Flashes of Chaos

So I've been thinking about some of the many ways that mobile video and small portable capture and display could be used in new ways. The mere fact that with almost any smartphone you can watch and deliver streaming video is in itself revolutionary, but I'm surprised that I haven't seen more videos displayed in a 'vertical' aspect ratio. Granted, most subjects lend themselves to a horizontal, 16:9 or even 4:3 ratio, but haven't you ever been shooting something and felt the impulse to just flip the camera (or cameraphone) 90 degrees to fill the frame better? Of course, if the primary distribution method for such a video were a mobile device, then this would be a non-issue for the viewer, who would simply flip their phone the 90 degrees to correct this. I think that if youtube and other video sharing sites were to implement a 'vertical' option for displaying videos, then it would encourage people to feel comfortable shooting and displaying such video. It s

Panasonic's HVX-200 was one of the most anticipated 'prosumer' cameras on the market, and oh boy did it deliver. It has managed to remain a favorite in the face of new HD codec technologies coming out in recent years, like AVCHD and other flavours of MPEG-4. While it's not without its share of drawbacks and limitations, I still love it, and here are my top five reasons for doing so: 5) An enormous user base go onto sites like creativecow.net or DVXUser.com and I guarantee that one search in their forums (if it's a well-guided search) will yeild answers to whatever issues you're having with the camera. By this point, the list of questions that other users have dealt with is beyond exhaustive. If by chance you have a question about the HVX that is not covered in a previous topic, post your question in one of these forums and it will likely be answered within the hour. My point is that with thousands and thousands of users, most of whom are more than willing to s

I arrived at work today to find half of the staff still out on their christmas breaks. At the company I work for, this means there is a total of 8 people in the building. I eeked through the day on a steady diet of menial tasks and occasional dips into the world of twitter and the links which I was thusly extended to. my favorite video of the day: Slow Motion Punches to The Face from Eduardo Wydler on Vimeo .

I went to Saint Helena the other day and shot this video while passing by the vines. I was trying out the shutter speed on the HDC-SD5 that I got recently. I think it was set at 1/8000 shutter. I didn't realize how much gain the camera would pump into the image in order to bring it up to exposure, so the image suffered quite a bit. Still kinda cool though. Vines from Dridge on Vimeo .

Here's a song by Local singer Mary Stallings, an amazing performer, accompanied on piano by Alan Stegar. Mary Stallings/ Alan Stegar track 4 from Dridge on Vimeo .

I've been getting parts for my DOF adapter and have been viewing a lot of tests that others have posted on sites like vimeo. Here are a few of my favorites: DOF adapter test 2 from Roland Cadieux on Vimeo . sunny road (DOF Adapter) from M A Welker on Vimeo .

La Raza brutalized me today, but I was able to walk away from it with a few good putts and a huge birdie. Too bad I shot a triple bogey on the following hole. Here's some footage I shot: La Raza 120808 from Dridge on Vimeo .

How many gigs of RAM does it take to get into the inner circle of those who can process and edit Pro Res 422 HQ at full frame rate? if you understand that sentence, then you have probably been as frustrated as I over computer editing systems and their constant upgrading and the tag team that they seem to play with video codecs. I need a big mac octo-tower to edit some of the stuff I'm getting into, but I've still only got this 2GHz, 2 GB macbook pro and, though I love it, it stutters constantly. Who wants to donate to the cause?