Digital Photography

Camcorder and Video Editing Software

I used to try to edit video clips years ago when the PC wasn't fast enough nor the hard disks were large enough, but gave it up because of too much frustration. In the spring of 2007, I purchased a Sony DCR-SR200 camcorder in preparation for my trip to Tanzania in May, 2007. The two main reasons for selecting this particular model were: its compact size and the fact that it records video clips as MPEG files on a 40GB internal hard disk.

Although I was satisfied with my choice, there was one important feature that I badly missed - a viewfinder. I really found that it was not easy to keep the camera steady when zoomed in on a distant subject. Also I found that the image on the LCD screen tends to be washed out in strong sun light, making it difficult to see the scene I'm shooting. Unfortunately, most newer models are without a viewfinder, and only high-end high-definition camcorders seem to be equipped with a viewfinder. So, I just (March 2008) had a Sony HDR-SR11 delivered to me. It's the latest high-definition camcorder with 60GB of hard disk drive from Sony. This model does have a viewfinder. I plan to take this camcorder on my next trip.

Using a very old version of Adobe Premiere I owned plus a small upgrade fee, I upgraded to Adobe Premiere Pro. 2.0 in April 2007. Shortly thereafter, Adobe released Premiere Pro CS3, and I was able to upgrade to it free of charge. Being able to upgrade from a very old version of Premiere to the latest Premiere Pro CS3 for a very small fee was like moving from an outhouse to a penthouse!

I'm still learning how to use this very sophisticated and powerful tool, but I feel more comfortable - especially after viewing many tutorial videos supplied by Adobe (free of charge) as well as those by www.Lynda.com (for a small fee, of course). Premiere is so nicely integrated with other Adobe applications such as Photoshop and Encore. The wide-screen monitor I have serves me well when it comes to video editing.

This is how the left side looks:

... and this is the right side of the screen:

I produced a nice DVD of the sarafi and distributed to my friends regardless of whether they wanted it or not! It actually turned out to be very nice. It must have been the beginner's luck.

I have since produced smaller video clips from the safari in Tanzania as well as from Stonehenge (UK) and Haleakala Crater (Maui) and posted them on my website as Flash video. Unfortunately the video quality is not as good as I would like it to be, but it can't be helped because of the bandwidth limitation. If you have a broadband connection, please visit this page where you can view short video clips available on this site.