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Recently in Salon Technology

Frequently asked questions to end the millennium
Uncertainty surrounds a bug that could cause computers to confuse the year 2000 with 1900. This FAQ will do nothing to change that.
By Scott Kirsner
[12/27/99]

Saint Nick sells out
In the year of e-Christmas what would you expect?
By Joe Kelleher
[12/24/99]

Can Linux billionaires carry the free-software torch?
As dot-com mania sends shares in open-source companies soaring, the movement searches its soul.
By Andrew Leonard
[12/23/99]

Naked eye
A prudish hacker caught me surfing porn and turned the image on my monitor, and my world, upside down.
By Daniel Sieberg
[12/22/99]

The real Y2K crash
Why did stocks that skyrocketed on the promise of "silver bullet" millennium bug solutions fall back to earth?
By Mark Gimein
[12/21/99]

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Digital video looks as crisp as any TV show; it has twice the resolution of VHS or Hi-8 and it captures great color and detail, so your killer footage of the Grand Canyon is no longer reduced to the hue of warmed-over meatloaf. You pay for the quality -- camera prices haven't dropped much below $1,000 -- but the zillionth copy of your video looks just as good as the first and these cameras record CD-quality sound. Besides, you also can take digital photos, so you really are getting two cameras in one.

Also Today Decide for yourself which camera suits you best. Click below to view the video. 28.8K | 56.6K | 100K — RealVideo (Don't have the RealPlayer 7? Click here to download it free.)

Great. Once you decide on digital video, how do you choose a camera? I decided to look at a handful: Sony's DCR-TRV900 has gotten a lot of consumer press and looked good, even though it is the priciest at $2,500. The Canon Elura is an easy traveling companion with a comfortable price of $1,100. And the Panasonic PV-DV910, with its sporty retro design, reminded me of my aunt's old Super 8, and sells for $1,000. All three have a FireWire port -- a really fast way of exchanging data between digital devices -- which I considered a requirement. After all, I was looking for a long-term investment, not a quickly outdated tech toy.

Film noir is perfect for testing cameras under dramatic lighting situations with lots of shadows. So I began my research at Bruno's, a slick San Francisco joint that can cajole even a gin-hater to order a martini. I met the crew early one Saturday morning. Our mission: Get three good takes, one with each camera, and wrap production by 4 p.m., before the real martinis started flowing.

I called the film noir-inspired project "Goose, Baby" and crammed as much character development and as many plot twists as I could into a minute. I also made sure to include lots of red and white: Red tends to bleed into other colors, while white tends to glare. But shooting film noir in the 1940s must have been easier because more people smoked then; my actors weren't used to it and hacked through a couple of takes. I even had to teach them how to light a cigarette.

Next page | I wanted to love the Sony, but ...