Sorry for the break (what do you mean, you never noticed), but have been a little busy.
Had an assignment to photograph a private event. Being private, obviously I can’t tell you anything about it. But it involved businessmen jetting in from overseas, and horses; and it wasn’t nearly as risque as that sounds. Fun to be involved with, but a load of photo processing to do afterwards, so no time for trivialities such as blog posts.
Oh, and a new camera.
I have been looking out for a small waterproof camera that could shoot reasonable video for some time. Ever since I made a small windsurfing related movie which had really amusing titles and credits, but abysmal video.
The first glimmers of hope came when some smart ass invented a smaller version of high definition video, or AVCHD Lite to be precise. Very high quality video, but running at 1280x720 rather than 1900x1200. And then Panasonic used it in a small camera. And then Panasonic used it in a small, waterproof camera, and I wanted one.
Except they announced it in January, but would not produce it until March/April. Heartless bastards. So I waited, and eventually it appeared on Panasonic’s Thailand website. So I wrote to them and asked where I could buy it, because the local shops had never heard of it. I received the response:
I would like to inform you as the marketing department said this model DMC-FT1 and other model for digital still camera will be launching in April 2009 but right now he has not confirm yet so will be waiting for awhile.
In other words, it’s not available in Thailand yet.
As is often the case when I find myself in an “I want it and I can’t find it here” situation; I turn to eBay.
At 2030 on Wednesday evening I ordered the camera from a shop in Hong Kong. On Friday morning at 1100 it was in my hands, and probably at a shipped price that will be less than the shop price in Thailand if previous experience is any indication.
I tried out the video yesterday evening at dusk and it is spectacularly good. How it will work when strapped to a windsurfing boom is another matter, we will see.
Now, back to processing shots of businessmen with horses. Not for the squeamish.