Hi everybody welcome to another episode
of Exploring Photography right here on
AdoramaTV I'm Mark Wallace and this is
brought to you by Adorama the camera
store that has everything for
photographers like you and me.
Well you've probably noticed that this video
is a little bit different looking than my
normal video that's because I'm doing
this in the style of a vlog, a video blog.
It's a video diary if you will I've been
riding around the world for about a
little bit more than a year on my
motorcycle I've got a little vlog of my
own called ‘Mark on a bike’ and I've learned
a few things along the way so we're going
to talk about those things today.
I'm going to break it down into gear,
shooting styles and some things you can
do to make your vlogs a little bit more
interesting using music, establishing
shots, b-roles, cutaways all that kind of
stuff and so we're going to start by
talking a little bit about gear and then
we will move on to making your stuff
really interesting, so let's start right now.
Normally in a vlog it's more
important to show where you are and what
you're doing than it is to get perfect
light and all of that kind of stuff so
for example you can see that I'm a
little bit under exposed but here's this
viaduct behind me that's really awesome
it's got trains and all kinds of stuff
going on I've got the woods back here
and then over here I've got the English
countryside with all the houses and
those types of things and so if I'm
shooting a vlog about that I want to
show it and usually I need to do that on a
budget and do that really quickly and
easily, that means I need a small camera
something that can hold in my hand and
move around with and usually shoot
without any assistance at all.
So I'm using a Panasonic Lumix FZ 1000,
it's a very affordable small camera the
autofocus is awesome. it has facial
recognition and it can flip around the
LCD screen to see what I'm doing and the
audio is awesome. Now to make this a
little bit more interesting I'm going to
put this camera on a tripod and show you
a little bit more of my gear.
I also shoot with a GoPro HERO5 now the reason
I love the HERO5, it's got image
stabilization and so that really helps
when I've got it handheld I’m using this
little Cullmann tripod as a handle and so
I can sort of shoot myself, it works
great and then of course I've got my
trusty iphone and I use that. You can use
an android whatever, but if you use one
of these guys and shoot in 4K that gives
you a lot of possibilities for
post-production but I also have one more
trick up my sleeve for creating stable
images using a GoPro HERO5,
well here's my new toy for
image stabilization, I use this this is a
GoPro karma grip and you can see it
holds my HERO5 totally stable and so that
way if I'm on a bike or zipping around
this is totally still and so that works
fantastic. The problem with this is,
if you're shooting audio with this you can
hear the motors inside the gimbal and so
that messes things up and I don't know
why but GoPro made it where you can't
hook up an external microphone when
you're using a grip, big fail I think
this is what it sounds like with my
GoPro HERO5 and my Karma grip.
You can hear those motors zipping around but the
nice thing is it's really stable and so
when I'm moving around and doing things
I'm not having a lot of jump around
in my camera motion so if you can use
this with an external mic it might be a
good solution for you. I still prefer the
Lumix over the GoPro but other than that
this really works well as long as you're
shooting something that doesn't
require sound.
Speaking of sound let's talk about that
because normally when you're vlogging
you're not using an external Lavalier
microphone. You need a microphone that's
built on to the camera and that can
cause some issues so let me show you how
I've solved those. I'm using a Rode
video mic that's attached to my Lumix.
Now the nice thing about this is it has a
dead cat, a fuzzy screen that blocks out
all the wind noise and that is
significant, so let me show you what it
sounds like with the built-in microphone
and compare that to what it sounds like
with the Rode video mic attached.
Right to help illustrate the wind noise issue
I've moved closer to the viaduct it's
really windy here, watch what happens
when I unplug this microphone and we
don't have any wind protection at all.
Alright here it is, the built-in
microphone you can hear that it's just
noise it's just wind noise and that's
just no good you need something that
will eliminate that and watch I'll just
plug this in again alright well now i
plugged in my external microphone you
can hear the wind noise is gone and so it's
well worth the money to buy an external
Rode microphone with a wind screen it
will really take your production up a
few notches. Now one of the issues with
having an on camera microphone is you
have to be really close I can touch the
camera with my fingers that's how close
I am so I'm using a wide angle lens all
the time, that's okay for most
applications but it does cause
significant issues because if you're way
far away nobody can hear what you're
saying so nothing like this works.
So sometimes you just need a Lavalier mic
and so I'm using this guy right here
this is a Rode Lavalier mic and it's
made specifically to go into an iPhone
you can get these for smartphones and so
it works so you can record external
audio on your iPhone and then sync
everything up in post-production and
that really helps out because I don't
want a wireless mic and all the
batteries and everything that comes with
that, I just want something that's easy and
so now check this out here's what it
sounds like with this microphone with me
way back there. Well now I have this
recording on my iPhone and you can hear
that the Lavalier mic has no issues when
I'm way far away from the camera like
this and it's just a consistent audio
feed and you could hear the difference
between the built-in microphone and this
microphone, I'll play these back
so here it is,
the built-in microphone at a distance
and here it is again the Lavalier microphone
at a distance.
You can see that it's a
huge difference between the Lavalier
microphone and the on camera microphone.
Now if you want to know exactly which
microphones I'm using check the
description and it has the links to all
those products below well let's move on
now that we know it some of the gear
that we need to use, what we need to
learn is how to shoot a successful vlog.
One of the limitations of vlogging is
this microphone that's really close
because everything is you close to the
camera and so you can get away from that
by shooting establishing shots, b-roll,
things that will add spice and so for
example I could say; hey I'm out here by
this viaduct in the English countryside
and it's really amazing or I could say
this; I'm out here in a beautiful
countryside in England there's a viaduct
and the grass is just green, little shack
next to me. It's awesome. I could do this
two different ways I could say; I rode my
motorcycle through Africa it was awesome
or I could say; I rode my motorcycle
through Africa and I experienced all
kinds of amazing animals lions and
zebras and I went through rain and mud
and crashed my bike and was frustrated.
I met amazing people in small villages. It
was a wonderful time.
So anything you can
do to add some texture to your videos do
it, just shoot a lot of establishing
shots, a lot of cutaways and show, show,
show, instead of tell. Music is another
key element to vlogging music will help
you establish the pace of your video so
maybe you want something that's really
exciting.
Or maybe you want something to
illustrate how peaceful
the Zambezi River is.
Whatever you're doing music is going to
help your videos be watched by more
people. Now you can license music from
places like triple scoop music or
digital juice, but you can also get music for
free if you have a YouTube account
they've got an entire music library or
you can get that through GoPro just go
to the Quick software that comes with
your GoPro and there's tons of music
and if you upgrade to a GoPro pro account
well then you even have more music
for your library.
Well thanks for joining me
for this special Vlogging episode of
Exploring Photography don't forget,
get some establishing shots, show where you
are and what you're doing that's more
important than perfect exposure and
photography and add some music to spice
things up and you know what don't forget
to subscribe to AdoramaTV because you
know if you've been watching AdoramaTV
for a while you probably recognize that
this isn't just any viaduct this is the
viaduct that Gavin Hoey shot I think
on his very first AdoramaTV video so
it's sort of a historic and special place and you
wouldn't miss that if you subscribe to
AdoramaTV click the button subscribe
right now, it'll make you a better person
and also check, well I don't know if it'd
make you a better person but it'll be
make you happy and also check out the
Adorama Learning Center it's absolutely
free there's tons of articles. tips,
tricks, all kinds of things about audio
and recording vlogs and video and all
kinds of stuff, so check it out again
thank you for joining me and I will see
you again next time.