I’ve spent the past few days “testing” out the Nikon D5000 and the Sony Handicam SR68 and I have finally decided on whether to keep or dump the gear…well, not so much the D5000, but the Handicam was in question.

Actually I have to “up my game” on the D5000 because it has more than enough features for my needs. I was a little disappointed with the 55-200 telephoto (VR), well, to be more accurate, I was expecting more from it than what I got. But this was because I’m not used to the lenses and how they function. So, to say the lens sucked would be wrong, it did what it was supposed to do. I may need to get another, more powerful, lens next year but I have this year to do more learning about it’s limitations. All in all the D5000 surpassed my expectations on ease of use, picture quality, and how fun it is to use.

The Handicam started out to be questionable, that is, until I read the manual and found out the features that it has. The night I picked it up I charged the battery for about an hour and a half to two hours and then started shooting my dimly lit bedroom. This was before I looked at the manual in more detail. I wasn’t happy with the way the video turned out. The more I shot with it, the deeper the disappointment. So, I started thinking about taking it back.

My niece’s indoor soccer game was coming up, and I hadn’t shot any daylight/bright light videos up to this point so I decided to hold off and wait to see how it would go. I had someone take the videos while I shot stills of my niece on the field. When I got home I hit the hay, I had to work that night, and when I got home the next day I shot more daylight footage with the handicam. Between the soccer video and the daylight shooting I truly have to say the videos were great!! The clarity was excellent, the motion in the video wasn’t sloppy and overall, I was excited about using the camera this season.

I sat down and thought about how the Handicam would be used…on the trail and 99% of the time in daylight conditions. I should’ve thought about this first before I went on my “downward spiral of negativity”. It truly wasn’t all that bad when it came to low light conditions with the features it has plus the scene selections. It has a still photo feature but I didn’t try that out. I bought the Nikon for the stills and the Handicam for the video, I don’t need my stills camera to do video and vice versa for the video camera.

I will have video on the main site, and maybe this one, in the future, but for now I gotta get the plans finished out and the reservations made and soon.