Tokyo Footage - Part II
 

A couple of days ago I posted a link to some footage taken in Shinjuku (Tokyo). Glen Kim suggested I get over to Shinjuku Gyoen to get some footage of the cherry blossoms as they are now in full bloom (good idea, Glen!).

Well, someone told me that the place would be closed by the time I got off work but I heard about another place that, according to my source, was even better.

When I got there, I thought I'd made a wrong turn and ended up at Disneyland -- the line was looooong. But I persevered and finally got to the entrance. It was along a river and very narrow and people were packed in like sardines. I didn't think there would be enough space to set up my tripod.

Japanese people really take their cherry blossom viewing seriously!

Across the street was Yasukuni and it looked like something was going on over there so I decided to check it out. Turned out to be a mini-festival that one might compare to a county fair in the U.S.

I managed to get a little footage there before it started to rain. No matter, I can only upload about a minute's worth of HD video anyway, so here it is:

http://rapidshare.com/files/23992389...uku_2.wmv.html

This was taken with the HV20 and this time I encoded it a bit differently and it didn't come out "squished" like before.

I know I started out shooting in the "night" mode and I can't recall right now if I changed it. It does appear the shutter speed needs to be increased to avoid the blurring. That may sound elementary to most people but I've never shot before in anything other than full auto! This camera is going to make me change my ways.

Theoretically, you need a 3.0 gHz machine to view this video in WMV. Mine's 2.8 gHz and it plays just fine.

PS - I love this friggin' camera!

wow, wes. those clips are fantastic.

seeing this camera at work in a softly lit environment really shows off what its capable of. its nice to see that the transition between the bright window and the shadowy interior is smooth and without a harsh digital fringing.. plus the interior shadows still contain a nice amount of detail without everything else being too blown out. nice dynamic range i must say.

not to mention the detail is excellent. that cat's fur.. so soft..

Thanks Eric! The color, image detail, manual controls continue to impress me. The dynamic range is better than what I'm used to with my old Sony DV camera so I'm happy with that as well.

ggrrr! I"m so jealous. Really sick of being the last at everything here down under. really wish companies would stop reaming us (both in price and release dates) when it comes to new releases. ARGH!

I... WANT ONE!

:)

Thanks for the samples! Gosh i'm getting really angry at company's atm. Sick of getting shafted here in Australia. We're the last to get anything and we pay extreme dollar for that privelage! :(

Still not on Canon's AU website. *sigh*

Two more HV20 clips + more frame grabs
 

Nothing fantastic or limit pushing. Preview images of the clips are here, the stove and cat clips are new.

http://www.filefactory.com/file/357866/

http://www.filefactory.com/file/3d100b/

Some new frame grabs and digital stills here...
Flickr gallery

Alright, finally got the clip after jumping thru several hoops at filefactory (guess that's the price we pay for free hosting)...

The HV20 sure produces a nice clean crisp image. Nice stuff.

&

The photos (especially the Cat) are simpy amazing!

Hey Daymon,

Lot of Aussies over here. Know any who could send you one? The box really isn't all the big.

OTOH, it might be worth the wait since you'll be getting the PAL version -- lucky you!

I remember when folks were complaining in the U.S. that Panasonic was holding back all the good stuff. Some "interesting" theories started floating around.

Anyway, I don't think you'll have too long to wait and I believe you will be very happy with this camera.

Oh, and you have Rode just next door. I'm going to have to jump through some hoops to get my Video Mic.

Happy shooting :)

Thanks Wes. Keep up the great work!!!

HV20: Ducks and flowers
 

Here's a short clip of a couple of ducks and some flowers.

Miserable day though...

http://www.morecowbellpictures.com/downloads/duck.avi

100MB file.

Mike

The subject matter is really good in those shots! The "hawker stalls" in Japan are very colorful and allow for a wide range of colors when shooting. (The food also looked really good!;)) What settings did you use btw?

Yes, the video was somewhat "squished" but that is very easily fixed when playing back with VLC player.

I think the unfortunate thing is that since the weather has been so cloudy, you couldn't capture the cherry blossoms in full daylight. Perhaps some HV20 owners in Washington D.C. could get some video??? :)

What codec was used for this? It's an AVI file but it doesn't appear to be DV. AVIcodec doesn't know what codec was used. It reports 4CC as "CFHD" but says "Unknown" for the codec name.

Good luck.

Dennis

Glen,

Thanks for your comments. My town has quite a few cherry trees and there are still a lot of blossoms although I think they're a little past their prime and a lot have blown to the ground. Still, if it's decent tomorrow, I may try to get some footage of the what's left. If not, we may indeed have to rely on an HV20 owner in Washington, DC :)

The Shinjuku footage came out squished but the food stall footage was okay. I think I put the original footage into Vegas incorrectly. Not to toot my own horn, but I thought those colors were great. Actually, it was all the camera's doing since I just had it set on Night mode.

Tomorrow I'd like to really get into the manual settings and even try out the 24p. I think I need to up the shutter speed because I am getting too much blur.

It does seem to me that these high def, 16:9 cameras need a tripod or at least a monopod. A little moving around doesn't seem too bad in standard def 4:3 but these cams show everything. I wonder if Average Joe Shooter is going to be happy about this?

Pretty sure it's cineform.

Besides footage of Laguna Beach shot with HV20 that I've seen, I like yours the best. My HV20 arrives today and I can't wait to put it through the motions.....