GrokSurf's San Diego

For this Friday’s morning visit I selected Del Mar at the foot of Del Mar Heights Road. The sets were mostly about waist high with a few shoulder-highs. Fair form. The waves are forecast to stick around until tomorrow and then back off for awhile.

Instead of using my camcorder, I’m seeing how well the Nikon D5000 camera does with video (also used for the still shot above). My zoom only goes to 200mm and I was some distance from the action so nothing as close as I can get with the camcorder. Editing the video I played a bit with titles and transitions and used a music track licensed under Creative Commons. From this experience I’d say the camera’s video is weak if you use high zoom and pan to follow moving objects; even with a tripod it’s shaky and jerky. Any good video on this camera probably will need to use little or no zoom, tripod only, and very little panning. It also didn’t perform well on the contrasty opening scene…the ocean on the left is completely washed out. Still, because it’s HD (720p), it’s acceptable in full-screen mode (you should also click the HD button if you go full-screen).

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