How To Beef Up Your Camcorder To Get Professional Results

You might own a camcorder, and started dabbling with home movies or perhaps your own short movies. If you are at that point, you might have started to notice your camcorder has some limitations. This is normal, since most people don't have a lot of experience with camcorders as much as say, digital cameras. You want to keep making video, but you don't want to spend thousands on a professional camcorder.

Some common improvements you can make with most off the shelf consumer camcorders are:

1. Improve Bad Audio- This is a number one complaint, probably because most camcorders just have a built-in microphone, this is a problem because people viewing your video expect good audio. They might tolerate bad video, but most people cannot stand poor audio quality.

This is tricky to improve, unless you have a camcorder with an external microphone input. The problem is most camcorders you buy (at a reasonable cost) do not have this feature anymore. If your camcorder does have a microphone input, you can simply plug in a microphone to do a better job of capturing the audio.

Most camcorder microphone inputs are 1/8 inch jacks. If you want to beef your audio up even more, you can add an adapter that plugs into the jack, to allow the use of 2 or more XLR microphones. These microphones are higher quality and offer a broad range of choices to use. You could capture more sound from two sources- or more.

If your camcorder does not have a microphone input jack, make sure your video is recorded with a minimum of background noise, and try to avoid capturing voice audio from a distance if you are using the zoom feature on your camcorder.

2. Improve Stability- A true sign of an amateur video is a shaky picture. Luckily, there are a great number of options you can use to improve this problem. A good tripod is the obvious choice. My recommendation is if you know you are going to use a tripod a lot, purchase a quality one. This can eliminate jerky, even shaky panning on your video. You want smooth, even motion.

A favorite of mine is the monopod. You can hold a monopod in many positions, and hold it very steady, you can also pan easily and smoothly.

If you are on the move and cannot use either the tripod or the monopod, you can attach hand brackets to your camcorder to stabilize your videos as well as use the bracket to mount audio and lighting.

3. Improve Lighting- This is another area you can beef up easily, there are a good number of low cost lights you can mount on your camcorder shoe, or below the camera, or on a hand bracket I described above. When you light up your subject matter, you can improve the quality of your videos very easily. You could also purchase some inexpensive back lights to eliminate shadows or create a different atmosphere to your video.

These are a few ideas you can use with your existing camcorder or a low cost camcorder. You don't have to spend a fortune to get quality video results.

For our low cost camcorder recommendation as well as more information on improving your videos, visit our site at: Camcorder With External Mic Jack

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How to Shoot a Wedding Like a Professional Wedding Videographer

Truly, I believe that the most anticipated celebration in the life of a man and woman is definitely the day of their wedding. Professional wedding videographers will always be the top choice to cover the special event, however, anyone attending a wedding can capture that special event for themselves with flip cameras, video phones and a host of other great, affordable, high definition video cameras. I'm about to give you a few tips on how you can shoot a wedding that will make a huge difference in quality.

TAKE YOUR TIME - When I was a kid, my dad bought us a cool Bell and Howell Super 8 mm film camera. We took that baby everywhere; on our vacations, during Christmas, New Years, Easter, special events, and games.

Once we finished the reels, and delivered them to Walgreen's, we waited anxiously during the week to get the developed reel back. Joy came when we had those little reels finally in our hands. We spooled up the projector, rolled up the six foot projection screen, plopped ourselves onto the couch and waited in anticipation as we turned off the lights and rolled the projector. I would sit there with the smile of the Cheshire cat, but then it would gradually fade like that of a depressed Charlie Brown.

You see my dad was a very impatient man, and this was obvious when he took on the role as camera man. His shots would go from one spot, pan to another, to another, to another, to another in neck snapping pace. I remember getting really nauseated from all the movement that was going on in the frame. I've noticed that same style of shooting with the vast majority of people that shoot videos.

So, take your time... In fact, pretend that you're going in slow motion. It may seem weird to you, but when you finally see it on whatever screen you use, you'll be glad you did. You should also check to see if your camera has some form of stabilizer setting. This helps with smoothing out the shakiness that your hands may experience while shooting.

DON'T BE SHY - When you're shooting video footage, some people may get annoyed by you pointing the lens at them, or getting in the way of their view. However, my experience had always been that when they watch the video later on, they're entertained, and love the great moments you were able to capture. So don't be shy or feel like you're being a distraction. Later on they will be praising you for getting those great looking money shots.

TO ZOOM OR NOT TO ZOOM - Zooms on video cameras have come a long way when it comes to getting that smooth motion. The biggest problem is when you first touch the trigger. There is a tendency to press a little too hard and the zoom shoots out a few feet before you finally get a smooth flow towards your target. I've always enjoyed the ability to actually physically move towards the subject. Of course that's if the subject is less then fifteen feet away. The move is very smooth and it has really cool hand held feel to it. Try it and watch the difference. I think you'll be very impressed.

NOT AGAINST THE WALL - One of my worst pet peeves when taking wedding videos, and pictures of friends and family is how everyone suddenly looks for a wall to plaster themselves against. The wall is a photographer and videographer's worst enemy. We love it when there's a ton of space behind. If you have no choice, and are up against a wall.

A general rule is to have the people stand at least ten feet from the wall, so that the camera lights don't cause those ugly shadows. If you have no other choice than try filling the wall up with a small table and place some flowers on top. Anything to break up the flat wall.

Just following these simple tips will help your videos tremendously, so enjoy yourself and watch the difference these tips will make in your videos.

To check out some really cool wedding videos shot by Al Matin go to http://www.evpvideos.com/

Al Matin is a chicago wedding videographer located in Lincolnwood, Illinois.

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