Nitro Invite Victoria Tx -- Video
 

Back to my old tricks. But with a new camera. Still learning how to set this puppy up. Its a real struggle to learn quickly. The camera is a Canon XL2 professional model. Awesome lens and optics 3-ccd with native 16:9 progressive chips. 4 channel audio system etc. A real professional piece of gear. I went to San Antonio friday night to finalize my settings and get another session of practice in before going to the Invite on Sunday.

Embedded
www.promofo-racing.org/RCHQ.html

Download
www.promofo-racing.org/video/RCHQ/RCHQ.wmv

All ready for the predicted sunny day with my new settings I woke on Sunday to find it cloudy. And it stayed that way pretty much all day. Muted colors are the result but all in all I'm very pleased with the XL2 and I'm sure with a little more practice and time using the camera I'll be getting even better video. The net version really doesn't do it justice. Lots of the fine detail is removed during compression. The full 3mbps avi files are awesome.

Embedded
www.promofo-racing.org/Victoria-Teaser.html

Download
http://www.promofo-racing.org/video/...ria-Teaser.wmv

Griz

As usual.... Great stuff Griz!
The Victoria track is pure clay??? I didn't know that. Looks like Smooth tires for sure.
Keep up the good work Griz.
TEX

wow that clay looked crazy...I WIsh we had access to stuff like that up here....Awsome footage Griz...Please tell me u have more footage to post....I wnna see the full races.

Oh yea I have more
 

I think I have almost 3 hours in total. I don't film every minute of every race. My legs won't stand for that but I usually get about half of each race. There are some excellent races as well. The gas/electric truck race is a good one. And the arena truck race is excellent.

The area is small and the sound from the pa is decent in all but one spot so I'm thinking of doing an ambient sound set this time. Just a little music intro then down to the races with minimal cuts. They will be too big for youtube but no biggie.

Don't know if I'll get another one out today. I feel like going back to bed. Thats the first time I've been out for a whole day in over 3 months so I'm way out of shape for filming. And this camera is a lot heavier and bulky to handle. My arms and shoulders are still hurting from the open heart stuff so they are really sore today. I figure it will be a couple of more races before I get back to normal.

Just in time for Denver Colorado and opening day at Rat Raceway coming up next month. I'm heading back to my old stomping grounds to get some footage. The place is really decked out this year with some new and different constructions on the track. All the pit area is covered and its huge. Covered drivers stand and its a large container so there is plenty of room. Scoring monitors on each end of the pits for the pit guys. Its a sweet race track. Even an elevator to get my old tired ass to the top of the drivers stand. Well actually its for people in wheelchairs or with other disabilities that won't allow them to climb the stairs.

Of course I'll be catching some of the big races here in Tx this summer and into the fall. And as I've been doing for the past couple of months I'll be doing some motocross and full sized automobile racing. A couple of my mx vids are getting huge hit counts. The one I did of the SCCA race in Hallett Ok is doing quite well too. I had a media pass at that event so I could get really close.

Standing in the cornerworkers bunker shooting is a really awesome experience. Its scary for one thing the cars are so close. And you have to turn your back on them to get the best shots so there is danger as well. It will raise the hair on the back of your neck. Lots of awsome video to shoot. I'll be putting this Canon to good use.

Man I love the XL2 camera. Its awesome. I can't believe I have it. A couple of months ago I was dreaming about having one. I put a Kata body glove on it so its all protected from the dirt and dust of the r/c tracks. The door on this puppy has a rubber gasket to keep dust out as well. The Kata covers most of the camera but allows access to dials switches etc via pull down 'hatches' Velcro of course :) Even covers the viewfinder with a nice padded water proof black covering. Now I'm saving up for the 16x fully manual lens for the XL2. Once I get good enough at using the servo controlled semi manual 20x I'll want to step up to the full manual.

Griz

Awsome buddy..I look forward to seeing some Crazy vids this summer. :nod:

Congrats on the XL2. My buddy has had his for about 6 months and the stuff he shoots is incredible! There is a lot you can do with this cam.
Thanks for sharing your first shots with it. I tell you it will only get better! It might make it hard to want to use your old cam again. As far as I know racerxfilms.com also uses the xl2.

Arena Truck A coming up
 

Its going to take 4 hours and change to encode this beast. Its 18+ minutes. The race itself is awesome with lots of lead changes and action.

Yea I ran into the racer x guys at Lake Whitney while I was filming one of the mx races there. I didn't see their cameras but the vurbmoto guys were using Sony cams. I've had Canon still cameras in the past and they were always top notch. I've had Sony and Panasonic video cameras. And in that comparison I'd have to go with the panasonic and I almost bought a DVX-100b instead of the XL2. And I looked at several HD cameras. But for my uses the XL2 wins. Not by much but it does come out on top in my research. I think really user friendly HD is several years down the road. Problems like a single drop out on the tape costing you 15 frames on a HD camera are what steered me away for now. I'm very happy with the XL2 steep learning curve and all. Its only a matter of time until I really start getting the kind of images its capable of. I'll be good to go by the time we hit the meat of the r/c racing season here.

Griz

Hi Griz, great work as usual. Camera seems to be working awesome. The quality is first rate. Hey, wouldn't mind seeing the SCCA footage you mentioned if you have a minute to post the link.

Thanks and keep up the great work, but don't over exert yourself.

Here you go
 

www.promofo-racing.org/GreenGP.html

I need to reencode it the slo motion parts are not done correctly so they flicker. Just haven't had time yet.

Griz

Thanks Griz, that was a treat. I like SCCA racing almost as much as RC. Again, thanks a lot!

I love it
 

I love sports car racing. My biggest dream is to go to Le Mans for the 24 hour race. Cool thing is that the track has given me a permanent media pass. I can go to any number of events this year and get as close as you can possibly get to cars bikes shifter karts vintage cars and the end of the year motorcycle on and off-road event they throw. I'm hoping gas will retreat again in a month or so and I can go up again. Its a 9 hour drive so gas costs plenty. Didn't have to pay anything except 5 bucks to join SCCA for the weekend to get the insurance. And that got me a 15 dollar discount when I bought a SCCA membership. Would have been cheaper just to buy the weekend passes but hey they were the first to take a chance and let me on the field of battle so I'll support them as well.

I tried to get this up last night but my local cable company's internet connect went down. Not too uncommon out here in the sticks. Its annoying but I'd still rather have deer sleeping in my backyard and put up with a little gotcha's from time to time. Another company is coming in so they will have some competition soon. That will light a fire under them to get things fixed up. Anyways here is the Arena Truck A-Main 18+ minutes of the race and only the race.

Embedded
www.promofo-racing.org/Victoria-Arena-Truck.html

Download
http://www.promofo-racing.org/video/...rena-Truck.wmv

Griz

AWSOME races griz.....thats the kind of vid i want to see from Now on...lap by lap with the announcer right there....Good job following the leader and 2nd....awsome commentary. :nod:

When I can get a clean announcer
 

Places where I can get a clean announcer track no matter where I stand are good for this type of treatment. I'm looking at small solid state recorders I can plug into the pa but not having to match up a separate track is the best. For some reason at this place the pa was nice and clear everywhere except this one corner where you could hear it but it was muddy. I am leaning towards a format that has one vid (Teaser) with music and all that and the rest be more like this one. Its a continuous experiment always trying different stuff. One bad thing about this format is that it won't go on youtube and other video sites because its too long. And I have a lot of people that only watch on those sites. So its always a balancing act trying to give everyone what they want. And the idea behind this in the first place was to make videos to promote R/C. To do that you need to reach out and grab people that haven't been exposed to it. That takes a lot of quick action and rock music. So I always try and keep that in mind when I'm tweaking the format. I have the expert buggy race encoding now. I should have that up sometime early evening unless the net goes crazy again.

Griz

awesome vids!
Will you be putting up the expert B main or just the As?

Awsome...i Look forward to the Buggy race. :nod: