Since the last blog regarding video blogging or vlogging, I’ve invested in more equipment and I’ve researched a lot of techniques as well. Here are a few videos that I started off with.

Useful learning resources

• Movements for cinematic shots using a gimbal.
• Tips for shooting video with a phone. This also gave a basic introduction to B roll.
•  How to plan and record B Roll. This person has some fantastic tutorials. I’ve learned a lot from him but I haven’t figured out how to implement it yet in my situation.

The problem is now that I have a beginners understanding of how to frame shots and what kind of angles, transitions and lenses are best in some situations however, I still have the problem of actually knowing if the shot I have taken is good or not.  I’ve resorted to using Aira to help me frame a shot.  I may then even call up again to ask them to take a look at the footage.  But I admit, that’s not a great use of my Aira minutes and also the Aira agents try to be very posative but I need less posativity and more honest opinions to figure out if what I have done is any decent or not.

The Kit

Aside from learning, I’ve also invested in some new kit.  Christmas was good to me as well.  My wife bought me a very nice Shure MV88+ microphone.  This tiny little microphone sounds great and comes with great clips for the phone and the gimbal.

Onto the Gimbal.  I have had a cheap gimbal for about a year now but I’ve recently upgraded to the Freefly Movi Cinema robot.  This provides way more success when shooting stable videos and the feature set is much more professional than that of the previous gimbal.  It’s pricy though even on it’s own but when combined with everything else that’s needed to make this work effectively, it’s eye wateringly and stupidly expensive.

The last bit of kit I invested in recently was a 18mm lens from a company called Moment.  This lense attaches to a case for the iPhone to nearly double the depth of view on the phone.  It’s a really powerful addition and from what I’ve been told by people who have commented on videos that I’ve posted, this really helps make video shot on the phone look much more professional.

Here’s how it all looks when it’s together:

But nothing is ever simple. Take a look at the list below to see how many extra parts were needed just to make all this fit together.

•  iPhone
  • Shure MV88+ microphone
    • Out door wind shield purchased separately
  • Freefly Movi cinema robot gimbal
    • Needed separately purchased cold shoe for the microphone to sit on the handle
  • 18mm Moment lens
    • Required separately purchased case for the iPhone
    • Required separately purchased counter weights for the gimbal

I am not receiving anything for mentioning any of these products. Because if I was, I would point out that the fact that Freefly and Moment have products that work so well together and have in fact careful attention has been given so that their designs complement each other but yet, when adding a moment lens, there are two other rather pricey components that need to be added.  The lens on it’ sown is pricey enough.  Adding the counterweights and the case just makes me feel cheated.

This post is long enough. I’ll explain more about how I’m using all of this in a future post. For now though, take a look at a video that was captured using all of this.