technical > photography

Camera, video / audio, etc

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Yossarian:
I’m working on the beginning of a new project, and I’m thinking of turning the research / interviews into something for YouTube.

Because interviews / talking in general are probably going to be key, using an external microphone(s) would appear critical, and so my ageing Panasonic LX5 is not going to work.

I was wondering whether anyone had any suggestions? As much as I would love to stretch to something like a Sony A7, that’s currently out of budget. I’m sure there’s something simpler and cheaper that would work fine.

Anyone?

cheque:
The cheapest option is probably to record the audio separately, then you don’t need a new camera. It also has the advantage of being able to have it close to your sound source without long cables or expensive wirelessness. It does rely on you using editing software that’s advanced enough to let you line up separate audio and video files though.

You can record the audio into your phone or you can get a dedicated recorder for as little as less than ten fuck alls. Lav mics that’ll just plug straight in there are less than 20 fuck alls. I’d advise against using anything but lav mics for voices- the trick for clean vocals is to get the mic as close as possible. On-camera mics are rubbish for voices.

Not sure about what the best price/ performance camera with a mic socket is if you want to go that way. It seems to me that the mic and headphone socket features appear ludicrously high in the product ranges of stills camera manufacturers considering they all shoot video.

Hopefully I’m not making patronising assumptions of you experience of this...

Wood FT:
What Cheque said. Get a cheap lav mic (mine cost £15) and a Zoom H1 or similar, make sure you clap once you've pressed record on both devices so it's easy to sync up in the edit. This set-up has always sounded much better than the sound from my Rode mic or internal camera mic, the disadvantage being the practicality of using it outside. If you've got a Mac iMovie will let you split up the audio and video and has the audio waves to match up the internal/external. Mega.

Is the video good on an LX5? if so keep it? My GF's LX7 is really nice and I'd use it in a shot. I wouldn't stress too much on video quality for interviews if you're putting them on youtube, the content of the interview being much more important (sorry if that's teaching you to suck eggs! It just seems people have really Gucci kit nowadays, it gets stuck on a tripod and then compressed to buggery online..... separate rant)

Yossarian:
This is all solid gold advice - thanks guys...

I literally did not know this was possible. I also had to google Lav Mic. We have an old Samsung phone which i’m going to experiment with first and then go from there.

Re the LX5 - I think it’s ok. I’ve hardly used it for that. It was set on AVCHD rather than Motion JPEG for movies, and it was such a nightmare getting the former files off the thing that I gave up. Anyway, it seems to make more sense now.

Totally agree re all the fancy gear, etc. The original idea with this was to record some interviews in case they could be used for anything at a later date. And then I thought it would be good to make a little bit more effort from the start, with the aim of some videos to support the project.

Re quality - there are some brilliant things Jon Ronson made in the late 90s early 2000s with obviously basic kit and they’re still amazing because of the stories. Conversely I keep finding articles about people loaded up with massive stabilised DSLR rigs making completely vacuous rubbish.

turnipturned:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV_i_0uE8IlSenyJY0yBgdw

This guy will solve all your camera budget requirements, really useful.

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