My youtube videos are made with Canon powershot. Here is an introduction into using camera for both video and audio, recording and publishing oneself online easy and fast.
Placing the camera
When I record my videos – guitar and vocals, the camera is kept as close as possible, while not cutting away my eyes out of the frame. The camera is set so that what the hands are playing is also visible all throughout the video, even if i may move slightly during the course of the recording.
I have made mistakes with the above, and published headless videos.
To place the camera, i use different sizes of books kept on the table. At times i have used a standard tripod too.
Keeping the source close to the camera mic allows more of the direct signal, and also improves the chance of collecting a better signal to noise ratio than if kept far. Keeping the camera away from the source lets more of the room sound enter the recording, which may not be desirable.
It is useful to keep the room sound not too hollow. Reduce the unobstructed reflections. Use curtains, furniture, any junk to reduce the reverbs.
Recording in halls are sometimes good because the guitar may sound better with the natural spacious reverb, though unfurnished halls with long wide reverbs may not be the best.
Light be there
Natural light after windows closed, slight opening of the curtains. This is possible when the recording is made during a time of the day when there is still enough light.
There is a chance that the view finder of the camera shows a video with enough light, but the final video appears darker. So make sure you know how the recording finally looks in the computer. Do a few trials. Adjust light accordingly.
Sound not be there
Sound from outside be kept to a minimum. Though there are people who do record in open areas, if you want to record your music without distracting noises, it is a good idea to close all the windows and curtains, choose a time of the day when the noise is least.
Maybe nights are best to keep the outside noises to a minimum. You can use lights in your room. Yellow lights, even white tube lights.
Quality of production
In my experience, if the music or whatever you want to present is interesting and likeable, the intended audience won’t care about the video production much. I have had the darkest videos made which were liked whole heartedly by people who like the kind of music I do.
At the same time, it is our responsibility to make the best of what is available to us and try convey what we want, to the best extent possible. Record with least noise from surroundings, closest to the camera since we are using the camera mic, etc…
Start with what we have, try make the most of it.
Camera recording web optimizing – video converting softwares
I use the free video converter by coyotesoft. It has presets while allowing manual setting changes – good to have a starting point with the presets, while changing anything if you want to.
Choose your preset for high definition or whatever output you want, adjust the bitrate to get the size of the file you would like. You will have to experiment in the beginning to see what the best bitrate setting is that gives you the right balance between a small file and quality video.
Youtube officially suggests that we don’t change the fps. So leave that setting alone.
The only setting i change is the bitrate. After choosing a high definition video preset, I set a birate of 6000 for HD video when converting my powershot videos to upload to youtube. I use .mp4 format.
Audio editing and audio from video
I use Mpeg stream clip by squared 5 for basic video trimming. This software also allows extracting the audio in different audio formats.
The camera audio is definitely not high quality but serves the basic purpose, in case you want to show something rough and if it is enough for the given situation.
With what we have
Starting with what we have, record and publish. Slowly with time we will adjust, learn the craft better and make better videos. Start, making the most of whatever resources you have – that is better than waiting for the perfect settings. Once we start, we will start seeing paths which we never thought existed or did not know were available to us.
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