Seen in the Wild Today...
 

Although this may not be terribly exciting for some of you, I saw some guy shooting with a Panasonic AG HPX-200 today.

Bear in mind that where I live I don't often see people running around with pro (or even semi-pro) cams often, not even the local TV station guys.

Having never seen an HPX-200 up close, I was surprised at how large it is for a handheld camcorder. Quite substantial looking, too.

And where would that be??

Tuktuyuktuk, or Sudbury??

But yes, i went to the park with my children, and a guy was recording his daughter on the merry-go-round with an Sony EX-1. I mean really, home videos with pro cameras..First time i saw one for real...

Looks like people are starting to get their hands on more serious equipment..It's a far cry from where we were 5 years ago..

I took my EX1 on vacation with me. It's my work camera but I stripped it down a bit to make it less cumbersome. It was a trip to Alaska so I wanted to get good images.

London, Ontario, to be more precise.

You gotta be kidding. An EX-1 just to shoot home vids? Sheesh. The guy must be loaded. Or it could be he was simply using his work camera to capture the action. Who knows. :)

That would seem to me to be the case as well. Sites like Youtube and Vimeo have really democratized amateur video and taken it out of the 'home video' basement.

Yeah... I still get that "what in the world is the TV guy doing here" look in the church, playground, kids school performance where I happen to show up with a Z1 on a Manfrotto tripod outfitted with the original Manfrotto LANC handle and the "pro" looking (it's just the look, nothing more) Sony wireless mike receiver with two 3-inch antennas.

Hey, I know the feeling. Earlier this summer I bought a Sony FX7. Took it to a local park to test it out. Lots of people were looking at me, curious as to what I was up to. A couple of people even clowned around, as if they wanted me to tape them.

It wasn't the generally semi-pro look of the camera overall that got their attention, but the lens hood, which looks like a small matte box. It makes the lens look a lot larger than it really is.

I don't even have a particularly good tripod - a Manfrotto 700RC2 head with 190XDB legs.

I wasn't able to keep the FX7, and replaced it with a Canon HF-S100. The Canon is so small and unobtrusive-looking that people hardly notice me at all - I just look like another Joe Schmoe with a consumer camcorder.