going to be a huge ask to beat the first one. the best movie made i think. definatly all the best action for a wavesailing side of things!!
The original windsurfing movie is shot in HD but not released on Bluray no idea why.
I found "making of" the windsurfing movie on some dodgy download site and this was in HD with much of the same clips as the movie, only better. It's called Nomads windsurfing hawaii, or something like that.
I found the "making of" more entertaining than the original.
i'd imagine that if they used prosumer cameras for some action shooting, many are limited to 60fps at only 1280x720 resolution, which is probably the mode used if they wanted to achieve clean slomo footage at 24fps, without using "twixtor" type software slomo interpolation which can look quite dodgy. Having said that, some of their slow motion footage looks like it was on a more expensive overcrankable camera maybe capable of +120 fps as it is quite slow and clean
If they had to stabilize the footage digitally after it was shot, and if the footage was quite shaky, they might have lost much of the image around the edge of the video frame, and then had to crop it down to close to DVD resolution as a result.
Therefore even though it was shot in a form of HiDef, they only had a smallish dvd size resolution to work with in the end.
this is just from my experience and only a guess at what they did 
This has been around for a while, Most of the footage is surfing or SUP but there's a bit of windsurfing in the middle. It's a bit of a Oxbow promo, but it's shot by Poor Boyz Productions, Could be an indication of what we will see as far as quality and style in TWSMII.
Since the first one told the story of windsurfing from its origins to today, perhaps the next tells the story of the next chapter.
Perhaps the full title is:
The Windsurfing Movie II - Kitesurfing
So what would you prefer
The Windsurfing Movie II - Kitesurfing
or
The Windsurfing Movie II - fat old german nudists on day-glo boards splahing about in a lake
Haircut...they used a Panasonic P2, at least for some of the in water footage with fast framerate. Is that good? I guess this was shot a few years ago now. How would this compare to something like a Canon 550D, or 7D from today. I know...completely different cameras, but curious all the same if you had any idea.
ahh ok, thanks p2 is quite nice for what it is i'm told. ive never used one
7d / 5d i've used - i've got the 5d and it in particular has excellent low light ability but currently limited to 30fps maximum (most recent firmware), while i think the 7d will do 60p but it's not so good low light ability from its smaller sensor. Not that low light ability matters for bright daylight stuff like windsurfing i guess. from what i've seen so far, i think both are better than most expensive dedicated video cameras in low light including the red one, but unlikely to ever get more than 60frames a sec out of them as the sensor heats up very quickly. The autofocus of the 5d / 7d or it's lenses aren't really suited to video either, and are too snappy / abrupt in focus, or are too slow, depending on the focus mode chosen
There is no such thing as a panasonic P2 - thats like saying that you shoot video footage off a camera called an SD card.
P2 is a high speed raid card format that panasonic use for their mid to high end video cameras. Its expensive but awesome .
The action on the windsurfing movie was shot on a Panasonic HVX 200 - and most of it was probably shot at 720p - as that camera does beautiful overcrank in 720p.
The lowlight on that particular camera is quite grainy - but it absolutely shines in daylight conditions.
the 5dmk 2, 7d, 550d canons , panasonic gh1 etc are amazing digi cameras that allow you to use the massive sensor for awesome lowlight compared to a video camera - but the file formats are a real headache to get to a stage where they are editable. Which is fine on small projects.
But when you have thousands of shots that all need to be transcoded - it can really slow things down. And the sound needs workarounds / extra hardware.
As an Hvx 202 owner i am considering getting a 550d slr for lifestyle video - lowlight interviews etc as it will reduce the amount of lighting that needs to be set up.
i absolutely love the look of the panasonic hvx202 (shooting to P2 cards) for well lit over cranked action - the picture looks SUPERB!! And you can easily dial in more or less motion blur . All of my heli and tripod shots on Wizards came off the hvx.
I thought the windsurfing movie was a great achievement - it was actually shot and edited in a very basic style in the action department (which many viewers prefer) - but did an outstanding job of telling some very interesting stories.
The reason it was never released on blu ray - blu ray charge a ridiculous license fee on every unit which makes them super expensive to produce. Blu ray is technically a very nice format - and i wanted to release wizards on it (as it was all shot in hi def) - but boy did they stuff up the release of it - meanwhile the rest of the world is either happy with sd dvds or watching vimeo / youtube hd / exposure room / itunes movie downloads off the net.
so blu ray = opportunity missed.
Oh that explains why a google on Panasonic P2 brought up so many different models... Actually I was just quoting one of the filmmakers who said he was using a P2 but that makes more sense now.
it's alright zippy, i knew what u meant. when folks on some of the forums talk about the p2 they are often referring to the varicam. the whole series of varicams seem quite highly regarded. i've personally never used any of them
i think it's accepted that i'm never going to get a +30 fps firmware for the 5d2 as already folks are complaining about seeing more hot pixels in a recording at 30fps over a 12minute period, than at 24/25 fps on the same 5d over a 12minute recording. at 60 fps or more folk are predicting it's likely to be full of hot ones particularly at high iso's. Maybe shortening the max recording time when using 60 could be set? Exactly why the frame rate is making a difference, i don't know. maybe someone can explain this
