Posts from — April 2007

The three day music festival, Coachella, begins tomorrow in Indio, CA. A Panasonic dvd camcorder would be great to bring to an outdoor festival like Coachella. Alas, camcorders are not allowed at this festival. I don’t believe they are allowed at many other festivals without a permit.

Nevertheless, plenty of concert-goers use digital cameras to videotape snippets of live acts. A digital camera works much like a hard drive camcorder, except it can’t film for extended periods of time. Most max out at 7-10 minutes. And they usually produce extremely shaky clips, with bad sound. The microphone apparatus isn’t made to withstand volumes from such huge sound systems.

Here’s a decent clip from Coachella ‘06 to get you in the mood.

If you saw a sony camcorder 19 years ago, you’d probably think it was from some secret gadget used by the government.

I hear about all these directors who used to film movies on Super 8 or what not. You don’t hear many of them using a betamovie camera, that’s because it was very bulky and expensive. I always wonder what parents just let their kids use such expensive equipment. I remember going to a friend’s house and using a VHS camcorder, but definitely nothing fancy. We did a stop motion short film that we edited on the vcr. It was pretty awful, you could see our hands in tons of the shots.

I wonder what famous directors think about their first films. They should have a tv series that forces them critique their amateur films on camera. It would be educational and entertaining. Kinda like “Inside the Actor’s Studio” without all that seriousness. They could camp it up and make it like a game show or something. They could try and guess which clip they directed and like buzz in. Gotta do something to try and replace “The Price is Right”. I’m gonna miss Bob. Can’t believe he’s retiring.

But the man is old and deserves a rest.

From Camcorderinfo.com -
“The new 2006 middle model is the PV-GS300, coming to the market at $699. It replaces last year’s GS250. The GS300 is currently the lowest priced 3 CCD camcorder with optical image stabilization (OIS). Since last year, Pansonic added a 2.7 inch, 123K widescreen LCD, and the newly shrunk GS300 is sleeker and more stylish.”

It seems that Panasonic is constantly upgrading their line of palmcorders. The compact pv gs300 had a quality zoom capability, up to 700x power.

But within a year, the pv gs500 & gs300 are nowhere to be found. They’ve been improved upon once again (in a year or less). This makes me nervous to buy a Panasonic camcorder. What if I did find a good deal on one the newer gs80 or something? Maybe the next year, it would be gone, which means all my accessories might not be compatible with other models. It’s a rat race that’s for sure. You gotta know when and what to buy that’s gonna stand the test of time.

I read a canon camcorder review yesterday that really got me excited to buy a professional camcorder. Y’know, really make an investment instead of just getting something simple.

Before I was skeptical since one of my friends had a bad experience with a canon camcorder. But she had a beginner level product. Their professional line of cameras and video cameras that are the best. I’ve got my eye on the new XH A1 high definition camcorder.

It has three fancy AF (auto-focus) modes, which is crucial to filming in HD. But it still gives you more manual control than a consumer level camcorder. I want to be able to do complicated shots, but with not much hassle. The XH A1 sounds perfect. Now, if only I could win the lottery…

I was shocked, just as the rest of the world, by the events last week at Virginia Tech. Much of the incident was caught on film, even the murderer himself made a videotaped message. It was very rough footage that news stations received from Cho. He could have easily gained access to a mini dv camera on campus. He attempted to express his intentions for the forthcoming events, which now seem very cryptic and vague.

VT students and other witness even managed to capture images of the carnage with cellphones and webcams. This event seems so immediate and intense when you have instant images of this horrible tragedy. Ever since 9/11, it seems our society desperately needs some sort of video representation of news. Not merely a segment with a camera aimed at a reporter, but in-depth montages of violence. All recent tragedies have been documented heavily with images, whether it’s with small camcorders or professional film cameras.