On the HDR-SR12

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It’s no secret that I now own an HDR SR 12. It’s a small light weight video camera that shoots in high definition at 1920x1080i but I’ve been shooting at 1440×900 most of the time. Recently I went through the streets of Nyon filming people as they enjoyed the first real day of spring.

I filmed a diversity of things. The White Castle, couples sitting by a wall drinking cans of some fluid and people walking around. There’s even footage of a guy filming a girl presenting products for something. I have no idea of their goal.

As I watched the video back on a 40″ monitor I was really happy with the results. The picture was sharp, the colours were great and you really could look around the image to see every little detail.

Recently I lent my camera to a very knowledgable friend of mine, when it comes to broadcasting and he was happy with the results too. He was telling me about watching images with XV colour, which I hadn’t paid much attention. He told me that for certain natural colours, green for example when the light was just right the saturation was really nice. He was using a Samsung screen whilst I was experimenting with Sony.

What I feel is particularly gratifying is that this, by broadcast standards, is a really cheap camera and already it delivers top rate results. Of course with progressive imaging it would be better and it does lack when subjects are back lit. I wrote about some of the drawbacks in a recent post but it’s still an excellent camera.

I have a few documentary ideas I will need to get round to filming as summer approaches. I do want to take advantage of having such a light camera.