I spent a chunk of the weekend editing 30 minutes of holiday video footage down to a nice, tight 10 minutes that went down a storm with the family. And that reminded me of several experiments I've wanted to conduct with video for a while, and a few extra ones that crossed my mind while chatting with Documentally when he came to speak at RBI.
So, I pulled some experimental video I shot on my Canon EOS500D DSLR (an enthusiast level camera, available for around £500) out of Aperture, and edited it up. It was shot hand-held, with some image stabilization applied in iMovie during the editing process:
And...I'm quietly impressed by it. The quality is pretty good (as you'd expect with a decent lens on the front), and it's actually easier to handhold than some of the Flip-style cameras, because it's easy to get two hands on it. One shot near the end betrays how difficult it is to handhold at the further end of a telephoto zoom. With a tripod, you could get some really nice footage off this thing.
Room for more experimentation, I think.
There's a YouTube version after the jump, for those of you on iPads and their ilk...
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I'm actually looking to buy a D700 with a 24-70 f/2.8 lense. Trying to nab the both of them for about £2,000 used, but it's a tall order given the sporadicity of the market. Might just settle for £2.2k and get the body and glass before the summer is out. Obviously need to buy the usual accessories plus a DSLR backpack, but it's been a long time coming.
Handled a D700 in a shop local to me this morning...lovely piece of kit but quite cryptic to my uninitiated self. Hauling my antiquated arse into photographing modernity will take awhile.
It's nice that even a budget model can perform well at video - that's handy, although I've not even begun to get my head around all the bells, whistles and otherwise arcane stuff bundled in with the Nikon I'm to buy.
-Pete @ dirtygarnet.com