planning buying the hv20 (canon); question

[J.K Oudshoorn]

Hello,

I'm planning to buy the Canon HV20 wich is an HD video cam.
Does anybody have expirience with this camera? And something more important.. I'm new with lightning photography, I usa a Nikon D50.. wich I'm trying to capture lightning bolts with.. (without succes).. so I want to try to capture lightning strikes with a HV20, and then cut them out of the video. Do you guys think it would also be sharp, nice pictures?

Many thanks,

Koos

 

[Donald Giuliano]

Hello,

I'm planning to buy the Canon HV20 wich is an HD video cam.
Does anybody have expirience with this camera? And something more important.. I'm new with lightning photography, I usa a Nikon D50.. wich I'm trying to capture lightning bolts with.. (without succes).. so I want to try to capture lightning strikes with a HV20, and then cut them out of the video. Do you guys think it would also be sharp, nice pictures?

Many thanks,

Koos

Koos,

I have personal experience as I used an HV20 for part of last year, and think it is a great camcorder. However, bear in mind that a friend and I are currently selling several of them (see my post in the Marketplace), so I could be biased.

For lightning photography, though, you are better off getting more experience using your DSLR for capturing lightning--there are some great tutorials on the web on how to do this. You'll occasionally get lucky with a camcorder, but the picture quality will not be anywhere close to what you can get with a DSLR.

--Don

 

[Phil Kurimski]

Doug Kiesling has a tutorial on how to photograph lightning here:

http://www.lightningboy.net/content/how-photograph-lightning

What I do...in simple terms...is tripod my camera and set it to a high shutter speed...a few seconds. Then I sit there taking picture after picture until I catch some lightning. You will have a lot of black pictures that you will later discard...but the few money shots you capture will be worth it. You can play with your ISO and aperature...however I like to keep a low ISO so my pictures stay crisp. While a higher ISO will get you pictures with more light and a faster shutter speed...you will sacrifice crispness...especially when you get to ISO 800 or higher. Good luck and keep trying! If I can get some good lightning shots...anyone can.

 

[Bill Hark]

I have also heard that the HV 20 is a good HD camcorder (for the small one chip models). I am curious if it can be connected using a firewire to a Sony HD camcorder to dub HD video or doboth camcorders have to be of the same brand?

Bill Hark

 

[Chris C Sanner]

Each video still for the HV20 is around 2 megapixels I believe...so photos wouldn't be terrible compared to the old SD ones, but compared to a DSLR they'd be ancient.

As far as the camera itself...hard to beat for the prices it is selling at now.

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

Some HV-20 Lightning stills

Last night after chasing I left my HV-20 running since there were some pretty good CGs all over the place. Video stills do not even get close to comparing with something from DSLR, but they are a lot easier to capture on camcorder. Here is one I got over Altus last night so you can see what the quality looks like off the HV-20 for some lightning at night.

I really dont like Photobuckets resizing tool, so I dont know if these are going to be the size I want or not.
[edit] I guess the photobucket resizing tool decided to work after I posted it. They still need a quicker one.

 

[Andrew McDonald]

Hey guys,

I'm also looking at buying this camera here in Australia (for the upcoming US season given that we had NOTHING here in my part of Australia this season just ending) and have been doing some reading of my own.

Michael Bath, a well known chaser amongst the Australian weather community, has done some research on his own HV20 into how it performs in capturing lightning (mostly daytime) and another chaser has put up a few images which appear more crisp than those above from night lightning. It has been difficult for these guys to do much more testing than they have due to a significant lack of storms in this area over the last 4 months but you might get something out of this thread....

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/forum/index.php?topic=657.0

Cheers,

Macca

 

[Chris C Sanner]

If you are looking at vid still quality here's another one to check out (you can see two more in my chase report on 3/2):

Overall it's not terrible still quality and really works for websites for sure...but if you want to frame images it's a no-go...

 

[J.K Oudshoorn]

Wesley,

A have a question for you, did you took those pictures while driving?

Regards,

koos

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

Wesley,

A have a question for you, did you took those pictures while driving?

Regards,

koos

I was driving going probably 65 with some light rain, so the quality is pretty good considering. After looking at the video more the picture seems to flicker sometimes during a bright flash of lightning, but every camera I have owned has done this too. Here are a few others still I pulled from during the day off the HV-20.

 

[Kai-Asle]

I own a Nikon D50

Hi, Koss

I too own a Nikon D50.

One of the reasons I bought this camera two years ago was to capture lightning in the dark. It takes some learning, and I'm by far no great photographer, and then I live in Denmark, where storms are pretty scares.

But sometimes a good storm passes, and then you just got to go and experiment with the settings.

I use the setting M, bulp, where everything is manual. Then I use iso 800-1600 and F-Stop 11-16. Just experiment a little.

I have been very pleased with the camera but are now upgrading to Nikon D80.

I have attached some photos.

Kai-Asle

My very first lightning shot from my first chase in the US in Tennessee in 2006.

Taken during the night over the ocean in Denmark

From the same occasion

Autum lightning in Denmark

That's all... for now! Going chasing this year in may.

 

[Bill Hark]

I was checking out the HV-20 and 30 at the local video store and couldn't find an infinity indicator on their manual focus. Most of the Sonys including the HDR-HC7 will show an infinity indicator when the manual focus is turned to inifinity and they stay on infinity if turned off and back on again. I believe that I am maxing the manual focus to infinity on the HV-20 but have no indication. Am a missing something. As expected, the clerk was of no help and they couldn't find the manual.

Bill Hark

 

[Brian Emfinger]

I was checking out the HV-20 and 30 at the local video store and couldn't find an infinity indicator on their manual focus. Most of the Sonys including the HDR-HC7 will show an infinity indicator when the manual focus is turned to inifinity and they stay on infinity if turned off and back on again. I believe that I am maxing the manual focus to infinity on the HV-20 but have no indication. Am a missing something. As expected, the clerk was of no help and they couldn't find the manual.

Bill Hark

To get infinity you hold down the manual focus button for 2 seconds and then the infinity symbol will replace the MF icon on the view screen. I don't think it will stay on infinity if you turn it off but i am not 100% sure....ill check later (when i check my video from today) if no one has answered by then

 

[Bill Hark]

Thanks to Brian, I tried holding the manual focus button for 2 seconds and the infinity sign does appear. If I then zoom in or out, the infinity sign is replaced by the "MF" or manual focus. The camera stays in infinity. I tried turning off the HV-20 and turning it back on with the infinity. The infinity symbol changes to "MF" and the camera remains focussed on infinity.
This works for the HV-30; however, there is another focusing mode that is toggled. If one hits the focus button and hold, the HV-30 briefly goes to another focus mode before going to infinity. This caused a slight shift in the focus to focusing on the window pane of the video store before going to infinity. I didn't have time to further investigate this but I am tempted to buy the lower priced HV-20. In a chase situation, I don't want to check the infinity and have it briefly blur. I don't see any major upgrades to the HV-30 that overrides this potential problem. I really wish there was a TRV-900 equivalent in size and performance in HD. Anybody know if I can firewire HD signal from an FX-1 to an HV-20. The cannon does have a firewire port but I have heard about HD compatability problems between different brands.

Bill Hark