A new Vlogging setup

As well as writing about photography on this blog, I also happen to have a Youtube channel (Lorimer Photography).  It hasn’t been updated for a while, for a couple of reasons.

First, this whole worldwide pandemic quarantine thing has kind of put a halt to travel of any kind, so it’s been a bit difficult to actually get out and shoot some content. I’ve also been very busy working from home through the lockdown here in New Zealand. So while others may have been able to take the opportunity to slow-down and explore some creative pursuits, that hasn’t been my experience.

Second, and perhaps even more importantly, my iPhone 6 that I use to create and edit all my videos on has tragically died! It had been struggling for a while to be honest – losing battery power at an alarming rate until it was virtually unusable for video. I did replace the battery in it, which revived the phone and gave me some hope that it could last me another couple of years. But then, out of the blue, it just stopped working altogether. Nothing – nada – dead.

I’m now limping along with my wife’s old iPhone 5s (which has its own battery issues), until the end of the year when I will probably ‘inherit’ my sons iPhone 7 when he upgrades to the new iPhone 12?

All of which had made me a: frustrated, and b: realise that I actually needed a dedicated vlogging camera instead of using my phone. Sounds simple enough, right? Just buy a vlogging camera – for cheap – on a small budget. Let the fun begin…

In my previous post I mentioned that I had sold a few items I had been testing. So I did have a little money in the kitty. And in terms of a dedicated vlogging camera, I didn’t want (or need) a state-of-the-art Sony A7 RIII or Canon 90D system. In fact, I wanted something that was as small and light as possible. Something as similar to the iPhone shooting experience as I could get, yet in a compact camera format. But even so, it would have to be cheap. Very cheap.

My other list of ‘wants’ wasn’t very long either. It had to have a flip-out screen so I could see myself when vlogging, shoot at 1080p 30fps (I don’t want or need 4k), and image stabilisation. And really, that was it.

Jumping back on Trade Me – NZ’s answer to ebay and my go-to site for buying camera gear – I narrowed it down to two choices that fit within my price range and specs. One was the Canon SW730 HS Powershot superzoom compact camera, and the other was the Sony a5000 mirrorless. Both ticked all my ‘wants’ in a vlogging camera, and both could be had for around my budget.

Canon SX730 HS vlogging camera

I was leaning more towards the Sony, with its interchangeable lens system and larger APS-C sensor, and I made a couple of enquiries to see if I could lower the ‘but now’ price on a couple of auctions. I started looking more into the Sony alpha mirrorless system, and the more I did, the more I went down the rabbit hole of lenses I could get, accessories available etc. I started thinking of it as a replacement for my Fuji mirrorless system – and that’s when I stopped myself! I love my Fujifilm X-E2, and have no intention of replacing it. So I re-focused (excuse the pun) and reminded myself what I actually wanted the camera for. A ‘dedicated’ vlogging camera.

That’s when an auction for a very lightly used Canon SW730 ended, didn’t sell at auction, and was offered to watchers at well under the initial reserve price. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I accepted the ‘buy now’, saved myself some money in the bargain, and am now the very excited owner of a Canon SW730 HS Powershot vlogging camera!

The reviews of the SW730 from vloggers on Youtube are glowing, with one caveat – audio. Not that the in-built stereo microphone is awful. It’s not. But it doesn’t have an input for an external microphone (neither does the Sony a5000), so you’re stuck with the on-board sound. Unless, you come up with another audio recording solution. Enter the lavalier microphone.

With my iPhone rig, I had a Rhode micro attached that I use to record the sound. It was ok, but even with a fluffy dead-cat attached, it still picked up a considerable amount of wind noise at times. On a couple of my vlogs the wind noise is so bad that I’ve had to apologise for the poor audio quality. I knew I could/should do better with my audio recording and had already been considering going to something like a lavalier microphone instead. Getting the Canon SW730 HS has made the decision for me.

I’m almost ashamed to admit that I’ve had an Olympus LS-14 external audio recorder for quite a while now, and have never used it to capture audio for my vlogs. It’s basically plain laziness, although I did think that by using the Rhode video micro I was at least capturing better audio. As I discovered on a few occasions using the Rhode micro though, better does not equal best. So with some of the money I ‘saved’ getting the Canon, I have re-invested it into picking up a (cheap) lavalier microphone that I can use to capture better audio. It can be plugged into either the Olympus recorder, or even my iPhone 5s, to record better sound than will come from the camera’s own in-built microphone. Hopefully that will help to elevate my videos to the ‘next’ level?

My final purchase for vlogging was a bit of an impulse buy. But I’m hoping it will actually work out to be worthwhile? I mentioned earlier that one of my criteria for a vlogging camera was IS (image stabilisation). And the Canon SW730 HS does have very good in-built optical IS. But…. when shooting HD video and using the ‘dynamic’ stabilisation, the camera will crop into the image for the stabilisation to take effect. This means your 24mm wide angle field of view will effectively become a 28 to 30mm fov when using image stabilisation in movie mode. I don’t want this! I, and most other vloggers, like to have as wide a field of view as possible, especially when doing walking and talking pieces to camera. I’ll have to test it out to see how bad the crop actually is, but in the meantime, I’ve gone ahead and brought a (cheap) camera stabilising rig that may get around the issue?

I’m a bit unsure about it for a couple of reasons – chief among them is that I will probably feel a bit of a geek using it!? I’m also not sure how effective it will be when used turned around 180 degrees to face me when talking and walking? A quick Q&A search about a similar product seemed to suggest that it was possible to use it that way, but I’ll have to try it out for myself and see. And finally, although relatively light, it does add some bulk to the whole setup. Maybe the positives of getting stable footage will be worth the trade-off of weight and bulk? I’ll see once it arrives and I’ve had a chance to test it out. But even if I end up not liking it, it really didn’t cost much in the first place.

This has ended up quite a long post, but it outlines quite a few big changes to my vlogging equipment. Hopefully it will also translate into better video all around? Head on over to my Youtube channel here and check out some of my latest videos. Eventually I’ll get some content up using the new gear, and then you can let me know if you notice a huge quality difference? Here’s hoping…Head o