Monday was very a different sort of ride than what I'm used to; instead of just riding for fun, I was riding for the camera. My buddy Aaron, who is a professional cameraman, got the opportunity to test out a new high definition digital video camera: the new Panasonic AGHVX200 HD camera. We decided to take the camera to the Hydrocut for a few hours of shooting, to see what it can do.

It was a blast. We wandered along the trails looking for just the right spots for filming. It seemed whenever we set up a shot, a big crowd of riders would zoom by. I got a few strange looks when I warned them of a cameraman on the trail. Once the inevitable crowd passed, Aaron would holler "action" from down the trail and around the corner, and I would pedal up to speed and cruise past the camera hoping not to run into him or crash spectacularly on "film". (It's not really film since it is all digital, but you know what I mean.)

Aaron went to great lengths (as you can see from the photo above) to get some really interesting shots. I think we got about 30 different shots in total. After we reviewed the footage back at home, he was very impressed with what the camera can do, and I was surprised that I sort of looked like I knew what I was doing.

Aaron is going to edit the shots together into a short clip, and we will hopefully post it here. It might take a while, since he is learning some new editing software, but stay tuned, true high definition (720P) mountain biking video is on its way to Crankarm.

For now, you'll have to settle for these selected production stills...

[Bottom two photos taken by Aaron. Copyright. © All rights reserved.]