Canon HV30: Hand-Held Footage & Magic Bullet Looks Test

Went out this morning on an unplanned, random shoot. No plan in mind, just out shooting willy-nilly, and unfortunately the clips show it. Thought I’d try my ability to shoot hand-held, assuming that the built-in “image stabilization” feature would compensate for my jitters. WRONG! To my utter shock, things did not go so well and the majority of the 30 clips/25+ minutes of footage I shot is JUNK, useful only for editing practice. Needless to say, I am not pleased. What the heck was I thinking? I guess I was hoping for magic.

Once I’ve finished editing everything, I will update this post to include the video I was able to make. In the meantime, I was playing around with Magic Bullet (courtesy of the generous people a Red Giant Software) before I wrote this post and did a color enhancement of one of the more decent clips, using one of the presets. Here is the result.

Not only are the manual pans and tilts horrible, but it’s nearly impossible to zoom smoothly while shooting hand-held, particularly zoom-outs. I was also supposed to test my new wide-angle lens, but thanks to the cop that was about to harass me in the strip mall, I completely forgot all about it.

This hand-held shooting business is, as my grandma used to say, more than a notion. I really don’t understand how some people manage to do it so smoothly. I’m going to do my best to edit the few half-way-decent clips I managed to get into something bearable to view, but again, my editing skills are limited. And considering the sucky footage I have to work with, it will probably take a professional editor to make it look good. But hey, I’m still learning and this is only practice — which I need MUCH more of.

This is a great product and I love the limitless color enhancement possibilities that Looks offers, but I was shocked and amazed at the EXTREMELY long rendering time. The above clip is 1 min. 14 sec. long; the rendering time was 17 minutes. That’s compared to the last video I made, which was 4 min. 12 sec. and only took about 9 minutes to render. I’m sorry, but I think that’s ridiculous. That being the case, I will definitely use MB Looks sparingly and when I do use it for a full video, I will have to set it to render before I go to bed.

Well, at least I did get out and shoot something, otherwise, I’ll never get the hang of it. And I do feel a bit more comfortable with the camera, though I am still quite nervous with it. Oh well, perhaps next time will be better.

The good news is that I was able to resist buying the triple vente hazelnut latte (650+ calories) that I usually have when I’m near a Starbucks. Hopefully, this afternoon’s yoga session will be more rewarding.

Wishing everyone a lovely Sunday and great week.