Choosing the Right Video Camcorder

Video adds a new dimension to the documentation of your trip; it can capture the travelers' personalities as you go through the triumphs and tribulations of life on the road. Whereas photos capture a single split second in time, videos can more accurately reflect the whole of what you are seeing and doing. It can capture the excitement of gazing upon a world wonder for the first time or the everyday routines of traveling. The movies you produce will be cherished every bit as much as a scrapbook or photographic journal. If you are maintaining a website or blog, video can bring your experiences to life and make them more intimate to viewers as they personally become more a part of your expedition.

Video production on the road can be almost as simple as keeping an electronic scrapbook of short clips or as complex as producing a full length DVD movie. Correspondingly the equipment needed may be as simple as a digital still camera or as complex as bringing along a camcorder and a laptop computer equipped with a full featured video editing program.

Simplest Way of Taking Video: Almost all digital still cameras take video. If you're concerned about money or carrying extra equipment and not concerned about quality, this is the option for you. Simply put your camera in video mode and take the video. There are many things you can do with it after it's stored on your camera. If you don't have a laptop with you, save all your clips on a USB flash drive or an iPod. Take them to a library or internet cafe and use Windows Movie Maker (comes on all Windows machines) to make a movie with these clips (the computer you use must give you access to the USB port and My Documents). After you make the movie you can upload it to YouTube (see my article on Exihibiting on the WWW) or email it to friends and family. You may opt to save them all until you get home and then make a movie on your home computer. If you are carrying a laptop it would simplify things a bit. You could store and produce the movies on your own computer.

The quality of the videos varies greatly with the camera you purchase. Check out reviews of the camera you are thinking of purchasing for video quality. My Sony DSC-H7 takes fairly good ones. Using a still camera for video is fine for YouTube and email videos, but if you want fairly decent DVD quality you won't get it with even the best still camera; you'll have to get a dedicated video camcorder. Another thing to consider is buying extra memory chips for your still camera as the video clips take up lots of room.

A Slight Step Up: The cheapest, simplest dedicated video camcorder I've ever seen is the Flip video camcorder. Along with a good quality Cannon video camcorder, we use it extensively on our Alaska to Argentina trip. It's the kids' camcorder and our cancorder when we don't want to hassle with the Cannon. For 640x480 pixels resolution, it takes decent video. I've made a DVD with its video, and it came out alright, not great, but alright. It’s great for a YouTube video, check out the first video we made with the flip camcorder.

The big advantage of the Flip is that it's unbelievably easy to use - just point and shoot, but that's about all you can do. It has a 3x digital zoom but I've found that so much quality is lost when using it, I tend not to use it. Also the video doesn't come out well when the lighting conditions are low. When you are ready to download the clips to your computer just plug the whole camera into the USB port and drag and drop the clips over. Windows Movie Maker can be used to edit the clips or the Flip comes with a built-in editor.

Good Quality DVD: For really good DVD quality you will need a good quality video camcorder. Like still cameras, there is a wide variety of them to choose from. As I explained in the article on cameras, I'm partial to Sony. I owned a Sony Handycam video camcorder for the past 10 years and despite recording untold hours of video, much of it under very rough conditions, I never had a problem with it. I didn't bring it on the Alaska to Argentina bicycle trip because it connects to the computer with a firewire port and they don't have these connections on laptops I've looked at. I've already developed issues with the Cannon I bought; after about 3,000 miles into the trip the zoom takes on a life of its own zooming in whenever it feels like. Several really good shots have been ruined because of this. The only reason I bought the Cannon in the first place is because I got an unbelievably good deal on it.

Here are some things I've learned from experience to look for when purchasing a video camera:

• Zoom: Having a zoom is a great plus but I've found that if the zoom is too powerful (greater than 20x) it's hard to hold the camera steady. Even with steady shot turned on the footage comes out shaky. Carrying a tripod would take care of the problem, but the only time I can think of that I would have done this is along the Alaska Highway when there was wildlife in the distance, mainly buffalo and rock sheep (bears were always moving, sometimes in our direction, so I wouldn't have had enough time to set up).
• Camera Body: For me, I've found that the body style of the camera makes a huge difference in how steady I can hold the camera. When purchasing your camera see how it feels in your hand. Can you hold it steady? When I compare the rectangular shape of my Sony Handycam to the barrel style of my Cannon, I can hold the Sony much more steady when I use a strong zoom.
• Viewfinder: I personally consider a viewfinder on my video camera a must. Most importantly by resting the camera against my eye, I can hold it much more steady. I really miss the veiwfinder on both the Flip and Cannon. Another reason is that, especially the with the Flip, when the conditions are bright I can't see the LCD screen. There were times when I just blindly pointed, recorded, and hoped for the best.
• Storage Media: It seems that the preferred place to store your video footage on the camera is in flash memory. It used to be on tape. I really like the flash memory because each piece of footage is stored in a separate file. These files can be uploaded to the computer just like any file can be - by dragging and dropping. With tape the footage has to be manually segmented into files while you view the video footage. This is a very time consuming chore. Flash memory is also smaller and more durable.
• File Format: If you choose a camera that stores the footage on flash memory you must consider the file format the camera saves it in. I didn't consider this when I bought my Cannon (I don't even think it mentioned this anywhere) and as it turned out it stored it in MOV format which is appropriate for a Mac, but not Windows. Consequently I couldn't use the Windows Movie Maker to edit the files. Actually I could have but I would have had to convert each file to the appropriate format, a very time consuming task I won't do.
• Video Format: There are two formats you can capture video in - Widesceen (16:9) or 640x480 (4:3). Widescreen is the format that television is headed in, it's the same ratio as high definition (HD) television. I certainly prefer widescreen because artistically it looks better than 640x480. I read an article once that gave the technical reasons why it is artistically more pleasing, but I don't remember the reasons. Compare these two movies I made; this one in widescreen and this one in 640x480 and see what you think. On a good quality camera you can choose in the menu which format you want to record in. Check for this when you purchase a camera.
• Computer: If you want to do video editing on a computer, most computers are ready to go (unless you chose a computer with Linux as the operating system which I wouldn't suggest unless you have a lot of technical know how). There are only two things you have to worry about: the connections and the file format the camera saves the footage (see above for the latter). Be sure there is a way to get the footage from your camera to the computer. Most times a USB slot will do it. What I really like about my Cannon is that is uses SDHC memory cards to store the footage on. They are small, have high capacity, and are readily available. And what's better I can simply take the card out of my camera and insert it into the corresponding slot in my computer. The video files are then ready to drag and drop to the computer. Very convenient - no extra cords, as simple as can be. I do video editing on my Acer Aspire One with its small, small screen. Its a pain because I'm continuosly scrolling around to get at the correct position on the screen. It works, but a larger 12 inch screen would be much better.
• Video Editing Software: Windows Movie Maker is free, easy to use, and works great. But on my Windows XP computer it doesn't do Widescreen. I believe iMovie does widescreen on the Mac. Consequently I had to purchase video editing software. I used a relatively cheap one, Pinnacle Studio Plus, and I really like it. You can purchase an upgrade to it (I thought this was pretty cheap of them) so you can have multiple tracks and have the capability to make your still photo move as you zoom in, zoom out, and pan across them (the Ken Burns effect). This really adds a lot to a movie. There are many other video editing programs out there.