Dynamic Range HF S20?

[Jason Garrett]

Ok, humor me a little if you will – I’m curious if what I am seeing in this video I took on my vacation is possibly an example of a limitation with the smallish sensor of my little Canon? Around 2:45 I’m panning some mountains from inside a valley and the foreground is well exposed, but the upper parts of the mountains are seemingly overerexposed a bit. It seems as though there was some element of that present at the time naturally, but it seems a bit exaggerated in this video:

Colorado Camcorder - YouTube

I’m otherwise really pleased with the quality of the images. I have not done a great deal of recording with this camera of more scenic outdoor subjects and it captured my trip really well otherwise. Just curious if this is an example of where I might see improvement with a camera with a bigger sensor?

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Jason Garrett

Around 2:45 I’m panning some mountains from inside a valley and the foreground is well exposed, but the upper parts of the mountains are seemingly underexposed a bit.

The exposure seems reasonable though a bit overexposed in places. Consider using a polarizing filter or graduated ND filter. Also a monopod could be packed on a motorcycle and greatly steady the beautiful scenery.

[Jason Garrett]

Yeah, if you only saw my pack as it was with tent, etc. you might understand – this was a nearly two week tent camping excursion. I did haul a gorillapod along though.

I’m not complaining about my camcorder really – just curious if that might be an example of where perhaps a G 10 or other more advanced video camera might one-up it.

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Jason Garrett

Yeah, if you only saw my pack as it was with tent, etc. you might understand – this was a nearly two week tent camping excursion.

I guess your pack was already stuffed. Maybe a walking stick with a built in camera mount?

The main drawback of the HFS20 is vertical aliasing due to the 8.5MP sensor is sampled, however this sort of aliasing isn't usually noticeable in nature shots. Still, either the HFG10 or HFM400 would produce better video. For more exposure latitude you could also try using the film-style gamma setting. This produces a flat, washed out video that will need to be fine tuned during editing.