Video Camera Advice Hubby would like a new video camera for his upcoming birthday. He would like to make video clips to put on his business website. For those of you who are you tube experts - which video cameras do you like best? He wants something that makes it easy to copy the clips to the computer & needs to be able to edit the clips fairly easily. Thanks in advance for your advise. You guys are always the best!! Also ... if you see any good deals on good cameras ... let me know
I am interested in doing the same thing, I was going to get the flip camera. Anyone have any experience with it??
I've used the flip video. It's got good and bad points. First, it's very easy to use and the quality is not too bad. It picks up voices nicely within a few feet, but not at 5-6 feet unless you speak up quite a bit (Great if you are holding the camera and speaking). You have to download a codec to pull up the videos on your computer so the computer must be on the Internet the first time you plug the camera into your USB. Editing is easy to do as long as you only want to cut off the beginning or end. (To splice together, you need a movie maker program.) I haven't tried the voice-over option because I haven't needed to. The flip freezes up my older PC, but works great on my 1 year old laptop.
We got a Sony HD dig recorder earlier this year. I don't have any complaints so far. Well, I only wish I had it earlier so I could have captured more of the kids growing up.:neutral:
It really depends on the quality you'll accept and the kinds of business video you'll be shooting. If you're doing up-close, personal vids with no real action beyond someone talking, then the Flip is a good choice. But, if you're doing 'corporate' style video, or anything where you're not 5' or less away from the lens, you'll want something a little more robust for the sake of wireless mics, lens filters, etc. In the end, I've found it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it when it comes to video cameras. I use a Canon Optura 300 - it's older, but the quality is in the prosumer area. It was the most I could afford and I'm very happy with it.
I've read good things about the Flip and real estate agents using them and uploading to Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. The other thing you need to keep in mind is how you'll edit the video. There are online services that let you upload and edit video, but editing in the cloud isn't always the best choice. I have a Mac, so I use iMove - there are some Windos alternatives out there too. If you want to see my latest videos, try this: My Videos on Vimeo.
