with the battery on my mini-dv camera only lasting about 20 minutes now, and with a baby on the way, i decided to replace my camera with the sony mhs-cm1. I’ve always liked making small little movie clips of us wakeboarding or just goofing around, but the process of uploading the video to my computer from mini-dv is always time consuming and kinda complicated. The video was also pretty low resolution to begin with and by the time it made it to youtube, it never looked very good.

so i got a got a great deal on the newly released CM1. i’m not sure why they market it as a “webbie” camera, because it does 1080p/720p. i mean it is cheap, and i’ve already noticed it’s short comings in the small amount of time i’ve used it, but for the price (retails for $199), i’m still impressed and pleased.

so here are some things i like about it. first of all, it’s small. it’s not much bigger than the point and shoot digital cameras that most people are carrying around. it’s also very fast. as soon as you flip open the screen the camera turns on and is ready to go. it’s all flash media (stupid sony proprietary memory stick) so there’s no tape or dvd to cue up. the form factor and controls feel good, and it feels pretty solid for something so inexpensive. the video quality is good, particularly for the amount of data they’re able to get at that resolution. at 720p and 30fps you get 2 hours of video on a 4gb memory stick.

but this is a $200 HD video camera, so sony had to make compromises somewhere. the main problem is that the focusing is slow. it might have had to do with the fact that most of the video i’ve tried shooting so far has been in doors in low light. when i pan around the room, you can see it focus once you stop. it takes less than a second but i notice it. this isn’t a deal breaker for me, but it’s a bit annoying. i’ll have to play with the settings and try it in other conditions to see what the deal is. taking an annoying cue from apple, the battery is entirely internal, and seems pretty unserviceable, so it means no matter what, i can only get 90mins of recording time in per use (making anything larger than a 4gb memory stick kinda pointless), and eventually the battery will die and this thing will get tossed. i don’t usually keep electronics like this for more than a few years but i always like to imagine that i will.

i made this cool video yesterday that i was going to upload, where i put the camera on the rear deck of my car, looking out my front window and also my speedometer and shifting, and while it was sweet, i realized it showed me exceeding speed limits, so i thought better of uploading it. i’ll find something to shoot and upload soon.

2 comments

one of taka’s friends from her home town of fukuoka (the city in japan where we got married last year) went to get her film developed and noticed that apparently there is now a montage of our wedding photos blown up and on display *on* the shop’s wall window. giggity giggity!

her friend only took a small camera phone pic (you’d think those japanese would have more advanced camera phones that could take a better/larger pic?), but said she’d go back with a real camera and take pics of the entire display. i’ll upload them to my flickr when i get them.

i guess we’re just that good looking, and now famous yo!

No comments

on sunday the wind was nuts here in long beach. there were parts of trees and trash flying all over the place. while we were out running errands we saw a large tree that fell on a car just a few blocks away from our apartment. sucks for that guy.

3 comments

i shipped my camera out on tuesday evening, and today i received this email:

We have received your equipment for evaluation and repair. Based on our initial examination, we will start the necessary repairs at no charge to you. You can expect the repair to be completed and returned back to you within approximately 7 business days* from the date shown above. There is no need to respond to this notice.

thank goodness for honest and fair companies like canon. a bright-red pixel, especially as centered as it was on my camera, really defeats the point of having a high quality camera and expensive lenses. i also appreciate the fact that there was no complaints or questions on their part, and that they are keeping me updated on the situation. so a big thumbsup to canon. i hope i’m not speaking too soon!

No comments

when i was shooting those moon pictures the other night, i noticed a red pixel against the black sky in the pics when i zoomed in, and came to learn that it was a “hot pixel”, or a pixel that’s always red on the ccd. i had never noticed it before, because it blended in well enough on pictures with normal lighting.

since i’ve had my camera for less than a year, canon said that they’d repair it for free under the warranty, although i have to pay shipping there. luckily the service center is in irvine, so shipping is only going to be a few bucks, and hopefully they’ll get it back to me quickly.

the way to check to see if your dslr has any hot pixels, is to take a photo with the lens cap on with a long-ish exposure, and then carefully look at the black image for any colored spots.

7 comments

there was an awesome full moon out tonite, so i pulled out the dslr and snapped a few pics. thanks to eric for explaining to me the adjustments that i needed. this is with my digital rebel xt with a 300mm lens and no tripod:

Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 300 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0/2 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

there’s a few different ones on my flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kentomatic

No comments

In parking that is:

it’s insane how much detailed information there is in an image file which is displayed on flickr. aside from knowing all the properties of the image, it even has the serial number of my camera!

2 comments

that www.brightroom.com service is getting pretty quick. less than a week and they have our photos sorted and online!

this is the second mile of the infamous el tigre hill.

No comments

here are some of the pics from mike’s camera

the riders:

tron-taka:

who wants a beer?

here are all of mike’s photos:
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p…5557/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

No comments

found this on digg… kinda funny and gross.

http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7649

1 comment