Watched it again after a restart on my comp. That looks really good. I am so impressed. You are doing really well. You made some great moves without any swing at all. Great job! I have to get my butt in gear. This motivates me to practice some more.
And I agree with what you said. You should not expect this to work perfect right out of the box. The "cookbook" recipes Tiffen provides are merely a good starting point. But there is no magic formula that will work for everyone. My mentors always told me, "Practice makes Permanent."

I am impressed as how you have been improving with the Merlin. I hope to get one soon. Anyway, what did you do to get the movie to look so clear and sharp here on Vimeo? It is outstandingly sharp. Are you editing with Vegas? What settings did you use? thanks Roger

Well Done Rico!
This is definitely much better!
Loved the up and down movements and the smooth 360º pans :)

You're getting good at this!
Much improvement from your walk in the park vid.
Loved the smooth pans.
Congrats.

I also used Vegas on mine and don't think it was as clear as yours. I also followed Eugenia's tutorial. It is very helpful. For some reason I thought yours was more clear then mine. I shoot with a Canon HG10 and a Sony HC1. Both are excellent camcorders.

Rico - NICE - love the jumping. (smile)
Bout shutterspeed - clearly I do not know the answer, but I am wondering if not a longer shutter speed might actually "pleasantly" affect the image with motion in that it will get a bit of motion blur rather than a series of very hard images in the motion.? Guess what I am wondering if what would happen if you instead slowed the shutter...?

Hmm. yeah - this is kind of puzzling.. on m SD1 one can select a night-shot mode where there is some great slow-shutter streaking going on... hmm I am going to have to try this tonight... but at the same time, Im pretty sure the camera is locked to record 25 frames per seconds, its not like under-cranking a film camera and letting it go slower. I wonder how they offer that 1/12th shutter. (smile) - this must be one of the very simple questions which have already been answered by all great cameramen in Hollywood.

interesting - did a search- and the answer seems to be that while shorter shutter speeds keeps the image sharper because it reduces motion blur - however motion blur ties the frames together better and reduces the feeling of stuttering a bit.
mediacollege.com/video/camera/shutter/

Nice, much better than your first one. The HD WMV looks really great.

I took photography and have worked professionally as a videographer so I can take a guess at what is going on here. The shutter speed is what dictates when and how much light spills onto your image sensor (your sensor is a really fast painter). The light is the artists glimpse of what to paint on the canvas (your HDV tape). When the shutter speed is rather low and your camera is in motion the glimpse of light that your "painter" is going to see for that longer duration of time will change quite a bit during the time the shutter is open. If, in your situation, (low indoor lighting) the sensor has to stay open longer to record a feasible amount of light, the sensor will see that glimpse of moving world as a smeared image and will essentially "smear" your footage.

More technically, since the shutter opens, or activates, and lets light spill in on it for 1/15th of a second or 15 frames, assuming your shooting in 30fps, that period of a second is rendered as frames on your hdv tape.

Its easier to see then understand, if you set your camera on a tripod and put the lowest shutter speed on you will notice everything looks fine, but then quickly (not too quick) pan the tripod to the right you will notice the duration of the pan, the image will smear or blur. Once you let go and the tripod settles you will notice your stationary objects are clear and in sharp focus. turn up the shutter speed gradually and you will notice the image darkens (so you might want to add light) but your stationary objects blur less and less during the pan.

Regarding the "choppy" comments... I've experienced this from time to time on vimeo.. But all I needed was to put my mouse over the video, so I could see the pause button + the rest.. Then it would play smoothly... Weird but worked for me.

It's cool how relaxed your mom was. I can never photograph or get video of my mom looking even remotely natural.