Hdr-hc9 Videos

This was taken during the "Gothic Garden" shoot. While I was walking around the gardens I came upon this little fellow. I decided that the gloomy black and white near-infrared look wasn't right for the turtle so I quickly took the tape out of the "hacked" HDR-HC9, put it into a normal HC9 and shot the clip in color. Cast: FatherOfTears

This short film continues my series filmed during my Alaskan holiday in June/July 2008. This clip shows our journey from Fairbanks, AK almost to Prudhoe Bay and the north slope oil fields. In particular some of the more rustic and remote parts of Alaska can be seen in this movie. The Dalton Highway was originally built along the route of the Trans-Alaskan Oil Pipeline, which is regularly seen along the trip. The film was shot with a Sony HDR-HC9 HD Camcorder and was compiled using Adobe Premiere CS3. Cast: Grant VK5GR

This is an excerpt from a video shoot done at Harriman State Park in New York State. This was done along the park's Stony Brook. No, that is NOT a black dog seen in the background near the beginning and the end of the clip! Cast: FatherOfTears

The idea came from simple thing. I was enjoying my life with a cup of coffee and cigarettes, when a black ant bite me. So, I take my cam and going to 'visit' their playground, just curious to know how their 'social' life. Sony HDR-HC9 Raynox MSN-505 Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 Cast: Darwin Blackfire

Wednesday afternoon, take a break for a while after daily routine. Take my cam and go to shoot something. And here the result. For note, all main objects/subjects are really small, none of them are more than 5mm lenght/width. Leaves of plants are approx. 2mm. Fly and Ant approx.3-5mm. Sony HDR-HC9 Raynox MSN-505 No Color Correction Cast: Darwin Blackfire

For the past few weeks I've been videotaping these Rhododendrons that are in my parent's backyard to show them getting ready to bloom. They bloom and "peak" around Memorial Day. The day before that holiday I decided to tape them when a mild thunderstorm passed by. It was taped on my undoctored Sony HDR-HC9. All the footage, sans the first 30 seconds, were taped durring and after the storm. All sounds were recorded as the storm went on with no added effects. Asides from fades and dissolves only minor gain and audio noise reductions were used in a few segments. No other video image edits done. The white balance was switched, in camera, to "outdoor" for the rain and end segments to warm up the image a tad. Cast: FatherOfTears

Some more HD nature footage from Harriman State Park and the Ramapo Reservation............with a twist. The first segment of Harriman's Stony Brook is in normal black and white while the last segment of the Ramapo River is in the usual black and white infrared. While those two parts have on location sounds the middle segment is recorded silent and the audio that is heard is made by me using feedback created from hooking up a Sony DCR-HC52, in record mode, to a Samsung DVD/VCR recorder set to DVD mode. By holding the camcorder at various distances from my hi-fi system an echoing feedback can be produced. Since the camcorder acts like a microphone picking up ANY sound made in the room, I used it to record the feedback, my fingers tapping the camcorder, my footsteps and the sound of water dripping in a pot full of water. The DIY sounds were recorded and edited on minidisc. It was then recorded on a CD recorder and the CD's sounds were loaded into my PC. The sounds were then "dropped" into the audio track of the silent clips during editing. Cast: FatherOfTears

OK, since that last clip I did with the added sound effects was a disaster (it will show up again this week with improvements) here is a clip from the same video shoot. Here, like that failed clip, I used a different IR filter that I got from MaxMax.com called an X-Nite XDP filter. This one is a bit sharper than the usual BW 092 and 093 filter that I've used before. Note: Past shoots were done with the camera set to black and white mode. Now I leave it in color and I make corrections while editing. The BW filters have a purple cast but the XDP has this deep red color that I liked. For this test I have the scene done both correted for black and white and one left alone color wise with some minor contrast and saturation adjustments. Cast: FatherOfTears

In June 2008 my wife and I were fortunate enough to take a 2 week tour of Alaska. Part of our journey included a land tour from Anchorage to Denali by rail. Once there we undertook a scenic flight around Mt McKinley (known to the locals as Denali), as well as doing the bus tour through the park for some wildlife spotting. We were very fortunate with the weather and got to see both the mountain, and the wildlife, including a number of Grizzly Bears! On the technical side, shooting the wildlife in HD when they were a very long distance off (beyond the optical zoom of the camera even with the telephoto lens) meant that in post production, I was able to digitally zoom in and still get reasonable quality on some of the long distant animal shots. Coupled with the Mercali stabilisation plugin for Premiere CS3 it resolved the hand-held footage into something fairly watchable I feel. I am interested to hear other peoples opinions on this, particularly some of the bear shots. Cast: Grant VK5GR

More footage from the Ramapo Reservation. Recorded in both black and white infrared and normal black and white. We begin near the front entrance where we see a Sycamore tree then we have two views of the Ramapo River. The first view was taken on a windy day with howling winds while the second was on a more calm day. The next sequences follow the "Waterfall Trail" first in normal black and white and then after the waterfall shots we are back in infrared. We end at the McMillan Reservoir. Cast: FatherOfTears

Some infrared footage taken 6 weeks ago at the Ramapo Reservation just south of New Jersey's Ramapo College in Mahwah. The images are of Scarlet Oak Pond and the Ramapo River. Some included segments were once here before but were deleted do to soft and unsharp images c/o a defective i.Link on the camcorder. Here they are again. I also included part of the reflection video that's here as it was part of this shooting and it now has better image quality. All sounds are from the location with no added edits. Only edits are for contrast, minor noise reduction and fades. Cast: FatherOfTears

A short clip taken at New York State's Harriman State Park. The first scene is taken along the White Trail looking at a meadow while peering through some trees. The second scene is of a glacier formed rock formation seen along the Blue Trail. Both scenes are taped with a Sony HDR-HC9 camcorder modified to see infrared. A BW 093 filter was used over the lens. The black and white setting was done in the camcorder. Contrast adjusted in Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate. Cast: FatherOfTears

More scenes from a recent hike at New York State's Harriman State Park. Each scene starts in color then it fades to normal black and white and then black and white infrared. Two Sony HDR-HC9's were used for this. One is normal, used for the color and normal black and white while the other HC9 was modified to see infrared. A BW 093 filter was used for the IR images. I did try to keep the two cameras lined up so the fades would work though that fungus covered log sequence is a bit off. {Still learning} The last infrared image is extended to show how windy it became. Note that the tripod mounted camera shakes in the gusty wind! Cast: FatherOfTears

It is snowing in Western Canada along with bitter cold, -40c with the wind chill. Still Cindy and I go out to try our new HDR-HC9 handy-cam camcorder. Some software compatibility issues to work out. Author: JCVdude Keywords: Sony HDR-HC9 handy-cam camcorder Christmas lights snow snowing Kelowna BC tourism travel tree decorations Added: December 14, 2008