I am doing road inventory using the GL2. Its attached to the top of my car with a suction type device that can hold it steady.

My problem: As I travel down the street I want to read the street signs from the video. The camera is not pointed directly at the street signs, it is pointed straight ahead so I can show the entire road. However, the street signs are all blurry when I play them back on the computer (even if I do not use compression at all).

Is there some setting I can use so that the street signs are in sharper focus? I am using auto focus, and image stabilization is on. I am not familiar with f-stops, apetures, or the like. If you could give me an idea of how to set the camera, it would be appreciated!

Thank you.

Auto focus might be messing it up because you are travelling at highspeeds, even though I understand that the GL2 has an ace autofocus...

I doubt it's a focus issue at all, for one, if it's mid-day, then the aperature is probably close to closed, which creates a virtually infinite DOF, so there's really nothing AF has to do. It's probably more of a resolution issue, since the road signs are probably pretty small, and the resolution of DV in general, just isn't enough.

Try viewing it on a TV, it might look better, since DV on computer monitors looks like garbage in general.

Feel free to post a example framegrab for us to see. :D

if you are shooting in mid day and the light is good, try setting the camera on manual. put the gain up 6db so you can use a bit higher of a shutter speed. set the aperture to something reasonable like 6 and with luck you will have a fairly high shutter speed. If you shutter speed it over 1000, bring the aperture up. Try driving around while shooting with that higher shutter speed.

Set the GL2 to Frame Movie mode, that ought to do it.

Thanks, everyone!

I will try each one and let you know which works best for us.

Doug :)

Another problem might be a too low shutter speed. Try increasing
it to 1/100 or higher.

I am doing this type of shot as well...and am wondering what the best way (if any) is to protect the lens from "stray" road debris. I'll be shooting in traffic at about 40-45 mph. Any thoughts/ideas/experiences on this?????

Get a UV filter, which are basically used to protect your lens... you can get them for about $6 or whatever at BHPhoto.com

Thanks Alex. As you can see, I'm a newbie here and navigating through the learning curve! I appreciate the tip.