The Best Video Camera for Making a YouTube Video
When choosing a camera for creating YouTube videos, the main questions to ask yourself are: What is my application? Who will be watching? How much money do I have? What are my expectations? Answering these several questions will easily help you narrow the broad selection of camera out there down to two or three possibilities.
Application and Audience
If you are going to shoot video, it helps to know a little about how camcorders work. This means you need to think about the availability of light in the setting you will be filming in. Footage can easily become grainy if you have little light. This is a common problem among the modern digital camcorders. So, if you have a low light setting, you will need to look at a higher-quality digital camera, though you can still get by with one of the cheaper versions if you have the ability to artificially light your setting. The second aspect of the application will be if you are going to be stationary (an interview) or moving (action shots). Canon offers image stabilization that counteracts small movements made by your hand as you hold the camera. There are cheaper versions such as Flip cameras that can do fairly well. If you plan on shooting video of your friend skateboarding or shooting 300-foot basketball shots, it doesn't make sense to go for an expensive camera that could be more easily damaged.
Your intended audience is also important to consider. Will you be doing this for a business application or for friends and family? With a business application, the portrayal of the company comes through in the quality of the video. With personal videos you can upload videos fast with less editing, which has its advantages.
Expectations and Budget
If you are a fan of websites like Vimeo, which allows users to upload high-resolution eye candy, you can do the same now with YouTube video. They offer a high-definition selection when uploading, and this can be desirable. HD cameras however, cost a great deal more than a small personal hand-held.
Taking into consideration the audience, the application and your expectations, you can fairly easily split the field of cameras into two separate packs: pocket camcorders and full-size hand-held camcorders. Use less than the pocket-sized ones and you will be disappointed, go bigger than the full-size camcorders and you will be spending too much.
The Cameras
The difference between a High Definition Canon HG20 (about $900 as of 2010) and the Flip Ultimate Camcorder ($150 or less as of 2010) can be marginal for a nondiscriminating user. Many times people are tempted to buy something out of their budget because it seems cool, but once they have it, they lack the technical know-utilize all of its features. Don't fall into this group.
The Flip Ultimate Camcorder works great on most subjects, is easy to use and upload with. It has its own software built into the memory chip inside it so you won't even have to install software on your computer. What this software does is pops up right after you connect the camera, and gives you a simple menu allowing you to trim video length, and one-click upload directly to your YouTube page.
The Flip UltraHD is nice as well, but remember, with higher resolution you will need a more powerful computer (to handle the larger files effectively) and more patience (longer upload times) This can also mean that if you want to upload many videos in a month, you may not be able to because you will exceed the upload amount allowed by YouTube.
The second route is to buy a full-size camcorder, which will most certainly be HD. Canon is strong in this market, and I would recommend them highly. The Canon Vixia HF20 HD can be found at around $700 as of 2010. This is not the only cost you will incur, however. You will require a computer with at least a Dual Core processing chip and 2.5 Gigahertz of RAM, not to mention some type of video editing software ($799 for Adobe Premier CS4 as of 2010) Seeing the cost difference makes the decision easy.
With the multitude of competing brands on the market, it can take days of searching. The brands above are companies that have garnered a good reputation over the years and make quality products. Staying with a mainstream brand also ensures better customer service.
Tags: application will, Best Video, Best Video Camera, business application, Camera Making