I have been asked about this. Jimmy, and those who don’t know, this is for you.
It has been about a year since I have taken on this identity. I was on a camping trip with my good friend, Wild Wolf, and we decided to go in to town and browse through the different shops as we were slightly bored. We had a fruitless jorney, except for one thing - the hat you can see me wearing in my little picture on here. On the front, all it says is Washington with an ‘embroidered’ steelhead right below it. The cashier asked if I liked fishing at all. OH HECK YEAH! Any of you who know me, know this. I love fishing. My dad taught me how to fish at a very young age and it is something I plan to teach my kids, when I eventually get married and have them. But back to the story. The cashier then proceeded to ask me where abouts I live and I said Vancouver, Washington.
Yes, I included the Washington because I have to. Now, I’m assuming that this guy knows where that is. I mean, he lives in the same state as I do, right? Apparently he missed the Washington part. He assumed Vancouver, B.C. Hmm…. He said “Yeah, you’ve probably got great fishing where you’re from, with wild trout and all. Around here all we get are little planters from the hatchery.”
I decided not to remind him of the WA part. I just agreed and let him think that I’m a Canadian… though I’m not. By about 250 miles. Walking out of the store, Wild Wolf and I were discussing what had just happened. I put my hat on. And it was at that point that I became Washington Man. He’s supposed to be superhero. I don’t know (and neither does he) what his super power is. Be looking for a random Washington Man appearance during Washington Week. The bequething of the bracelet from one of the ‘Natives.’
Hey, for those of you who have been waiting on the edge of your seats, you can check out What in the Java! Episode 7 in full HD. Why? Because we can. It’s available only as a download from lhcfishers.com (more properly, it’s off my .mac account). Check it out and let me know what you think!
Sorry about the time confusion. I always get there at 7. I guess he actually starts around 6ish. But anyway, you should come down to the Grind and check it out sometime!
I’m sure that somewhere in the world, someone is waiting on the edge of their seat to read my final review of this little piece of technological wonder. So after a couple days of playing with the camera and testing it out in different environments, I’ve come to some conclusions on how I feel after spending $130 on this device (onsale.com if you’re interested).
So, all the likes from my last post I still like. Small size, AA battery powered, better audio than my JVC, small ‘H2.64′ files for video. I’ve also decided to add a couple of likes to this list. Manual White Balance: A necessity on the JVC. And it has to be set every time a new shot is taken. It’s a pain, but if I used the Auto setting, people didn’t look natural. In fact, they looked very sickly grey in color. The DXG automatically adjusts the white balance and exposure to provide a decent, natural-looking picture. Optical Zoom: don’t use it often - don’t need it with the new camera. Which is good because it doesn’t have one.
In my last post I said the footage taken by the DXG was too grainy. It is - in lower-light conditions. But if used outside, or in well-lit environments, this is not an issue. Really. So in low-light circumstances I’ll stick with the JVC and for everything else, I’ll use the DXG. I know, I complained about a low frame-rate in my last post as well; but I really am content with a 30 fps capture rate. If I need to I can run the footage through one of the quicktime filters to get the proper ‘framebending’ so the video looks good.
Overall, I’d say that if you’re looking for a little camera to carry along on whatever sorts of trips you take, the DXG is worth the investment of $130. It’s cheap, works, and as long as you’ve got good lighting, takes beautifully clear footage at 720p.
That’s my new camera. It takes HD 720p video that converts to what the company calls H.264 (it shows up in QuickTime as AVC) on the fly. I just got it today, so give me a couple days to figure out more of how it works, what I like and what I don’t.
First Impresssions
OK. For those of you who have been waiting on the edge of your seats for me to make the jump, let me run through my first impressions real quick for you. I love the size of the camera. It fits easily in to a pocket, carrying-case and all. The unit takes two AA batteries (NiMH rechargables) which I love. They’re easy to carry around, cheap, and last quite a while. I’ve taken about 20 minutes of video already and used one bar of battery power. (!) It doesn’t have optical zoom, but then again, what am I doing that really needs that? If I need to zoom, I can film something on my JVC. The audio quality beats the JVC by far, though still leaves much to be desired (but I can’t really argue too much - it is a consumer product). I really like that each ’scene’ is a different file - so if I only wanted the third and tenth shots, I can import only those two without having to scrub through a bunch of tape in between.
What I don’t like about the camera is that the footage it takes is rather grainy - too grainy for me likey. Though you will have to give me a couple days to figure out the kinks. Right now, I actually get a much ‘clearer’ picture on my DV camcorder. I also would prefer the fps to go up to at least 48fps. However, if held still enough and panned steadily enough, the smoothness of the footage will equal or surpass that of the JVC. The footage is taken at 30 fps, which honestly should be plenty for the type of work that I do. I’m not a sports videographer.
I’m undecided as to the lack of manual white balance or ‘advanced’ focus settings. Give me a couple days here and I’ll get back to you.
