Nikon D60: New Camera Kit
Posted by on Saturday, January 17, 2009
My new camera, the Nikon D60, arrived earlier this week on Tuesday. I was hoping to spend some time getting familiar with a few of the manual controls - but that didn't really happen. I've played with it some, but that's about it. I guess I'll be on full auto mode to begin with :)
I bought a pretty neat little case for it. It's got decent padding and no pockets on the front/back, which keeps it narrow for placing in my backpack. The aim being more comfortable on the hill... I picked up a filter too, to protect the lens from nasty people who think it's funny to spray someone holding a camera with snow, plus any other potential damage. Not sure it the fact that I bought I cheap one will make any difference; I'll find out soon with a couple of comparison shots, with and without the filter.
On that note, I took a photo of my new camcorder handle with both the new camera and my old compact. Take a look at the difference:
Compact.
SLR.
Probably not a great test for a number of reasons, but it's still a test. The D60 shot was taken using jpg, on normal quality (basic, normal, fine), at the medium size. The compact was on it's finest quality, at medium image size. Obvisouly I wasn't thinking too hard about doing a test here - actually, I was taking a picture of the handle and thought "I wonder what the same photo would look like on the compact"...
That said, I'd still say the Nikon kicks the compact's ass.
Of the few people-photos I've taken I'm pleased with the quality. I should have some good photos from this trip to Morzine, so right now, I'm not gonna spam my blog with photos of my mum and dad :)
One thing I have noticed whilst using the camera on auto mode is that the depth of field is really narrow... just a side thought. I'm gonna have to learn to use this camera properly, but in the mean time, the point and shoot results are great!
Labels: cameras, digital and electronic
Camcorder Handle / Mount
Posted by on Friday, January 16, 2009
Last weekend I built a handle for my video camera. The main aim of the handle is to make the camera easier to hold whilst snowboarding, for follow cam shots. So the handle needs to be above the camera, and (close to) parallel to the direction that the camera is pointing. There'll be some other benefits too: using the camara with gloves on should be easier, and passing the camera to someone else ("hey, film me hitting this") should be less drop-prone too.
This isn't anything new, there're loads of people making small, custom handles. In fact, I was actually intending to re-use the design that my dad used a week earlier...
However, when I unpacked his handle and detached the camera, I thought the handle itself was too light: he'd used rather thin, aluminium. With my dad's design, he straps the handle to the camera at the top and bottom, which keeps it securely in place. But I didn't want this. I wanted the camera to sit on the mount, attached only by the tripod interface.
So I started looking for a nice bit of steel.
Once found, it was a little harder to work with, and it needed smoothing off some at the edges. But the end result is pretty close to what I'd visualised in the first place. Here are some photos:
Nice, thick steel.
Hard to manipulate.
Not quite the right shape.
Smoothing the corners and trimming the handle width.
Just about done.
The finished product.
It's definitely a substantial handle. Besides wanting it to feel solid, I also thought that the extra weight, providing it's not too heavy to prevent use, would help to produce more stable footage.
I'm not sure whether or not opting for a heavier material will make a noticable difference, or any difference at all for that matter, but I wanted to try it out.
When I recently looked into camera stabilisation I realised that I knew nothing about it (still don't know much), given some of my naive assumptions. I quickly found though, that some of the systems are based on a pivot (or gimbal?) plus some kind of heavy pendulum. I won't try to explain it, it you're interested, look it up.
Here are some links: make one yourself, one you can buy, a youtube clip (not exactly sure what's going on here, but you can see the effect).
I also found some related material, which you may find interesting: a still camera, tripod replacement for steady shots, 14 dollar steadycam and the somewhat cheesy, Levelcam.
So I was thinking that if I'm snowboarding down a hill, moving around a lot, with a light video camera in my hand, the camera is going to shake. If I make the camera heavier, it should shake less. Will it make a difference? I don't know, I'll have to wait and see. I kinda like it though...
Labels: cameras, digital and electronic
Amazon MP3 Store
Posted by on Thursday, January 08, 2009
I'm an occassional music purchaser, both real CDs and the MP3 kind. I used to buy music all the time, but not so much these days. I'm an iTunes user. Like millions of people I've got an iPod, so I need it, but I kinda like the software too. I also buy music through iTunes - it's real handy, and I like that.
Not being a manic music collector (I say collector, because I do listen to music all the time), I've never felt the need to simply 'download' music. I'm quite happy to buy it.
That said, the format that iTunes uses, along with the DRM, can be annoying at times. I was looking for tracks to use with some snowboarding footage recently, and being ages since I'd bought anything from iTunes, I forgot that I was going to need to burn the music to a CD and then rip it again. Lame.
So I was really pleased when an email dropped into my inbox telling me about the Amazon MP3 Store
I like Amazon. Their mp3 store is a good addition. No doubt the selection will be growing very quickly, it's dead easy, and you end up with basic mp3 files. Flexible. Nice. I'll probably buy more music now.
Labels: digital and electronic
New Digital SLR... Which One?
Posted by on Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Isn't it cool how in the space of a couple of days you can drastically change your requirements, and convince yourself you need something new and bigger? :)
Here's what happened...
I've got this review for the wsg coming up soon and I want good photos. Currently I've got an old, Pentax Optio s5i, with the casing selotaped together - I've lost the tiny little screws. Outside in good light it takes an ok picture, but that's it, ok. I doesn't do a good job of people, for example. Give it a slight challange with the lighting conditions and it sucks.
Some of my friends have got similar cameras, in terms of size and price, but newer. And they're better. Not like a major leap, but good enough to make me think about replacing my camera. I want good photos. So I started to look around.
Before long, I came across a group of compact cameras targeted at the enthusiast, like the Canon PowerShot G10 and the Panasonic Lumix LX3. These cameras were attractive for a few reasons. Mainly, they're gonna give me better photos than the camera I've got now. They offer more manual control, if you want it, which should help you to get the photo you want. They're still fairly small, especially the Panasonic, so I wouldn't need a backpack. They're within budget. I think they look pretty cool :)
But I started thinking about it some more. And I asked friends who know a lot more about this stuff than I do (you know who you are, thanks!). And I re-assessed my criteria.
- I want good pictures, that's most important. Not every picture I take needs to be great (I'll still have my old camera), but I want the option to get a better shot
- I want to be able to take pictures in burst mode
- I want fast response to shoot snowboarders, perhaps close up, with good results*
Yes, these higher-end compacts will take a good photo, but if I'm trading off ultimate quality for camera size, and therefore mobility on the mountain, I'm probably just pointing and clicking. I think perhaps, there are other, cheaper, more basic compacts that will do just as well in this role.
But the clincher is this: these higher-end compacts won't get me near to the results of an SLR. So for those times that I do want to take the time/effort/size and mobility hit, I'll get better photos with an SLR. That's obvious, right? ;)
So I've decided to go for an entry level SLR. Besides, it's my birthday soon and I'm thinking a little self-present will go down well. But which one?
My gut instinct is the Nikon, I don't know why, it just is. I think the Canon is the most expensive, whilst the Sony is temptingly cheap. I guess I like the flexibility of an SLR. It's not a huge investment if I don't do much with it. But if I want to, I can add extra capabilities with different lenses. It's exciting.
I'm gonna need a couple of extras; some kind of case in the least. I'll probably get the smallest case I can find, to make it comfortable in my back pack. But I hear that Lowepro do a range of SlingShot bags that are worth a look.
Obviously I want to get this sorted before I go away, and it would be nice to have at least a couple of days to play around with it...
Labels: digital and electronic
Go Dad!
Posted by on Monday, January 05, 2009
A couple of months ago, I mentioned that I'd seen a lad at the skate park with a rather useful looking camcorder handle. I decided that something similar would be really handy for filming snowboarding, so decided that I'd sort something out before I go away.
Well my dad has gone and beat me to it :)
Check this out, simple but effective!
Not bad, eh? I'm going to be constructing one this weekend, but I won't be using an additional strap - I don't think it's needed. I'm expecting these handles to work really well... I'll review them after use.
I've done quite a bit of snowboarding with my dad - which I think is pretty cool. It's good to be able to share something like this; something I enjoy so much. We actually learned at the same time, although I'd say our respective curves were a little different :)
Some of you will know that my old man is going to be shredding with us in the Portes Du Soleil in a couple of weeks time. Well he hasn't stopped with a camera handle... fresh for this season he's hooked up a vehicle for half of the group to make the road trip from North East England to Morzine. Naturally the regular seats have been removed in favour of Recaros.
He loves snowboarding. Go dad!
Labels: digital and electronic, equipment
Panasonic NV-GS300B: Camcorder Review
Posted by on Thursday, July 12, 2007
Although I wasn't knocked out by the "3 chips", image quality is good for the price, it's simple to use and excellent to hold on the hill. However, I don't think I've really benefitted from some of the expected key features and lack of AV-in may be a problem for me.
A while ago I made the decision to buy a new MiniDV camcorder, rather than a camcorder with a hard disk drive. With MiniDV in mind, I chose the Panasonic NV-GS300 with the Sony DCR-HC96 being in second place. Since then I've used the camera fairly extensively over a two week period in Laax, a little bit during a trip to Avoriaz, and a handful of times in the UK. This review will look at my experiences of using the camera to date. If you want a more detailed review of the cameras technical ability, I'd recommend this review.
Handling
How the camera handled was a key consideration when choosing which one to buy. I wanted something that was easy to grip with one hand, from above, as this is my preferred method of filming while on the move, "follow cam" style. The Panasonic is excellent in this regard. The unit's size and shape make it easy to hold from above, and there aren't any camera controls that you accidentally touch when carrying it in this way. Excellent.
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Point and Shoot
The camera's automatic mode makes point-and-shoot really easy. This is probably the same for a lot of cameras, but it's worth mentioning. Everytime I've used the camera I've literally just hit record and then pause. On one particularly sunny day I changed to one of the pre-set scenes, "surf & snow", and the automatic exposure took care of things. Again, this is probably quite common, but it does make it easy if that's all you want to do with the camera and it keeps things simple on the hill; you don't need to explain the controls to your friends.
One slight criticism that I do have, and this should probably come under handling, is that the funtion wheel can be accidentally knocked when pulling the camera from you bag/jacket. The wheel has quite good resistance, but it has happened to me once of twice, each time I think I had the camera inside my jacket while on a lift. Unfortunately this can result in accidentally changing from record to play back... leading to the dreaded 'lost' footage. It's easy to get around though - you simply check the mode before starting - but it's annoying if it catches you out.
Image Quality
I'm happy with the image quality; some of the shots look really good and I personally like shooting in 16:9. I've got to say though, I think I was expecting a little more from having 3 CCDs. Maybe that's an unfair criticism given the price, especially as I do think that the quality is good - it just doesn't stand out as being the best thing about the camera to me.
Helment-Cam
When I bought the camera I wasn't bothered by the lack of 'video-in'. I didn't think I was interested in attaching a helmet camera. However, that's changed now; I think using a helmet-cam is something I'd like to try. Models designed to feed into a camcorder will not work with this Panasonic.
Other Features
Optical Image Stabaliser (O.I.S). Optical image stabalisation is supposed to be significantly better than the digital kind. Because I knew I was going to be riding around with the camera, this seemed like a really good feature. Looking back over the videos I've posted here recently, the images do appear fairly smooth, certainly no complaints.
However, the manual lists the following cases where the O.I.S function may not work effectively:
- when the digital zoom is used
- when a conversion lens is used
- when the camera is shaken greatly
- when you record a moving subject while tracking it
Manual gain adjustment. My major criticism of my previous camcorder was that it was rubbish in low light. According to the review I mentioned above, the Panasonic could do better in low light - but manual gain control can help you out. I haven't used the camera in low light yet, so nothing to report here.
Overall
Would I recommend this camera? If purchased for a good on-line price, less than £400, I'd happily recommend the Panasonic as a solid all-round camera: ergonomically great for snowboarding, nice images, despite the inability to attach a helmet cam. But I wouldn't kick up a fuss if a friend was considering a different model.
Labels: digital and electronic, review
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