Two New Tools

My first blog in a long time; I've still kept busy (lots of cheerleading shoots in the spring, a full day of dance recitals to shoot two weeks ago), but there just haven't been any unique developments worth writing about.  Now, I have a somewhat-minor entry about two things that would impact my work in a major way.

The first is a Sony Bloggie, a handy pocket camera I got in the beginning of the year.  I initially received an Ultra HD FlipCam for Christmas, but it didn't work out of the box, even with different batteries, so I returned it.  The Bloggie is nicer, more compact, and uses internal power.  The silly name comes from some social networking features in its software, but none of that is compatible with Macs.  Still, this camera allows me to shoot the spur-of-the-moment stuff on the go, and I can drop the footage and upload it online easily.  Unfortunately, something this small doesn't allow for a lot of control that I'm used to, such as brightness and focus.  I tried using it at another band party in Pennington last night (the last such one, as all tenants will have moved out by the end of the month and will set up shop elsewhere).  The compactness came in handy for the close quarters, but being at the mercy of the poor lighting and shoddy focus for such a long time did me in, so I opted to just enjoy the show as is (it's also still a very hot area to showcase music during this time of year).  I still took some footage early on to add to my growing collection of short videos on Facebook.  The further adventures of the involved artists can be found at NefariousIndustries.com

The second thing?  A new camera for professional use: a Sony HVR-Z1U.  I bought it from a gent in Ardmore for a very good price (he has his own business in the field), and he threw in a Pelican-brand hard plastic case to use with it.  He's had it for a year, but it's in excellent condition and works a lot like my own camera.  It shoots in 1080i, so I've crossed over into the HD world after two and half years of doing camera work.  It still uses miniDV tapes as opposed to a lot of similar cameras using SD cards, with a lot of features accessible through the LCD menu.  My work should look a lot nicer now than it has before, and I've already put this camera and its wider frame to good use for my aforementioned dance recital shoot.  I'll be using it even more in the near future for a big project that was cooked up last month, but I can't talk about that for a while.  Overall, I'm feeling quite good professionally.