Great Quality Video From Cheap Pocket Cam

[Bingo]

Many of you know one of my big hobbies is live music photography. I recently picked up a cheap Kodak Zi8 pocket camcorder to catch some videos when I go out to shoot bands.

The reason I picked that one is that it's one of the few that has an external mic input. I also picked up a fairly cheap little (And I do mean LITTLE) Sony stereo mic.

I also have a little collapsible tripod so the whole thing can fit into my jeans pocket.

Here's a picture to give you an idea of how small this is, especially the microphone. That's a regular AA Battery I stuck on top for scale.

http://www.livesuncoast.com/kodak.jpg

I say all that, because I tried it out the other night and I'm amazed at how good this thing sound. Now granted, this is just some light acoustic music - not really what I got this for. Normally I'm out shooting rock bands and whatnot.

However this certainly bodes well. And more to my amazement - it astounds me how good small inexpensive stuff really can be. The mic was 30 bucks off Amazon and the camera was 60 bucks off Craigslist.

Check out the video and listen to how good the audio is:

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Just thought I'd share my amazement :P

B

[ME BIGGD01]

Is that a Tripod in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? :-)


On a serious note, I have both a flipp and a real HD Sony Recorder my wife got me a couple of years ago. While both capture great in good lighting, I have nothing good to say if it's dark or bad lighting. Holy crap was I pissed when I recorded my daughters winter concert. TO me quality means everything and other than the video recorded is only for record and history now, I see it useless. The SOny Cam was very expensive so that is what irks me the most. Could you reccomend anything that is good in the dark and does High res hd?

[ME BIGGD01]

Also something that can stabilize shaking better as this has become a serious problem over the past year I noticed. It makes all footage look like crap.

[Bingo]

Unfortunately, what you'll find is that low light performance doesn't come cheap. That's basically the very thing that drives up costs on camcorders.

The only real solution is to be as close as you can to a stage. That's how you'll capture the most light. Once you get more than a couple of rows back you have basically nothing but residual light left.

To give you an idea, here is a video I recorded with a Flip UltraHD. Check out the difference - after about 30 seconds I move up to the front of the stage. Lighting stays the same, only difference is I moved up much closer. Overall, the quality still isn't but you can easily see a difference and it's strictly due to the low-light performance. And then again at about 3 minutes in when I move back to about halfway from the stage and the quality goes way down again as they all become surrounded by a fuzzy haze.

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As far as shake goes, there's also no easy answer. Well, there is an easy answer and it's a tripod. :P Even a mini tripod can help a lot or a monopod. If you have to handhold, think stability. Spread your feet about shoulder-width apart. Cock your arm about a 90-degree angle and hold your camera close to your body in front of you.
Here is a halfway decent example of me handholding. It can be done if you really focus on body position while you are shooting.
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[JIMINATOR]

Actually that is pretty impressive dude. Thanks for sharing it.

[Bingo]

In case anyone is interested, a couple more results from the Zi8 last weekend. Still with the ECM-DS70P mic. Low light performance is fairly bad which is to be expected from a small pocket cam. Not as bad as many I've seen though. Handles the strobe that comes in about halfway through just fine.
Vocals could certainly be better but again, from a small pocket cam I still think this is damn impressive.

This is standing about 30 feet back from an outdoor stage light with a few can lights, a bunch of christmas type lights and other random stuff. BTW - Bigg - this is all still handheld too. Gets a litle jumpy but not that bad (I don't think).

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And another video, more bluegrassy. Still impressive though her vocals get a bit lost in it. Everything though sounds pretty damn great.

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