Amazing videos shot with consumer grade HD video cameras

Andrew Heart of Panopticist says:

Amateurs are doing amazing things these days with consumer-grade high-def camcorders, especially Canon's HV30 MiniDV unit (which retails for about $800) and its predecessor, the HV20. [This] impressive clip is the work of a Memphis college student named Kyle Shields, who acquired a new audio library and wanted to test out some of the gunshot sounds.
There's a whole channel on Vimeo devoted to people's experiments with Canon's HV30 and HV20 camcorders.

I like this one. You keep expecting it to be a commercial for insurance or some kind of medicine, but it's a guy trying out his camera techniques on his annoyed wife, who just wants to be left in peace so she can go through the coupons in the Sunday paper. Link

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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keithk

The kid with the AR is one poor marksman.
gwizah

He was trained by the Empire. Leave him alone!
anechoic

I recently bought a Canon HF-10 which does 24 and 1080i HD. The camera is flash based so there is no tape and while the video is AVCHD you can edit it on the latest iMovie and FCP if you happen to be on the Mac side of things.
VideoCity

It’s nice to know that he used all that technical knowledge and ambition to produce absolute crap.
atomx

Wow. They learned how to use Riot Gear (google it). Congrats.
Antinous

@ Haters,

If you thought that it was crap, why did you watch it? I thought that the kids with guns one was amazing. I’m pretty sure that they were battling over the ethics of having a lawn.
kirakira

Man. Clipping coupons while your man tests out his pricy new toy… I detect a joke here.
Joel Johnson

I have the HV20. I need to learn how to get better results!
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Videocity, was that all you could think of to say?
cherry shiva

i don’t care how good it looks. another frakkin’ teenage gunfight. click.
Chris L

I don’t own ANY cameras, Joel, but from what I can tell, the neatest results are coming from setting the camera to 24p or some kind of cinema mode and then doing color correction with Magic Bullet Looks from Red Giant Software.
steauengeglase

A friend and I had talked about making a little short with airsoft guns and adding muzzle flashes with photoshop a few years ago. We have been beaten by suburban 13 year olds. Sad day. :(
Brian Boyko

I have two HV20s.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s an amazing camera. But by no means should you expect this kind of quality video from it, out of the box, with the $800 price tag.

The HV20 footage above was shot with a 35mm adapter – basically, a way to mount a pro movie camera lens onto the consumer camera. These adapters – with lens – usually cost about, oh, anywhere from $1000-2000 dollars, and they require additional light (which is not always an option for filmmakers shooting cinema verite footage.)

While the HV20/30 is a great camera, you just can’t get results like this out-of-the-box.
Guthrie Thomas

ok hi im guthrie from the video and no we are not (13) lol im 19 and so is he so… ya .. any way ty all for your comments on the video and i any of you have any ideas you would like to share feel free.. my e-mail .. deathwillnotdi@hotmail.com … please if you do please add a sub. or ill just mark as spam . once again ty all this realy made are day!! P.S. I realy can shoot iv been shooting for about 16 years going on 17 year… i love guns and im sorry if you thing thats bad …. ty
ameliamade

Great- now we can all make plot-less violence driven movies.
Jeff

@ Haters,

If you thought that it was crap, why did you watch it?

Antinous, calling something “crap” may not be the most profound of reviews, but it expresses his feelings, his own simple opinion. His crap is no more profound a statement than “haters” is. I love BoingBoing. I love Glass Houses.
Nores

Middle class parental hysteria in 3… 2…
anthropomorphictoast

Amen, commenter #11.

Still, with the potential of that camera setup and a fertile imagination, I think those guys could pull some pretty damn awesome Evil Dead type stuff.
Heck, even that coupon-clipping one had me riveted to see what would happen next.
Bledsoefilms

For what it’s worth, picture quality can’t make a movie good. Think more about whats going on in front of the camera then whats going on inside it….

Cheers

Derek
Segment Producer, BBtv
Evil Jim

I dunno. I wouldn’t quite call Inland Empire amazing.
youdiejoe

Vimeo has a TREASURY of HD video, much of it that you can download and watch on your home theater PC, or AppleTV, TiVo S3. Check out:

http://www.vimeo.com/hd

And while you are there you can check out my HD Macro Vids:

http://www.vimeo.com/youdiejoe/videos
Thiago

Amazing video, but very crappy shooting.
Thebes

I have an HV20 and a cheap (static, NEEDS to be dustfree) adapter which uses old Nikon lenses. The adapter and a lens cost only about 200 bucks and does a decent job if you only use fast lenses and use them fast.

You definitely want at least 4 times as much light while using a fast lens and a DOF adapter though.
redbull_uk

Excellent channel on Vimeo. Bizarrely, I hadn’t come across it before. Definitely going to add a link from my site http://www.hv30.c.k
I’m keeping an eye on the best prices for the HV30 in the UK
Editz

The cheesy moving titles kind of ruin it.
minamisan

i’m more interested to know how they made that without attracting a SWAT team.
snackcake

those kids are spoiled…

I am SO jealous right now.
phillamb168

So, in all seriousness, would anyone recommend getting this, or an HV100? I had no idea they had become so cheap.