The Kodak Zi8. I like it! One of the things that annoy all of us about watching homemade videos is the poor sound quality that comes from cameras with no external mic.
The Zi8 has an external mic and I chose it over the over the Flip for that reason, even though 25 of our fellow office-mates acquired the Flip. Now they wish they had the Zi8 or Playtouch by Kodak.
You can hear the clarity of sound in this video I made a couple days ago. The Zi8 is on a tripod 8 feet from me and the mic is clipped onto my collar.
I purchased a cheap corded mic ( I don't remember the brand). It works well but is cumbersome.
My next purchase is a cordless mic followed by a wide angle adapter for the Zi8.
Even though I am in a husband and wife team, I take videos of myself by myself while my wife pursues other necessary duties.
Using a tripod I set up the shot and test it before I wax lyrical with my verbal presentation.
Failure to do this has lead to great audio spoken by a man with no head or a great presentation with no sound because the man forgot to turn the mic on.
Here is another tip about making videos of yourself....Just let the camera roll and edit out the bad parts later.
Because I did not know how to edit video when I started, I would stop the camera, re-group and try again. That was extremely tedious and annoying.
Now if I mess up what I am saying, I just wave my hand across the camera and say, "Take 15" just like in the movies.
In search of easy to use editing software, I contacted my friend the video and real estate king of northern Maine, Andy Mooers.
If you want to do better local posts, video and photography, you need to subscribe to this guy... Andrew is fun... and willing to share the knowledge he uses to pull folks into the great northeast.
Andy recommended Cyberlink Power Director for a person new to the medium like myself. He used it for years before graduating to more complex software.
Power Director has 100's of "how to" videos that you can watch on Youtube to learn how to use its capabilities.
I am sure there are more expensive video cameras with greater capabilities available, but in this price range it is hard to beat the Zi8. It meets all of my current needs and should for some time to come...
...of course I have been eyeing the Playtouch though.....
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