Canon HV20 HD Video Camera - wow!

[AndyB]

Got this a few weeks ago and have been very impressed with the quality. Attached are Hermit Thrush and White-crowned video stills. The Ring-necked Duck and Bufflehead were also taken with the TLH43 teleconverter (1.7x). The light was just right and you can see the ring on the duck's neck. Camera comes with 10x optical zoom. No photoshop work done - all straight out of the camera. Now admittedly, all these birds were practically on the end of the lens so maybe this doesn't count...

Shoots to mini-DV tape. Tried the Sony DV camera and it was very difficult to work with the mac and the discs were a pain.

Video posted here (http://surfbirds.com/video2/view_video.php?viewkey=0610b44d9b9fed0ff954) of ducks. The white noise was incessant from the fountains so added a background music track. However punchey the track is, ducks are still a little slow.

Anyway, would be interested to know if others have used this camera or what you use for video. Thanks in advance.
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[Bobolink44]

awesome as you would say - wonder if it would be as impressive in dreary uk weather?

[Hirundo]

I have the Sony DCR-DVD108 (you mention Sony above) and it has zeiss 40x optical zoom. Did not buy it for birding but just general use and it holds up well. Have tried filming for birds and it does OK. Will post some on the video section in time. Impressed with the quality of these stills and definitely better than the Sony. I guess that's what HD does. Is the Canon true 1920 pixels across or does it upconvert?

[AndyB]

Hi Hirundo, the canon is true 1920x1080 so no upconverting going on. Shoots true HD so if you have an HD TV or monitor (apple display) it does look really good. The teleconverter doesn't lose anything either. I'll be shooting more video over coming weeks and will post the results here.

[Red-eyed Video]

I'm very impressed with those stills, are they taken as a still on the SD card or video grabs? I'd guess the former. I use a Canon XM2 (GL2) with good still photo results but the time it takes to read each shot is very slow.

Here's one of my better results;

[AndyB]

Hi Dave, great shot. My attached jpegs were video grabs and not stills. I'm not sure I could get that quality of your hummingbird with a still on a card but I might experiment. I'm enjoying the video aspect and it's quite liberating not to have to think about digiscoping and attaching a coolpix to a scope etc. Basically, I have one lens, a 1.7 teleconvertor and if the birds are close enough I use it and if not, it stays in the bag.

[AndyB]

some more shots to show what the HV20 can do with the 1.7 teleconverter - these are frame grabs from a tape.