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On-The-Go Gear

We're graduating from the phone. Maybe you've gotten too many text messages while trying to film and that one great take got ruined a little bit. So we're gonna step up a little bit. This is the space that I like to play in because, as somebody that might not find it as easy for me to use my smartphone to do what I'm doing, I still need to be very scrappy and on the go and I don't need a whole setup with me at all times. So what do we have for an on-the-go-pro? We have the RX 100. Beautiful, beautiful camera. By Sony. [Gray-Shirted Man] By Sony, yes. I know you use this as your daily. I love that camera. [Gray-Shirted Man] How do you feel about it so far? I love it because I had the Canon G7X for a while and that camera was, remember the one earlier you saw, the powershot? That's like the brand new, beautiful version of what Canon creates. Canon cameras are so pretty in color. But man the autofocus on that G7X was just awful. And especially if you tend to get out of your bo...

x more often. So if you're just sitting in your normal chair and you're talking all the time, you probably won't have as many problems with autofocus as I'm having now because I'm out and about a lot more. And if I flip the camera over here and then I flip it back on me, I need that camera to wake up and know that my face is there and not focus on this thing happening behind me. This RX100 is phenomenal for autofocus. Which, for a vlogging camera too, it has an incredible little feature. Flip up, just like that and you can see yourself, so, [Purple Shirted Man] But don't look at yourself. Don't look at yourself. Always look here. Never look up there. Make sure everything's there. Because they know unless you're wearing sunglasses. But this feature is what changed the game for my channel. I think it was Canon and then everyone else followed suit with the flip up screen. They knew vloggers, this is what they wanted daily, and they followed through with it. And it's for them to stay relevant too because when you're competing with a smartphone, where you can look at yourself, this is really conducive to going a little bit higher level. So this is the camera that I really like. Autofocus is a big piece of it. I'm gonna give em a tip real quick just because might as well give you guys a tip. There's a lot of people that always ask, "How do I look at the lens instead of looking up here?" It's obvious when you look up, it's really, really obvious. I know Sony has a little red dot here, it's like some model number thing. But if your camera doesn't, you can draw a little red or white dot and always look at that dot, even if you have the camera up, and then you'll focus there. Just a quick tip while we're talking about gear. If you want, you can write the name of the person that watches your videos. Or do that. Charlotte, Emily, someone said Emily, right, earlier? There you go. Just think, oh yeah, Emily's down here. That's Amy, right? Gotta talk to the right person. But do whatever makes sense to you. The other thing with the RX100, this Sony device, is that it has 4K, it's got a lens that zooms so I can get in tighter, I can get as wide as I'd like, and it works great for a variety of applications. You can do any type of vlog with it. You can do run and gun. If you travel a lot this is great. It's got really great color. It's even got slow-mo so if you wanna do, I've shot some photography things for short commercials, things like that, where we've actually used this because it is actually so good. If we're doing something in the woods or running and we don't want the big camera package, we need something small just to get down or anything like that, it's incredible. And actually, on the very professional side, the glass on here is Zeiss and Zeiss is beautiful glass. I mean in the film industry, it is really in the top tier. So for them to have a partnership with Sony is absolutely amazing. I know Jason in the back can vouch for it. When he went from the Canon to the Sony, we all noticed, wow, his vlogs look crystal now. It is absolutely beautiful. And the fancy people say glass when they're talking about the lens. Lens, sorry. Fancy people. I think the elephant in the room on this one is you are working with a very on the go, like I said, on the go option and so from an audio standpoint you're in a similar situation that you were with your smartphone if you don't have an upgrade. There's not a way to upgrade them. So there's no external audio on this, that's the one knock here. There's no connection for external audio. But, again, this is a strong case for shooting with your phones because now I can connect audio, I can't on this. Some people I've seen, as a trick, you ever see those furry covers that go onto shotgun microphones? They call them dead cats. Which is the worst name ever. Terrible, terrible name. It is this kind of material to block out the wind. I've see people actually get some of that material and just stick it over the microphone here. It's a trick, but, again, you're never gonna get as good audio as you could out of some sort of external microphone. The only, I think it's the only knock on this camera, personally. And the way that I kind of combat this is just to always respect the environment. What's happening around me, what do I know realistically is going to happen in this video audio-wise. If I'm sitting in my hotel room and just letting people know where I'm at at that point in the day, I'm gonna be okay because hotel room probably has carpet that's going to absorb a lot of sound, there's a bed in the room, there's things on the wall, there's a desk over here, and I'm sitting at the window. When you think again, a full room is helping you absorb a lot of echo so you're going to be in good shape. So just remember things like that. And turn off the air conditioning. Turn off the air conditioning, oh my gosh. If you've been watching my videos lately you've actually seen me stress out about that. Those floor fans are the worst, those like oscillating fans. People have those running and they're like, oh my air is off, everything's off. It's like, no, you have an oscillating fan like 30 feet away from you and you can hear the buzz. The humming. Yeah, the humming. Yeah, and just depending on how particular you are, you might not like it, the worst part is when it just kicks on when you're in the middle and it's a change of setting. You're jarring the viewer a little bit. I keep bringing up audio a lot because you have to remember that audio is a big, big, big piece of video. Big. If your audio is not where it needs to be, your video will not be watched. If you're talking to the camera and you just said the most important thing ever but the wind is blowing so hard or have you ever heard your fingerprint rub the microphone? That's the best sound in the world. When these things are happening, you've lost the viewer because it's changing the setting. So what's happening visually is making them not feel as much as what's happening to them audibly. So just remember where the environment is, what's happening in it, how big is the room, are you at a conference and you're using an internal microphone that's just gonna pick up everything around it? It's gonna be very different than if you're in a quiet room or maybe it's good, maybe you want a little bit of ambience around you. Just remember what it is and how far away you are from the microphone. And, to emphasize on that, so, again, I'm in film so I do big sets. Honestly when there's 50, 60, 100 people on set, the sound guy is one of the highest paid people on set because it's that crucial. You can watch the worst movie ever and it could have the best sound and it helps. The visuals can be terrible but the sound is there so it's okay with the content. But if you have beautiful images and there's no sound or it's grainy or something like that, you're gonna want to turn it off. So always remember that. It's that important that we pay a lot of money to get clear sound. Another hack that I like to do is use my smartphone with my RX100. Smartphone playing the role as a microphone recorder. This is gonna get fancy in editing, so you have to keep that in mind. I'm seeing some real disappointed faces right now. So essentially, what happens is we turn the camera on to film what's happening visually but then I will open just voice memos in the iPhone, or whatever your voice memos app would be in your phone, and hook up my little lavaliere microphone to that phone and hit record there. What I'm gonna do is sync those two files in editing later so that I can have the best audio experience with that video if I know that that internal mic is gonna be a variable. [Gray-Shirted Man] So, pro tip on syncing. Yes. Here's what you do. So you have your mic on, it's hot going through the iPhone, and you have your camera. Get them both in front of the camera. Clap. That is your best, you will see a massive spike when you go to edit. In that audio line of edit you'll see the sound waves. That big spike that put those, and they have a lot of auto-syncing opportunities in these editors today too, which is really nice for that. Yeah, exactly. But if you don't have that, cheat, clap, put the spikes together, and you're good to go. The lavaliere, I have one of those Rode lavalieres. Mmhm, great. And I notice that when I do a video, it doesn't really turn on. So is it because you're using a different app? A mic? Are you saying, are you filming with the smartphone? Yes. And you're using a Rode, like a smart lav plus, that plugs into it. Yes. Are you using the main video camera app for the phone or are you using an app to film? I was using Instagram. Okay. There may be a disconnect there, I've never investigated that. I think Instagram would shut that down. If you're using your main video camera app, you should not, which comes with the phone, just click, camera, that should work without a problem. But if there is a disconnect between the audio source and Instagram, that might be an issue. Okay. Okay. That's a good point because I've actually, I'm not sure about that. I think Meg had a question back there. I go the other way with my editing, or my filming a lot of the time, where I go from my Sony to my DSLR. And so I tend to have some issues because if I'm filming with my Sony and it's just got that regular mic on it, and then I film a little bit elsewhere with my DSLR, then my audio doesn't match up and I didn't have the DSLR with me. Do I need to make the two different videos and just do it? [Purple-Shirted Man] I mean, her trick is always. And it can go the other way? Yeah. Okay so not just from smartphone to, you can do all three? No, you can do it either way. Oftentimes, we'll run a separate camera with a microphone going into it. It's not even pointing at the subject. Just to get like another, if we have two subjects. So you can go either way with it, you can be as creative as you need to. Another option, and we'll talk about it in a second, would be something like this. It's an external recorder. [Audience Member 2] We have one of those, it just, it gets confusing between the different cameras and I don't want to be. It's just all about labeling and making sure that you're, yeah. Organization. The technical answer here, you're shooting two different cameras, is they're probably two different frame rates. So one might be 24 frame rate, 24 frames per second, the other one might be 23.976. Yes, it is. Yes, and that little shift in 0.20 whatever it is, is what is knocking them off and they cannot sync up that way. So they have to be the exact same frame rate. That's much better to know, that'll help a lot. Yeah, definitely. Great question. So we're talking about on the go here and for those of you who have watched Casey Neistat, you've seen him. This is actually. Does this look familiar to anybody, if you're familiar? This is the rig that he used for, I think almost all of the daily? He got about a month in and he developed this master rig. So this is the rig, right? This is an on the go pro that's a little less inconspicuous. I used to really be excited about. But I'm gonna ask, and this is a question to everybody. Who in the audience is saying to themselves, "If I had that, I would definitely make awesome vlogs,"? Alright so, I'm gonna, camera guy's gonna. I mean we all kind of feel that way. We're going rogue. Do some curls, do some curls. So can you talk about what exactly what is on? I need you to hold it out in front of you like this. And don't drop it, don't let go of it until I tell you to. This is what we, lets talk about what's on that rig. Can you guys explain all the things that's on that? So hold it out there. Don't let go of it until we tell you to. [Gray-Shirted Man] Don't let go. Don't drop it. So what you have, basically, we'll start from the base. The Gorilla Pod Focus. [Purple-Shirted Man] Where she's holding. What you're holding, the actual tripod, is a bendy pod and basically you see him go everywhere with it because, for one, he can hold it out. So actually, I'm gonna shift you a little bit, just so you can really understand what it does. How're you feeling on your bicep? [Purple-Shirted Man] Yeah, how's your shoulder? So basically, he does this. Grab right there. He does that so it extends out farther. Yeah, so it makes it even harder. He does that. But it's also a great tripod. So basically if you see him in the airport, anybody like that, or anywhere outside, any bench, you can just take the legs and grip it around like that. So it makes a tripod anywhere you go. And then we have a 70D, Canon 70D with a 10-18 millimeter lens on it. So basically he does the 10-18 because it's so wide. You really feel like you're in the world with him. It's a beautiful trick that he created that no one else really thought about before. But it brings the whole world to you, the viewer. [Purple-Shirted Man] Is it hurting yet, a little bit? No. Not at all? You can hold it? Okay. She's great, I was worried about her. Hey, if she's got it, she's got technique there. She's using her wrist, that's good, that's good, that's a technique. Hey, keep going, all power to you. So basically, this one, crafted as a vlogging camera because it pops out again, the screen. It does? The screen comes out? Yeah. Yes. So you can actually. It doesn't come like that. Those are made that you can bend it and attack it to anything. Like if you're, you want to attach it to a tree limb and that'll hold. Joby, that brand, makes those, that style. There's also other brands out there. I like Joby. There're smaller ones, they make ones for smartphones too and smaller cameras. You don't need that big one but that one will hold the weight of a bigger camera and a bigger lens. So you can go and attach it to a tree, a tree limb, if you want to record something in the park or the edge of a boat and you want to capture something or like hang it outside your car. Right. But it's getting heavy, as you can see. Like its dropped significantly. [Gray-Shirted Man] Somebody else is gonna have to hold it for you. Is this also a stabilizer? Here, somebody hand her a knife. How're you gonna do it? Lets let, lets take this. Lets let, because he said he would definitely make video with this one, so go ahead. Hold it out, don't drop it, lets see how long. But you get the point though. That's like significantly, there's a commitment to that. You're gonna hold that out in front of you, you have to travel with that. There's a lot of commitment to that. I mean I don't know what ladies carry as purses. I know Amy sometimes has like these massive purses that she carries around. A suitcase. But it's like, okay, throw that in the purse and lets go out for the day. [Audience Member 3] Would that be considered a stabilizer then too? It's not a gimbal. It would be something to stabilize. It's a stabilizer in the sense that it's a tripod and so it's keeping your shakier hand away from the actual device and kind of bringing it down to a different place. It helps a little bit. But if you're shaking, it's gonna shake with it. [Purple-Shirted Man] Right, yeah. Cause what it really is. [Purple-Shirted Man] How ya feelin? [Gray-Shirted Man] Some curls, you wanna do some curls? You get a workout in while you're doing it. What was nice about what Joby did here, is they were trying to give you the ability to just set up on your own. Family vacation, wrap it around a tree and get the shot. It wasn't made to do that until recently. It just happens to be. And it's because with all those little balls and things it's kind of easy to grab onto and so it's nice for that. It's also just a lot to deal with. I know I travel with it all the time. I don't really put anything on the internet on my personal site, it's more of my personal documenting my own life. But I know going through the airport it is like having a handbag with me. It's like you're trying to check in, you have to hold it here while you're trying to do things here. Security wants to look at it a little harder. Yeah, security's like what is this exactly. You're in the plane, person next to you is kinda like, what is this massive thing you're holding? Meanwhile, I'm over here documenting my life while you're trying to fumble the thing around. Again, it's a matter of preference. The point of that is just to show you like, if you think that's gonna make you do it then there's so much more things you have to think about. It's not a matter of just like, let me get in my car and go, it's like let me go to the park. You have to make sure you have room for it. You have to make sure, "Am I gonna leave it in my car after? I can't hide it anywhere." There's all these things that you have to think about. So with that, a device like that, again, it's an amazing piece of equipment. Quality level is very high. But it all comes back to your content. If your content's not good, you could have the most beautiful shots in the world. Although I will say that if you're walking around with that, there's something about people live vicariously through you when you have the ability to walk around in public with something like that. So they'll watch but because of that but the content still needs to be much better. It's funny to watch back at your footage afterward because it's so wide and you'll see people 30 feet over or like stopping and looking at you in your footage while you're trying to have a serious conversation with your camera. So this'll, like you said, this will completely bend out this way. You can adjust it, it'll adjust three ways, it'll spin, you can get it flat. You'll see people do all sorts of things with it. And this one's big enough to hold a bigger camera. Actually, I think it can hold this one too without a problem. It also has this great ball head on here. So say you get it set up and it's a little over. But you need a crick, kind of like that, you can go anywhere you want. Yeah, cause I go crazy trying to straighten my Joby gorilla pods straight. Exactly, it's very hard to get these perfectly straight but that's why they have that there. Yeah, right. So again, this an on the go. Interchangeably, this is Casey's camera, right, this is what he did use. We just used it after. Mark will use this camera interchangeably. It's the same type of camera. So some people will be like is it Canon or Sony, this is the Sony. This is the A6500. It shoots 4K, that doesn't. Correct? [Gray-Shirted Man] Mmhm. And this just has a lens that doesn't zoom out. So when you zoom, it's all internal, which is great for if you're using, talking about gimbals, stabilizers. Can you just talk about, because if I'm walking around with that or the Sony A6500, I don't think I'm worried about zooming for the purposes of focus much myself. I would much rather it be happening automatically for me. [Purple-Shirted Man] Sure. So how are these on autofocus if you're kind of running around run and gun with either one of these? Well with anything, you have to remember that if you're running around and you're changing scenes very quickly, things aren't always going to be in focus. But filmmaker man can tell you that there's also times where that might be your style, and that's okay. You just have to accept that sometimes I'm going to be talking to the camera and the camera's totally focusing on that behind me. But that's fine. I think if you're documenting your life, maybe it's not super, and by the time the camera realizes you're standing in front of it it'll pick you up. It's okay depending on your application. If you're shooting videos like we are for customers and they're paying us to do it, I don't want that happening. They want it in focus all the time. These cameras, the Sony's, I will say, and we are completely, we don't pick, I prefer Sony right now, at this point in time, but there was a time where, y'know, Canon and Nikon and all these other things, I would say the Sony's have lightning fast autofocus. So if you are someone who doesn't want to worry about it, I've actually had Amy take the RX and just set it as full auto, everything auto. I don't even have her adjust. Which is great for me. Any settings, just auto and go. It looks great, she doesn't have to worry about focus time, she's always in focus, no matter how quickly, they've come a long way. Sony's come a long way. One of the biggest questions we got when we switched everything to Sony, I had all Canon maybe a year ago and we switched everything over, was oh my god, it's lightning fast, the autofocus. So that's the biggest, I'd say, positive for Sony and the fact that they shoot 4K. But again, if you don't need that, that's okay, there's nothing wrong. And no one's saying this is a bad camera, this is a great camera. Sony kinda came outta nowhere. They had cameras, but no one was like yeah, Sony. But it was always Canon, Nikon, those were the top tiers. Now Sony, in the last three, maybe four years just came out and blew em out of the water. I mean Canon doesn't even have 4K yet except their 1DX which is six grand. So don't even worry about that. Not a vlogging camera. This Canon is so fantastic for vlogging in the sense of it's a touch screen. So that little square, you can just move it around anywhere. This is the only problem with this one. You can't see yourself anywhere on this camera. Yeah there is definitely a downside with Sony. I felt like I was switching to a spaceship from the Canon a little bit. Sometimes the options that you want are a little bit hidden in menus and so you do really have to get acquainted with your device there but you cannot go wrong with that autofocus. Notoriously menu-driven, Sony being, and a lot more buttons and knobs here that you can change on Canons. Again, you won't know this until you physically play around with these devices. I can't tell you which one is the best because you might pick that up and hate it. You might be like, "Wow I really want to use my smartphone now." And again, like they're saying, set it on auto when they're first getting started or you're in the early stages. Just auto it. I don't auto it because I'm a little more experienced and I know I'm just flicking buttons and getting it how I want pretty quickly. But you'll get there and you can create more artistic things when you get to that point. Like he was saying, autofocus. You can put it out of focus and you'll walk into frame and you're already in focus. Little artistic things like that. You'll start developing once you play with a camera for hours and hours on end. You'll start seeing little things like that. And you'll pick up other videos and commercials and stuff like that and you'll be like oh man, that was cool, let me try the amateur version of that, and you'll get it. It's an awesome feeling. Can you talk a little bit about the audio option that's attached to this camera. Yeah, this massive piece, another one. Rode. Rode is so crystal clear. Out of all the mics, you can get some off brands and you'll get decent audio but, if you're gonna want crystal clear audio, which we said you need, Rode is kinda the kingpin to go to. They're dominating in the industry right now. This one actually, a little bit of pain on this one, I'll flip it around. Basically, you have to flip on the on button and it has a battery inside. A C battery? Is it C? [Purple-Shirted Man] It's one of those nine volt. Nine volt, nine volt batteries. That you have to keep in and you get about a week or two from that battery depending on how much you film. [Purple-Shirted Man] Oh, by the way, you have to carry around like. Oh yeah. Batteries. Batteries, yes. Yeah, that battery life. Who hasn't bought batteries before? Smartphone it's a lot easier, you just plug it into a wall and charge it. With that you have to carry around batteries and batteries and you have the cost, right, they're not free. So there's other things to think about. There's batteries you have to carry around for the road. You always want backup batteries. Batteries and storage. And we actually have this pouch right here if you want to open it. This is a great pouch. You will use lots of batteries and lots of storage. Be prepared. These are SD cards. [Purple-Shirted Man] It's just a card wallet. And these are all SD cards in it. We don't have to go too deep into cards. Well why don't you recommend just like a minimum size SD card if we're talking about 1080p and a Canon. Yeah, so it's kind of technical on this side. Let me pop out one here and show it to the camera. And also, not thinking about 4K footage because 4K is gonna be a big file for you and a lot to download for somebody on the other end. This is small for the camera also. That's little. I'm just gonna hold it here for you. So basically, this is a. [Purple-Shirted Man] Zoom in guys. Yeah, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon. 128 gigs, which is quite a bit. There's a lot of storage there. That's the high end iPhone. It is the high end iPhone, yes. So I would recommend maybe start at like a 64 gig, or something like that. These are getting cheaper and cheaper, literally by the day, because of technology. But there's something else you need to look into. So basically if you're gonna write 1080p, or any high def, you need a write speed. That is a major thing, write it down and do not forget it because I know, we've probably all made the mistake, we got a card that didn't have a high write speed and you can't record or it'll start and it'll buffer and it'll turn off. Is that the technical term they should search for? Yes, write speed. And so basically if you get, this one is 95 megabytes per second. That is probably right around your minimum of what you're wanting for 1080, for HD video, and things like that. This is super crucial. I know y'all have probably made the mistake, I've made the mistake, and it's very frustrating when you get all your camera stuff and you're like alright I'm ready to go. Not. You can't write. Things you shouldn't skimp on in price are audio, although you can get inexpensive ones, and storage. Just get the $100 card, not the $12 at Walmart or wherever. And what would the consequence of that be? Can you explain in more layman's of like, because I can tell you right now, I didn't realize that the write speed was an issue until I saw frames dropping from the video. And so I would watch it back and it would just be a little jittery and there would be things missing just because it couldn't write it fast enough. Does that make sense? Well, there you go, that was layman enough. Yeah, that's layman enough. Well alright, great, you're welcome. It starts jittering, that's about it. Again, it's a huge disappointment when you do that and you've gotta go return the card. So spend a little bit more to begin. They're dropping every day. They're so cheap. They're getting smaller and smaller, bigger sizes in smaller cards. Just keep that in mind. [Purple-Shirted Man] Get the best quality card you can afford. Yes. That and audio. That and audio, there's your two. You can manage with different lenses, different bodies of cameras but audio and cards for storage are two very crucial. And then lots of batteries. How are you guys feeling about that? Good? Do you have a question? Whoever gets their mic fastest. So we've talked a lot about hardware and I'm a little curious about the software end. So I'm an Apple iPhone, iMovie only edit and shooter so I'm very curious what I'm missing, what we should all know, and in particular, when we're taking that step to go from out of pocked to a nicer camera, how are you meshing those together? What are you using to edit and cut your videos? [Purple-Shirted Man] We've got two different worlds here so. Totally, we do. Very different worlds. So we are using pro editing software. I recommend iMovie as a great place to start for a few reasons if you are on Mac. First of all, and we'll talk about this more in segment three so I'm gonna go pretty quick here, it's a great place to start because if you're gonna get to pro level, which is Final Cut Pro, which is what I use, they look like the same spaceship, like I was talking about before. And so you're more likely to be able to grow into Final Cut and not feel as much learner's curve but still get some more flexibility with what you want to be able to do creatively. I'm just in the middle. I use Adobe Premiere. That one, to me, I think if you're starting out it's a good place to go because, yes, it is very in-depth. But start in iMovie and then if you want to go to Final Cut, that's great. But if you start in iMovie and you realize, man I want to get really deep into this, I really like where I'm going, don't go to Final Cut, go to Premiere. Because it is probably ten x deeper than what Final Cut is in the sense of professional. We're talking like Deadpool and a lot of major motion pictures starting to be cut on this, movies. But it still has a very amateur level. You can switch it to where it is, you can do the amateur level and it'll change the entire interface for you. And so, again, once you leave iMovie, decide. "Wow am I really wanna dive in deeper in this?" Because Premiere is where you want to go because in two years you'll have a better depth on Premiere and you'll be doing color grading and things like that and after effects and all that area and you'll know the interface. But if you want to stay quick Youtube videos, quick vlogs, Final Cut's where you could go. Listen, you can do it on anything. Yeah, you can edit on your phone now. The reality is, you can do it anywhere. And if you do it on iMovie, but realistically if you're doing something on iMovie, there's nothing wrong with it, you're probably not going to go and spend six grand on a camera setup. [Gray-Shirted Man] Exactly. Right, you're just not. And that's okay. If the content's good and you tell a good story, you'll be fine. It's all about, and I know I'm coming back to it and we're talking about gear, and I'm sitting here going like focus on your story, but I just don't want this to be intimidating. Because I'm listening and I'm like jeez, I know my stuff and I'm scared of it. It's a lot. You know, he's talking about color grading and I'm like oh, I just set it and go. Make a couple cuts and. If you're thinking like this, then maybe you do want to go more in there. Once you get into iMovie, there's iMovie on your phone.