The New Camcorder

And the winner is….

I went with the HV30, the front-runner of my little contest. The DV Shop had the best price I’ve seen (and I’ve bought a lot of stuff from them in the past and I like the store).

I would have shot an unboxing video… if I’d had anything to shoot with. I got the camcorder home, unpacked it (everything that was supposed to be in the box was, happily, there), installed the battery, and left it to charge overnight.

The HV30 battery is a different beast than the Ultura’s battery, so I won’t be able to carry over the old batteries, which still provide me with many hours of power after nearly 9 years of use. When I buy extra batteries for the HV30, I hope they last as long as the Ultura's did!

On the other hand, the HV30’s 43mm lens threading allows me to carry over a few things. My 46mm Canon wide-angle and telephoto lenses will fit on the HV30 once I get the proper 43/46 stepping ring (I’d been using a 27.5/46 stepping ring for the Ultura). And I’ll still be able to use Cokin filters, once I replace the filter-holder ring with a 43mm ring, so I'll be able to use my circular polarizer (the HV30 has neutral density filters built in, but I can add extras as needed).

After setting the date, time, and time zone (all the North American zones represented by American cities, so my HV30 thinks it’s in New York!), I set out to test it. I was looking for something with a lot of movement to better compare 24p, 30p, and the 1080i modes, so I went over to Yonge Street and shot from Beltline bridge overlooking the subway and Yonge.

I brought the manual to figure out where settings were hidden in menus to get started, but the camera is well designed, and I had no problems figuring how to operate it after reading the manual, particularly the menu items listings.

The manual warned about mixing formats on the same tape, so I put gaps on the tape between the different shots. I let the camera roll during the red light on Yonge so I could get a consistent shot for each to compare, and the subway added movement on the other side of the screen at random moments.

I kept the HV30 in the cine-look recording program for all the shots, as well as the daylight white balance setting (for sunny outdoor shooting), just to make comparing the different formats more scientific. I’ll play with exposure, shutter speed, and other settings in a future outing.

After about a half hour, I’d shot footage in the 24p, 30p, and 1080i HDV formats, and I also shot some standard definition 60i DV as well.

Next time: the first capture.