fireworks on the eve" topic was shot with a tiny little camra, cannon power shot SD1400IS, has great sensors, and rocks out with night time digital capture, the only down side to a small camra is the mic generally dosn't give as much justice to an accual video recorder.
NightHawkInLight Posted December 26, 2010 Posted December 26, 2010 I can speak very highly of the cannon powershot series for capturing fireworks. They come out in vibrant natural colors and always in focus with auto settings so long as the zoom is fully backed out. Manual focus or auto focusing on an object close to the firing position is necessary when using the zoom at night. That said, the one I use for all of my videos does not shoot in HD, and I am at this very moment browsing Amazon for an upgrade. Whatever I end up with you'll be sure to see footage from soon enough. Up until now I have shot all of my videos with a still camera using the video setting, I'm not sure yet if I'll keep that up or switch to a real video camera. Either way, I'm sick of non HD, and a camera with the batteries held in by fiberglass tape scraps left from building shells. It had an honorable life.
xXasF3d3G Posted January 2, 2011 Posted January 2, 2011 (edited) Hi All,I am looking for some suggestions for a small High Definition Camcorder, with out breaking the bank. Any ideas??Thanks,BJV I Have a Samsung ST60, she works very well Look Here http://www.youtube.c...h?v=noF3djybjrM It Costs about 170€ I Hope you can Understand my English ^^ Edited January 2, 2011 by xXasF3d3G
NightHawkInLight Posted January 2, 2011 Posted January 2, 2011 I bought this last week: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001Q3M8IM/ref=oss_product Should be coming in the mail tomorrow. I'll have a video up pretty quickly, though not of fireworks.
Peret Posted January 3, 2011 Posted January 3, 2011 We have several cameras in this household, but the one that turned out best for shooting fireworks is the humble Flip. Sophisticated cameras with auto focus get lost in total darkness and give very disappointing results.
NightHawkInLight Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 Well, the camera arrived. It seems like a great camera for durability and outdoor use, but I'm going to return it. Supposedly the camera is HD, but the quality is on par, if not worse than the non HD video my canon powershot produces. I have not tried it for fireworks, but even if it works spectacularly in that regard, I just film too many other things that need higher quality in daylight.
NightHawkInLight Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 (edited) An update: The Sanyo VPC-CG20 is what I plan on purchasing as soon as my refund is in from Amazon. It looks to be by far the best bang for the buck at $150, with the next cameras I could find with comparable HD starting at $250, and very poor battery life until $300. I found a video of fireworks taken on the camera, which is what got me really convinced:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KGm_Ebwpmk&feature=relatedAbout 4 minutes in they start shooting a little larger shells with reasonably sized stars, and some really nice footage around 4:30. I find even the best fireworks footage I've come across can't portray small crappy stars out of the smaller consumer shells very well. Here's video of daylight footage:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRlEr_kAo50&feature=related It looks promising. Edited January 4, 2011 by NightHawkInLight
BJV Posted January 8, 2011 Author Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) Hi All, I just want to thank everyone for the help on getting a HD camcorder.Here is a Fireworks video taken with a camera like I bought, and I did not break the bank.BJV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nn4mYE2qgU Edited January 8, 2011 by BJV
dagabu Posted January 8, 2011 Posted January 8, 2011 An update: The Sanyo VPC-CG20 is what I plan on purchasing as soon as my refund is in from Amazon. It looks to be by far the best bang for the buck at $150, with the next cameras I could find with comparable HD starting at $250, and very poor battery life until $300. It looks promising. There are three things that I really like about this camera, one is that the fireworks are represented with true colors. Two, the video is very sharp. Three, the sound is true, the bass from the mortars is true of actual displays. I will be looking at this camera myself.
BJV Posted January 8, 2011 Author Posted January 8, 2011 There are three things that I really like about this camera, one is that the fireworks are represented with true colors. Two, the video is very sharp. Three, the sound is true, the bass from the mortars is true of actual displays. I will be looking at this camera myself. Just a note I bought it on ebay for $75.00 (New in the Box)BJV
dagabu Posted January 8, 2011 Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) Just a note I bought it on ebay for $75.00 (New in the Box)BJV DANG!! Good job on finding that! It would be nice to see and hear some raw footage, it sounds like the You-tube video was heavily processed. There is a Sanyo VPC-CG20 also available on eBay for a sweet price... http://cgi.ebay.com/Sanyo-Xacti-VPC-CG20-Full-HD-Dual-Camcorder-Rare-Color-/220719616536?pt=Camcorders_Professional_Video_Cameras&hash=item3363ea1218 Edited January 8, 2011 by dagabu
NightHawkInLight Posted January 8, 2011 Posted January 8, 2011 Hi All, I just want to thank everyone for the help on getting a HD camcorder.Here is a Fireworks video taken with a camera like I bought, and I did not break the bank.BJV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nn4mYE2qgUWell you sure can't beat the price at $75! Looks like you probably used windows movie maker to edit though? Unfortunately WMM can't output video in HD, which is why you don't have the HD viewing options on Youtube. I'm currently shopping around for some new editing software myself. I'm playing with a demo copy of Vegas Movie Studio HD 9 at the moment. It seems to be the best value at under $20 on Amazon for HD editing. It does have a good deal of features as well. Really though, in my experience good camera work and simple cuts can do just about everything. My one complaint I've had with the program so far is no built in audio editor. When you need to play with the audio of a clip it opens the file in whatever external audio program you select, in my case Audacity. Whatever, I suppose that's an inconvenience I can deal with. A free download of the program can be found here: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/trials/moviestudiohd The trial will expire after 30 days unless you enter a serial number.
dagabu Posted January 8, 2011 Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) Well you sure can't beat the price at $75! Looks like you probably used windows movie maker to edit though? Unfortunately WMM can't output video in HD, which is why you don't have the HD viewing options on Youtube. HUH? Mine has HD, 1080, I think you need to download the update... Edited January 8, 2011 by dagabu
NightHawkInLight Posted January 8, 2011 Posted January 8, 2011 Yes, Windows Live Movie Maker has HD ability but no versions prior to that. The removal of the timeline feature in WLMM makes the program just about worthless to me. It's meant to be as user friendly as possible to someone who has never edited video before, but in my opinion they killed the program for anyone who knows what they're doing.
dagabu Posted January 8, 2011 Posted January 8, 2011 but in my opinion they killed the program for anyone who knows what they're doing. Why is it useless? I have Sony VEGAS, fantastic software, does everything... But it's cumbersome. WLMM is fast easy and FREE! Super for quick posting and editing.
NightHawkInLight Posted January 8, 2011 Posted January 8, 2011 Why is it useless? I have Sony VEGAS, fantastic software, does everything... But it's cumbersome. WLMM is fast easy and FREE! Super for quick posting and editing.Eh, I don't know, I'm sure it does have its purpose. My problem using it is probably that I'm a perfectionist when it comes to editing. It's rare that I want to just make a quick edit and post. Even if everything else is messy with a video, I at least like the editing trimmed up right.
dagabu Posted January 8, 2011 Posted January 8, 2011 I sure do understand your desire for perfect video but when I am doing rockets, I am looking for video of function as that I can see what did and did not work. I share it with you all because you all ask me too. I have been asked to not add music and to only show the launch to the end of the display, no fuse burning and no dead air. The rest is a simple cut and post.
BJV Posted January 8, 2011 Author Posted January 8, 2011 Hi All, If weather permits I will havea chance to shoot a few shells nextweekend. This will give me a chance totry out my new camera. This shouldbe interesting I have never editeda video, wish me luck. Below are theshell I am working for the shoot.BJVhttp://barry.dcwisp.net/shells.jpg
dagabu Posted January 9, 2011 Posted January 9, 2011 Gorgeous shells BJV!! Good luck with the video, please share what you get no matter how it turns out.
pyrogeorge Posted January 9, 2011 Posted January 9, 2011 HUH? Mine has HD, 1080, I think you need to download the update...dagabu do you know how to edit a movie but to save in original come format?For example if i edit an mp4 format video,then movie maker save as wmv format and is not good quality as the .mp4
dagabu Posted January 9, 2011 Posted January 9, 2011 dagabu do you know how to edit a movie but to save in original come format?For example if i edit an mp4 format video,then movie maker save as wmv format and is not good quality as the .mp4 Yes, Sony VEGAS will save the movie in its original format, H.256 .MP4 but since the .MP4 (.MPG4) file format that is used by most cameras is *Apple owned, Microsoft is not allowed to include the codec in their software. Personally, I hate Quicktime and would do anything to stay away from it. Interesting that you should mention the quality difference, *Apple Quicktime uses Initial Object Descriptors (IOD) in its codec but otherwise is essentially identical to the .MOV file.
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