On the HDR-SR12

Byrichard

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.

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High Definition Pleasure

Byrichard

I love high definition because it reminds me of those massive paintings you see in art galleries. You know the ones. It’s those that have things happening in different parts. Look to the top right and you see one set of people, look at the centre of the image and you notice something slightly different. Look to the right of there and yet another story is told.

That’s because high definition is a large canvas where everyone that appears in the shot tells a story. Look at that shot. You see Obama in the foreground and you see the faces behind. You see the family, you see the faces of those that are having a good time, those that are there because they have to be and more.

It’s also about eavesdropping in the visual sense of the word. You look at the action in the foreground but you can also look at the book shelf, you can see which titles are present. You can see the marks on the walls. You can see that person sitting, and from the facial features see whether they are tired or full of energy.

I just love high definition. I’ve been watching high definition content and I must admit that documentary is the type of content that may be the most fascinating. You see reconstructions of historical battles, background actions and it’s just a full image. If it was audio it would be high fidelity. It’s just complete.

It doesn’t require fast cutting, it doesn’t require close ups. What it does require is a process of thinking of how to provide a frame, an image, a canvas that’s interesting to look at. It’s getting closer to photography in a sense.

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Practice with the Canon XH A1

Byrichard

With a screen resolution of 1920*1080 interlaced this is one of the higher resolution cameras currently on the market at the moment. It’s beautifuly designed for camera men rather than engineers (unlike the red). I already wrote about earlier.The light wasn’t so interesting but here are 11 seconds of footage. (92 megs) Right click to save the footage as this will not behave properly in browser