Thread: In-Room Video - Solstice Class Ships

Originally Posted by CruiseArizona

I am very excited about my new camera. It is a little bitty thing that does HD, and will hold 12 hours of video with-out tape. Amazing!!! I think it weighs about two ounces. I will be trying the darn thing out today.

Sweet! 12 hours? Must be packed with gobs of flash memory! In HD mode, and at 30 frames per second, I usually figure a gigabyte for every 15 minutes of video. That would leave you with something like 48GB in that thing.

I hope it has good motion stabilization. Makes a huge difference in the end result unless you're just parking it on a tripod somewhere.

What make / model?

Chris, I followed you, but I am not sure Suzanne did! Suzanne, that sounds like a sweet camera. It is amazing what gobs of cheap memory will gain you these days.

Originally Posted by nealberk

Chris, I followed you, but I am not sure Suzanne did! Suzanne, that sounds like a sweet camera. It is amazing what gobs of cheap memory will gain you these days.

One thing for sure - good motion stabilization will make the difference between a Cecil B. DeMille quality product and a Blair Witch Project.

Canon VIXIA HF S11 Dual Flash Memory Camcorder

• 1920 x 1080 Full HD
• 64GB Internal Flash Memory
• SDHC Memory Card Slot
• 1/2.6" 8.59MP HD CMOS
• Genuine Canon 10x HD Video Lens
• 2.7" LCD
• 10x Optical Zoom
• Optical Stabilization
• 24p Cinema & 30p Progressive Mode
• 8MP Digital Camera

My husband picked it out for me. He says it is the latest and greatest. We spent about an hour with it hooked up to the TV today. I controlled the menu and he read what everything was in the manual. There are all kinds of custom settings and there there is also a setting for auto eveything when you just don't want to worry about stuff. I am going to try it for photography too, but it may be that I get better photos with my still cam.

We bought an external hard drive for our lap top so we can down load the videos at the end of the day. I am hoping to go through the whole trip with out having to erase.

I am big on editing my home movies, so once I'm home I'll uploade to the PC and add music and transitions and titles and everything to make a great movie.

YIKES! Hey, tell him I have a birthday coming up on November 5th, will you?

Chris,

I was pretty impressed with the darn thing yesterday.

It was really easy to use. Yesterday I tried it on many different modes, and I could not tell much difference between the quality between 30p and 60i, but could see a difference on the cinematic mode 25p. It looked like the movie Friday Night Lights, kind of. I need to experiment a bit more with it in low light situations, because that was where I always ran into trouble with my old camera. Expecially in the dining room on the cruise ships because those scenes are always dark and when I enhance them on the computer they look grainy.

I did discover that I need a new tripod. That has been one of my main complaints about my home movies is jerky pans. I tired using some WD40 on my tripod when we got home, but it just didn't make any difference in the side to side movement, it still was kind of jerky. I am thinking that I may need to invest in an expensive tripod in order to facilitate smooth panning.

Well I am off to read tripod reviews.

Originally Posted by CAnderson

YIKES! Hey, tell him I have a birthday coming up on November 5th, will you?

Mine is in February....

Seriously, you will love that camera for recording the kids' performances. And since you like to edit, it will be like paradise. What editing software are you planning on using?

For years I have used U-Lead Video Studio, and the application has now been bought by Corel so it is now Corel Video Studio. I got a demo version of the Adobe video editing software, but I just didn't want to have to relearn how to do stuff, so I stuck with my comfort zone and got the latest version of video studio.

I have some of my work posted on my cruise blog, which I can't link directly here because of bots and stuff but I can refer you to it.

Cruise Talk dot org.

I will give you an idea of what I am able to do in the editing process. Lots of cool cruise videos from over the years.

I, too, use Video-Studio. Simple to use and very good at what it does.

Originally Posted by CruiseArizona

I need to experiment a bit more with it in low light situations, because that was where I always ran into trouble with my old camera. Expecially in the dining room on the cruise ships because those scenes are always dark and when I enhance them on the computer they look grainy.

I will be interested to see what you think of your new camera in that regard. Your new camera uses CMOS sensor technology instead of CCD. The former is by nature a bit noisier, and that shows up mostly in low light settings, but they have done a LOT to "map out" the noise on these over the years. If your old camera was CCD, I'll be curious to know what you think of the difference in low light.

I did discover that I need a new tripod. That has been one of my main complaints about my home movies is jerky pans. I tired using some WD40 on my tripod when we got home, but it just didn't make any difference in the side to side movement, it still was kind of jerky. I am thinking that I may need to invest in an expensive tripod in order to facilitate smooth panning.

I've never been entirely happy with ANY of the lighter weight tripods I've used, so it's a big trade-off in a lot of cases. It's hard to get something that is truly rigid and stable and light enough to haul on a cruise all at the same time. But I'm sure you can find something lighter that doesn't have 'hitches' in the pan. My el-cheapo lightweight tripod has similar pan problems, but I use it only for still low light / night shots now so it doesn't cause me any grief. If I were doing video with it, I'd be in the same boat you're in. The only thing that helped mine when I did try to use it for video was the addition of a teflon washer between the mount and the post. Fortunately, I had access to a lot of hardware at work and found something that more or less fit. Still wasn't great, though.