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Random shit we did in slow motion. Jinen ate a lot of chips, Pank caused a ruckus... typical weekend.

These are the first real videos I've taken on the new Casio EX-FC100 that I've mentioned before. The quality is a little bit better than it looks on YouTube, especially the part with the cops-- that's in HD.

As all the other reviews mention, this camera requires a lot of light, otherwise it gets really grainy in both videos and still photos. The only reason to buy this camera is for the slow motion video capabilities, especially the 30-210 fps mode where you can transition back and forth between the two speeds. It's so easy and fun to do. Otherwise, it's much cheaper to get a point-and-shoot camera that takes better photos and regular HD videos.

The song I originally chose was Sad Song (RAC Mix)  by Au Revoir Simone (download it free here). While messing around with the AudioSwap feature on YouTube, I clicked "I'm feeling lucky..." which is supposed to randomly choose a song from the YouTube library. This is crazy, but the song it came up with was Bodies, by Drowning Pool, I'm not even kidding. The whispering intro even timed up with Jon hitting the water. I thought that was pretty funny, so I had to use the new song even though it makes the rest of the video look like we're trying to be eXTrEmE!!! It's amazing how much difference a song choice can make. Jinen's chip eating action is begging for some thugged out soundtrack.

Supposedly YouTube is in the process of switching the audio track, but right now I'm still hearing Sad Song and seeing ads to buy Bodies on Amazon and iTunes.

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via Gizmodo

I was pretty set on getting the Creative Vado HD, or the VholdR Contour HD for my new video hobby, mainly because they're both relatively portable, and have a wider angle lenses which helps keep the video look less jerky, and makes it easier for me to frame stuff when filming while snowboarding. I already think it's annoying carrying a phone and a point-and-shoot camera while snowboarding, so it's very unlikely that I'll carry even a small sized conventional camcorder.

The VholdR Contour HD sounds interesting because it's designed for how I want to use it. It's user interface is large glove compatible, and doesn't require you to look at it, which is good since it's intended to be mounted on a helmet. The downside is that it doesn't have a built in display. I can't watch something I just did to see what I did wrong until the end of the day, or possibly not until I make it back home to San Francisco.

All the while, I kept going back to the reviews of the Casio EX-F1 on Gizmodo and thinking, "wow, slow motion is so awesome... I would get that, except that it's so huge." Looks like they heard and created the Casio Exilim EX-FC100. The video quality looks better than both the Vado and Contour, which isn't surprising since it has better glass. The still shots are passable, better than my iPhone, worse than my current point-and-shoot the Ricoh GRD.

It's $305 online now, tempting... I know it's gimmicky, but after all, doesn't everything look better in slow motion?

A random video actually shot on the Casio EX-F1. It looks a lot more processed and compressed than others:

If only these cameras also had Auto-Tune (TM) built in... slow motion autotuning... mmm... viral video for sure.

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I've been using the Eye-Fi since around Sept 2008 and I've only just ran out of space on it. I don't think I've deleted anything off it before, so at this rate I'm guessing I could have shot for a few years, except that I started recording videos from snowboarding. Then again, these stats are skewed because I shot film a lot in the last year.

Honestly, uploading to my computer wirelessly isn't *that* cool, except when I have it set up to upload on the wireless network at work. It saves a copy on my computer at home, and also puts it on Photoshop online so I can edit and post them other places, like blogs an Facebook. The more interesting part is that most of my photos are geotagged, surprisingly, even in places like the beach at Monterey.

Now that I'm shooting video, I have to plug in my camera anyway to download those. I have one of the original Eye-Fi cards, not one of the new video-upload capable ones. I'm not really sure what the difference is but I suspect it's hardware. In the past, they've allowed you to upgrade new 'features', either for free, like the faster uploading, or for a fee, like the geo-tagging and hotspot service.

I've used my Eye-Fi card in both my Nikon D100 with the CF adapter and my Ricoh GRD. It's worked smoothly with both, and I never really noticed problems with decreased battery life.

http://www.eye.fi/

Here are some photos I snapped yesterday while skating around in Golden Gate Park. Yep, we're in the fountain infront of the DeYoung Museum.

         

Click here to download:

Eye-Fi_Review_-_how_many_month.zip (7871 KB)

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Surfing in slow mo shot by a $100k camera, shoots HD at 240fps, it's pretty amazing, watch it in HD.

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