Here at Mainstreethost Inbound Marketing, we were recently fortunate enough to get our hands on the new Google Glass. And, being the gear nerd I am, I needed to see how Glass’s video recording capabilities stood up against a DSLR’s supposedly superior optics and audio.
Here’s what we got:
Google Glass vs DSLR: an audio and video comparison from Mainstreethost on Vimeo.
How does Glass’s video compare?
The 720p HD video on Glass did much better than I expected, especially for having such a small sensor. The footage is crisp, sharp and bright as long as you have plenty of light to work with.
The outdoor footage faired particularly well for Glass. You do lose some definition in the shadows and highlights, but the images are rendered with heightened contrast to bring out the vibrant colors of an outdoor scene.
Indoors wasn’t quite as great, likely due to a struggle with lower light. Lots of detail was lost in shadows, and highlights tended to become blown out.
It does have some trouble with exposure compensation on backlit subjects, so I’d recommend avoiding bright windows in your backgrounds when you’re shooting indoors with the Glass. The metering is intelligent enough to make exposure changes on-the-go, but the aperture shifts are pretty blatant as it does so (as you’ll see in the first indoor test above).
Otherwise, Glass picked up action remarkably well – as you can see in the un-blurred definition of the ball being thrown thanks to a 30fps frame rate. This bodes well for those hoping to use this device for GoPro-par adventure videography and the like.
What about the audio?
We did several tests (indoors and out) pitting Glass’s audio against both the DSLR’s onboard mic and a more sophisticated Sennheiser MKE 400 shotgun.
The audio on Google Glass isn’t so hot, even compared to the 7D’s onboard sound. On a windy afternoon you’re going to get some significant noise, especially when you’re standing up in a big open space. It faired a bit better inside, but loud sounds make the audio peak on this sensitive mic and it’s not hard to pick out the crunchy aberrations in the comparison.
So, it could be better, but it’s hard to expect perfection from such a small mic. Now we just need an external audio option and dead cat wind muffling accessory to go with the glasses…
Have you tried Google Glass yet? Let us know what you thought of it, or if you have any questions about our product demo in the comments.