mediageek

Category: video

  • Seduced by the siren call of the Sony NEX-5 camera

    After hemming and hawing for about six months I finally took the plunge and bought a Sony NEX-5 interchangeable lens compact camera. As I wrote when the camera debuted, I was concerned about a few apparent drawbacks: a new lens mount and the lack of in-body image stabilization. You see, the reason I made the…

  • Zoom finally adds HD video to a portable audio recorder, but still no mic input

    I’m always complaining about how most consumer-level camcorders don’t feature microphone inputs, or even decent mics. My Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 has pretty good mics for camcorder of it’s size and price. But because the mics are on the camera and there’s no input to add an external mic, they’re still inappropriate for interviews or any…

  • Considering video/still convergence and Sony’s NEX-VG10 interchangeable lens camcorder

    Back in May I wrote about the vexing mix of features in Sony’s new NEX interchangeable lens digital cameras. While visiting a big Chicagoland electronics megastore I finally got my hands on the NEX-3 and NEX-5 cameras and came away liking them more than I expected. Though I only got to play with them for…

  • The best camcorder is the one you have with you

    There’s a common idea amongst serious photographers that it’s a good idea to always have a camera on you, because you never know when you’ll see the stuff of a great picture. Seeing as how it’s often impractical to always have an SLR or other larger camera with you, many photogs adopted smaller point-and-shoot cameras…

  • Interesting new Sanyo flip-style camcorder

    Sanyo just announced a new Xacti camcorder that looks interesting due to the way it breaks from the company’s typical pistol-grip style camcorders and due to its lens. The VPC-PD2BK has a form-factor more like the Flip-style cams, but with a 3x zoom lens that looks like it came from a compact still digicam, therefore…

  • Putting the Xacti VPC-CG10 camcorder to work DIY style

    As I’ve blogged before, I’m having a blast using my Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 palm-sized HD camcorder. I’m starting to hear about other videographers who appreciate the CG10 not just for its cost, size and HD, but also for its manual control over exposure and focus. I just read a quick post at the Frugal Filmmaker…

  • What video camera should I buy?

    One of the most common questions I hear from educators looking to start producing video is one that I suspect a lot of readers have heard: “What camera should I buy?” On the surface it’s quite an innocuous query, seemingly simple to answer. Yet, bundled up in there is a very common and pernicious assumption,…

  • Sony teases me with their new, but frustrating NEX digital cameras

    Digital photography turned me into a photography enthusiast. Although I’ve been shooting video ever since I first got my hands on a black-and-white 1/2″ reel-to-reel VTR as a kid, for some reason still photography never interested me much in high school or college. But in 2001 when I got my first miniDV camcorder which also…

  • From miniDV to dSLR – Contemplating the New Era of Digital Video

    When I saw the first miniDV digital camcorders in the late 1990s I was blown away by the edit-ready broadcast-quality picture they captured on tapes half the size of an 8mm videocassette and on cameras smaller than ever seen before. Yet, I couldn’t predict that only about a decade later we’d see the ability to…

  • What I’ve Been Up To Elsewhere

    It looks like my challenge for 2010 is to see how many simultaneous writing projects I can keep up. What I’m learning so far is that the projects involving other people seem to gain my attention better than my nine-year-old blog here. Also, I enrolled in distance education certificate program that is also soaking up…