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Aaron Gross of Austin Art Glass made his Hi-Def debut today in a segment I produced for KEYE42’s new “We Are Austin” show. The program features some of what’s great about Austin and the people that love to keep things weird here. The segment below is from the off-air HD broadcast and includes graphics & music from the show. The video was shot with an HV20 & my coffee table leg steadicam and edited in Final Cut Pro.

it’s called the Hot Shop for a reason

here’s a d.i.y. steadicam i built for my hv20. it’s made from an old coffee table leg and pieces from a broken bird feeder

i shot some macro video test footage around my house this past weekend. the subject is my favorite, tiny insects. my video rig utilizes the highly versatile erector set rubber tire as the adapter between my hv20 and canon slr lens.

i’ll have to shoot stills next time without the 35mm lens attached for reference of scale. the black bug near the end was about a centimeter long and maybe a millimeter wide. it was pretty amazing to be able to focus in on the pits in its head.

maintaining focus was extremely difficult with this rig. because the lens is about 1/4″ away from the subject, grabbing the focus ring blocked much of the light. gently leaning on the tripod back & forth was the best way i could keep focus for many of the shots.

i’m pleased with the results. i’m hoping to find some more interesting shots this weekend to post.

here’s the original test photos taken with the Canon HV20 and my Erector set tire 35mm SLR lens adapter rig.

this is a multi-colored led

here’s a single strand of blue Patternayan needlepoint yarn

One should never be satisfied with the stock lens on a consumer camera. After reading some great websites about adding an SLR lens to the Canon HV20, I rummaged through my closet to find my old Canon Rebel 35mm SLR camera that came with a 28-80mm lens. It appeared that I could find focus with the HV20 if I kept the SLR lens within an inch or so in front of the HV20 and the subject nearly touching the SLR’s glass. Early tests produced macro shots I’ve never dreamed of doing before.

Digging in the closet once again produced an unlikely collar to fit between the two, an Erector set toy tire. The tire (labeled Meccano 11×7) grabs the Canon SLR lens threads tightly and mounts to the HV20 by merely twisting it onto the front of the camera. I’ve found that it leaves the proper gap to allow for focus with an adjustment of the zoom & focus rings on both the HV20 and the SLR lens.

The “true” lens adapter products I’ve seen range from homemade to thousands of dollars. This has got to be one of the cheapest and simplest adapters ever. It’s a pain to maintain focus with, and the tire can slip off the camera and drop the lens (adult supervision only), but it seems to work and produce some not-so-clean, but damn macro, macro video. Video test shots to come.