- Christmas is coming up.
Look at my swag dinosaurs at a dance party.
Speaking of dinosaurs, you guys wanna know a really sad fact
that'll ruin Jurassic Park for you?
You know raptors that were really scary in the movies?
You know how big they actually were?
I mean, technically, they can grow up
to be about like six feet long
but it turns out it's not six feet tall,
it's six feet from tail to nose,
so, really, they were like the size of, like, turkeys.
I was really, really disappointed when I heard that.
I thought raptors were these
crazy, cool, man-eating creatures
but it'd probably be like, get away from me, stop it.
It's like a chihuahua just like ankle-biting you.
Anyways you're probably watching this video
to try to pick out some gifts for your significant other
or your friend or your child or parent or whatever.
Someone that's into cameras.
Or maybe you're just gonna buy this all
as a Christmas gift to yourself.
I mean, let's be real.
By the end of December, you're gonna be so broke.
And if you're gonna go broke, you might as well
have gone broke by buying yourself a bunch of video gear.
And you can give all your loved ones
like gifts with thought behind it.
If you're trying to get gifts for a camera person,
then it's very hard to find inexpensive gifts
for under thirty bucks.
Like there's very little you can actually give somebody
that's camera-related except for
like maybe like some SD cards.
Like thinking about it,
if someone gave me an SD card,
I'd be like whoa thank you.
I can never have enough of these.
I keep losing them.
Or just like a hair trimmer, I don't know.
(buzzing)
Whoa my god, a lot of hair just came out!
Uh, I should probably turn this off before I, okay.
It's actually super hot in this room.
I live in Los Angeles and we don't really get winter here
so I just really put on that sweater
to be part of the Christmas spirit and all.
So let's try to come up with some things that are
preferably under a hundred dollars.
At least to get us started, uh, ooh!
This microphone right here,
it's 52 bucks and it's a pretty good microphone.
As long as the person has a camera with a mic port on it
then this will give them better sound.
So, cool.
It's 52 bucks and 30 cents.
Or you could get them a better microphone.
The Rode Video Mic Pro Plus is really really nice
but it's $260 so ehh,
depends on how much you care about this person.
This Micro, though, is 52 bucks.
One thing to keep in mind
is to make sure you get one from Rode.
There's other companies that make one that look
exactly like this for like ten bucks cheaper
and they're crap.
The shock mound doesn't sound as good.
The audio just sounds all jacked up.
Just get the Rode video mic.
It's only like a ten, maybe fifteen dollar difference.
It's definitely worth that difference to get the Rode.
Next up is lighting.
You could pretty much never have too much lighting,
so if you don't know what kind of camera
that your friend has or whatever,
you could always give them a light
and they'll be like, oh I'll add this to my collection.
And one simple one to do is this Aputure light.
This little light here is 45 bucks
and this thing is awesome because
it's tiny and it's powerful and the light is clean.
And what's cool about this
is I can use it for very small productions.
I can literally just mount it right up here
and use it for a little video vlog.
And I can sometimes even use this like
in a professional setting because sometimes
you just need to tuck a little tiny light
in a little corner for a quick shot.
So these little guys, very very inexpensive
and can be useful for pretty much any production.
And then of course there's the bigger brother Aputure 120d.
One of my favorite lights.
I did a whole video comparing a bunch of different lights
and this one came up on top.
Highly recommend this light.
I'm gonna link all these products
and all these links to the videos
I'm talking about down below.
There's also a Mark II that came out
that's supposed to be brighter and better.
I haven't tested it out yet
but it might be worth checking out.
You should've decided to give a gift
that's not camera-related 'cause now
everything is just gonna go up in price from here.
Another idea is a Gimbal,
which is taking the camera world by storm.
It basically takes any camera
and makes it so it can move very smoothly like a steady cam.
And you can even just get one for your phone.
And they start at about a hundred dollars.
So you can take your phone, which is already pretty decent
and then kinda step up the production value
of your phone camera.
I would recommend this one,
which is a Freefly Movi Cinema Robot.
Freefly makes like top-quality stuff
so this would be a Gimbal that you can use on your phone.
Now it's probably gonna last you years and years of use
so when the iPhone 18 comes out
you'll probably be able to still use this
Freefly Gimbal with that phone.
I have a whole video on this Gimbal
and that's at the price year-end at 299.
I have a coupon down below, thirty bucks off, yay.
But you can get other ones for cheaper.
DJI makes one, Zhiyn makes one.
They make generally decent stuff.
And let's say this person has a little camera
kinda like this or maybe something kinda like this
and you wanna get a Gimbal for that.
Then I would recommend the Zhiyun Crane V2.
Which is 349 right now.
I have a whole video on that as well
and it can fly cameras like this.
Let's say they have a bigger camera, kinda like this guy.
Then the Ronin-S, but that's gonna drive up that price.
And let's say they have a really awesome like cinema camera
like the Red or something,
then get them the Freefly Movi Pro
but you really really have to love them to give them this
'cause the price is kind of expensive.
But this is kinda moving off topic
because we're talking about Christmas gifts, right.
Okay, focus.
Next up is the GoPro Hero 7 Black.
GoPro comes in many different flavors
and some are way less expensive than this one,
but the 7 Black has a lot of really awesome features.
The hyper-smooth specifically.
You can use this as an action camera.
You can throw it on your helmet if you do action stuff.
These things are built like a tank.
You can take it underwater.
You can throw it on the ground
and these things keep recording.
So it's a perfect little action camera.
Super wide-angle lens.
And I also made a video about
how to convert this into a vlog camera.
So very versatile little camera.
Very simple to use.
Now as I mentioned in a previous video,
the GoPro is very awesome and very capable and very simple.
But if you're a little bit tech-savvy
and wanna experiment with something
really really interesting,
it might be worth taking a look at the Insta360 One X.
They're both action cameras
and they're both priced very similarly
so it's worth checking out my video
where I compare these two,
if you're interested in an action camera.
And Insta360 did give me an affiliate link,
so if you use that to buy this
then you get a free selfie stick with it.
So you can put it at the end of a stick
and do all kinds of crazy effects.
If your goal is to create mind-blowingly unique shots
and come up with some really creative interesting stuff,
then this might be the option for you.
Another thing every camera guy needs is a monitor.
Whether they're shooting on little cameras like this
or big cameras like this.
And what's great about monitors
is that they fit pretty much all cameras.
Like SmallHD makes some pretty good monitors
but they're definitely not cheap.
Try to get one that's 1080P,
especially if you're shooting 4K
then that 1080P really helps you get that critical focus.
Now a company called FeelWorld
sent me some monitors recently,
and they're very inexpensive monitors that are full HD
and they're not the best monitors I've ever used.
The build quality just isn't as good
as like a professional monitor.
Professional monitors have like
quarter-inch threads all over the place
so you could mount all kinds of stuff to it.
I don't know the durability
and the longevity of these monitors
but considering it's price, you can't really beat it.
At least these monitors are full HD
and they are sharp enough to let you
make sure that you hit that critical focus.
'Cause if you're pulling manual focus
and you're like, oh that looks pretty good,
when you download the footage
you're gonna look at it and be like, wow.
Most of my shots are slightly out of focus.
Let's say you're trying to start a YouTube channel
or film some travel videos,
this is one of the cameras I highly recommend.
This is the Canon M50.
Very small, lightweight, interchangeable lenses
so it's very flexible.
You can start with this camera
and you can grow on it by adding on lenses.
You can add on microphones.
And you can build on this camera for a while
before you outgrow it.
So this is one camera that I highly recommend.
Right now this with a kit lens is 600 bucks on Amazon.
Usually I'll go to Ebay,
and they have these deals where it's even cheaper.
479, so it might be worth just
typing in this model number on Ebay.
I don't know why they're so much cheaper but they're new.
I mean definitely read through all this.
There might be a little catch in there somewhere.
But for the most part, I've bought stuff on Ebay before
and it said new and it came
and I haven't had any issues with it.
But dammit, I just realized I don't get commission
if you don't use my Amazon links below.
So, you know what, just forget about Ebay.
Don't save money.
Just go on Amazon and just use my links below.
Now let's say you're buying it for someone
that's not super interested in cameras.
The want something super simple.
Something smaller than this,
preferably something that fits in your pocket.
Just a very basic point-and-shoot camera.
Then I suggest this right here,
which is the Canon G7X Mark II.
This may look like a little toy camera
but it's very powerful and it has the lens
and everything you need just right here.
And it's fits in your pocket.
I did a whole video where I compared this to the Canon 80D
which is what I'm shooting on right now
and it's surprisingly close in terms of quality.
This does everything very well
and it's very simple to use.
You can use it to vlog, you can create a YouTube video,
travel videos, all that stuff.
Highly recommend it for something very basic
and fits in your pocket.
So again the G7X Mark II and the Canon M50.
Both great options for YouTube.
And the reason why I say that
is because they're both flexible.
They look pretty good out of the box.
They auto-focus, they have good battery life
and they're very simple to use.
And the quality that you get out of
both these cameras are awesome.
Definitely plenty for YouTube
but let's say your goal is
to become a cinematographer or filmmaker,
then you're usually less interested in filming yourself,
and then you're more interested
in getting that cinematic look.
Like you wanna work with actors or film drama or whatever,
this camera becomes a little bit more interesting.
This is the BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K.
Now I'm not saying this is the best camera yet.
I still have a lot of testing to do with this camera.
And when I first got it,
it worked for about five minutes and stopped working on me.
So it kinda put a bad taste in my mouth
on these BlackMagic cameras.
They're not really known for
having great reliability and all that
but for $1300
what this camera does is pretty impressive
if you're not concerned about auto-focus and all that.
You're getting nice cinematic-looking colors for $1300
and as far as I know,
there's nothing in this price range
that I can achieve what this can.
This records Raw and ProRes,
a lot of features that professional cameras have to offer.
But of course there's gonna be some shortcomings
because it's again $1300,
which is way cheaper than most DSLRs
and this is trying to compete with cinema cameras.
This is a camera that works best
when it has your full attention.
You wanna manually focus everything.
You wanna take it and color-grade it and post.
You're gonna have to put some work in
to get the outcome you want with this camera.
But in the end it's gonna look great.
Opposed to a camera like this.
This will give you a really good image
with very little effort.
This takes effort, but it looks great.
But like I said, this stopped working on me
five minutes after I got it,
so I had to sent it in,
but they got me a whole new unit
back to me within a week of shipping it out.
It's not gonna be the best camera in the world
but for this price point, this might be your best option
if you're just trying to get cinematic images
and you're willing to put in that work.
And the final thing we're gonna talk about are drones.
In terms of getting a good flight
and getting good images out of a consumer-level drone,
I don't think you could beat DJI.
So on the low end there's drones like the DJI Spark.
But the one I really really love is the DJI Mavic 2 Pro.
This this is a beast.
The Mavic 2 Pro is the top of the line
in terms of their Mavic series,
but this thing is well worth every dollar
because the cinematic images you get out of this are insane.
$1500 but I don't know,
maybe some of you guys are like dentists
loaded with money and you have someone
that you really care about
and you wanna give them a drone, then, you know.
And I was even kinda teasing you guys about
how I'm moving out of my apartment
and into a house with a couple friends finally.
And after a ton of searching we finally found our place.
So this is the new Potato Jet house.
Come on, let's go take a little tour.
Lemme show you around.
I'm just kidding, this is definitely not my place
and actually we should probably get outta here
before security comes out with a shotgun like
get outta here you middle-class asshole.
We're just looking to rent the house
but man, like property in Los Angeles is so expensive.
This is actually a house that's on sale right now
and guess how much the monthly mortgage is.
It's like $13000 a month estimated on Zillow, so (laughs)
Anyways, maybe if some of you guys have like
three million dollars laying around, you know,
please come buy this house and let me film in it.
We are getting pretty close at finding our new place though.
We looked at five places yesterday.
We're really close.
We're gonna look at a few more today.
So fingers crossed that in about two weeks to a month
we'll be in our new place.
I can't wait.
Anyways, let's read some comments.
And I'm just gonna continue to stand here
in front of this house to feel like I'm important.
My last video was about the Canon 100mm L Series Macro lens.
Let's see what the top comment was.
"A yes from did you fart is something
"Russell from Up to say."
(laughing)
- Did you just fart?
- Yes.
As much as I hate this comment, it's pretty accurate.
Loba Productions says "When you get your BlackMagic
"pocket camera back, could you do Black Magic
"verses red or an Alexa.
"I'd love to see the difference."
Yes absolutely.
That's definitely something that I wanna test out
for myself even, to really see how different they are.
But first impressions, it's looking pretty good.
I think it reminds me a lot of
shooting on the Sony FS7 on S Log 3
in terms of just kinda the characteristics
of how the image looks but so far so good
aside from it breaking that one time.
"Henry, way to go."
Way to go, Henry.
Isn't Henry the cutest baby ever?
"I just hope DJI sent you their new Osmo."
I wish they sent me stuff but I think
I said too many bad things about them in the past
where they don't wanna send me anything.
But I did buy it so I will review that for sure.
"I deserve a pin for being this early."
I agree.
How could I, yeah, let's do it.
ImSamson says "I bet you a cookie
"you won't put this in the next video."
Well looks like you owe me a cookie.
I'll take a peanut butter or maybe salted caramel.
One of those will work.
I kinda like the savory and sweet mixture.
Charles asks, "Is that your girlfriend?"
Yes.
"For someone who's getting their second lens
"would you recommend the 75 to 300 zoom lens
"or the 50 mm?"
Well it kinda depends on what lens you already have
and what you're trying to achieve.
The 70 to 300 would obviously be great for
if you're trying to film something super far away,
but a good 50 mm prime is
one of the lenses I use the most.
It'll be a lot less expensive to
get a good 50 mm opposed to a good 70 to 300.
So generally I would say the 50 mm prime
that's usually the second or third lens
I recommend people to get.
But often if you find yourself
trying to film something from really far away,
like if you're in a stadium and you're filming sports
then maybe the 70 to 300.
Anyways I gotta get outta here
before that security guard comes out.
So I'll see you guys later.
Bye.