Cappuccino Chat - Episode 20 - What Camera or Cameras Do You Need!

welcome back to another episode of cappuccino chat this time we're talking about what kind of camera or cameras do you need for your video marketing all right so this time in our series on video marketing we're talking about the camera or cameras depending on what you're doing so let me preface this a little bit with right now the camera that i'm using is stationary so the way i've designed my office and my setup is for a stationary camry i don't go out in the field and do a lot of camera views i'm not doing a lot of motion shots and things like that so like we talked about in the previous episode you really need to determine where you're going to be filming if you're filming in different locations so with that said i only film in this one primary location not to say that i can't film elsewhere but the choice i made in my camera was done because i'm going to be stationary i'm also not needing auto focus on the fly so i'm not doing a lot of movement in my videos i'm doing more interview style or just either with myself or with guests so we're not doing a lot of movement so what do i mean by that well i'm going to raise my hand here for you and you'll see so what's going to happen is my hand gets out of focus but i'm still in focus because that's what was focused on initially so with a auto focus camera where maybe you're showing off product or doing a lot of movement uh different distances from your camera you're going to want to choose a camera that has that real time auto focus capabilities now some are better at it than others but you're going to want to choose that we're also going to talk about when we talk about cameras is using it like i use this one not only for recording my videos but for any of my web conferencing stuff so when my zoom calls my team's calls i'm using my same camera so i get the better camera view better picture quality better microphone all that kind of good stuff because i've using basically my very expensive camera as a webcam along with that so i'm using it multiple different ways so when choosing a camera that you are going to want to use as a webcam for doing live streaming recording out to a computer you're going to want to make sure that it supports what's called a clean output hdmi clean output what that means is if you're used to looking at the back of your camera you see all those gauges and dials and different information on the display about shutter speed and iso and all that stuff well you don't want that coming through on the feed so right now i've got that turned off on my camera so that when it's filming me you're not seeing that information so that's very important if you're going to be using it as a webcam or to do recordings like this where i'm recording to my computer and not directly to a sd card or a hard drive you're going to want to make sure you have that clean hdmi out now some manufacturers don't support it natively on all their cameras i know canon doesn't support it on all of their so you got to be careful with that there are hacks and ways around it but you need to be careful with that um so let's just kind of get into what i got so i went with the blackmagic 6k now the reason i went with this camera one is the price had just fallen from its original price tag uh it dropped 500 so i got 6k resolution so i can record at up to 6k on it if i wanted to so i kind of future-proofed my investment in doing this so it also has some other features on it that i liked i didn't need the autofocus because i'm doing this way some of the lens options i can go with some very good canon lenses canon does have the canon mount i should say has some very good lenses we'll talk about lenses in the next episode uh and the why i went with the one i did as you can see my background is blurry but i'm in focus whereas if you're used to seeing your webcam um everything is in focus and that you know gives you a different look if you will so i went with this camera because the lens that everybody was talking about that you kind of like the must-have lens was kind of better fit for the um canon mount so that's another reason i went the way i did future proofing like i mentioned i can plug in an xlr microphone so i have a microphone here just out of frame that plugs in via a mini xlr so i can and it powers that microphone so i can use a boom type microphone in my videos and this camera has that output for input for it it can be plugged in to an ac power source so this one came with an ac power i didn't have to get what's called a dummy battery so again if you're going to be doing any kind of streaming or using it for video calls you're going to want to make sure you don't have to rely on the battery because you can drain your batteries pretty quick and then you know you don't want to run out of battery in the middle of recording something you need to restart or whatever so you either want to get a dummy battery for it which uh just what it sounds like it's not a battery it plugs in and then has an ac adapter that then will power your camera indefinitely this one has a ac input so i didn't need to get that and have that expense so that's another reason i went with it so but i don't need auto focus so this is a cinema type camera it can do people shoot movies on these and different things like that but i got it more for because i wanted it for the interview style camera again i'm not auto focused and it integrates with some of the other pieces i have in my total kit being my switcher and what converts the hdmi signal to my computer so as i mentioned i bought a 6k camera so that's one up from 4k and think of your tvs but i'm only recording at 1080p 60 frames so it's down sampling so mostly most of the time you won't um upload in 4k or 6k it's just no reason for it but there are instances for it so if i wasn't recording straight to my computer with this capture card the way i have it i could record straight to hard drive at 6k what that allows me to do is zoom in on things without it starting to pixelate like when you zoom in on your security cameras or anything like that where you start to see those dots and those pixels with the 6k i can actually crop in zoom in to 4k or 1020 much tighter without losing quality so again i can do a wide view and do different things but then when i go to put the video together i can crop in without losing picture quality uh and and that sort of thing so when it comes to cameras again you got to kind of think about or cameras right so my setup i'm ready to do multiple cameras the switcher i've chosen can support up to four we'll talk about some of the other items you need later on and i'll mention my switcher but i can integrate that so let's say you were doing a product type demo you might have this face-to-face camera view and you might have a top-down view right where you're seeing something on a table maybe you're explaining it maybe you're taking it apart putting it back together and you need that other view a lot of time with streamers like in radio shows and youtube videos you'll see behind the scenes kind of cameras like one camera maybe behind them showing the view that they're seeing so you can switch back and forth on those different views so you may have a reason for multiple cameras uh when you're doing that you can mix and match cameras but just so you don't have to do so much post production work in your side your software that you're going to use you're going to want to probably stick with the same manufacturer at least maybe not the same model but at least the same manufacturer because everyone does their color matching and stuff just a little bit different and you're going to want to kind of stick with that just to make your life easier you know we're not all this isn't hollywood we're not you know doing this 24 7 for our our job or anything we're trying to make these videos so we want to make sure things are as simple as possible so for this i would stick with i like the blackmagic uh you can take a look at those for sure um but you might probably also want to look at the sony line so the uh sony 6000 line i think you still get the 6100 6400 the 6600s those are all very good cameras you can get the clean um hdmi out um good lens options again we'll get into lenses in the next video but they take very good lenses the same manufacturer i'm using makes lenses for those that are called prime lenses and we will talk about that in the next video i promise um but on cameras they're very small lightweight so you can hang them from the ceiling from boom arms uh very easy to carry with you if you needed to again to go do maybe some outside shots or movement shots uh fits in gimbals very nice so again the sony line would be something i would look at or again if you've got a dsl that you've got you know make it make it work give it a try see what you've got a lot of them have hdmi out already so you just need that capture card which again we'll talk about in a later video um but you can always try what you got if you don't want to buy new and get into it you'd be surprised what you can get to and now nowadays with the new cameras on uh cell phones and stuff using software i started with the iphones these cameras are phenomenal and you can do a lot with them just starting there one of the nice things now is with the setup i have i could actually use my iphone as a secondary camera right so i would have this is my main view and i could have my cell phone mounted somewhere else connected up as a secondary view for myself and i could switch back and forth and have that in in place so these are just different things to think about when you're setting up your camera another piece as i mentioned mine takes a xlr microphone so the kind of microphone i wanted for doing interviews where um i'm not wearing a lapel mic i can set up a lapel mic if i need to i have that option of course but i wanted a kind of a permanent mount arm on my microphone and we will also talk about audio in a future episode but i wanted that functionality a lot of cameras take a separate um just a 3.5 millimeter input which then you got to have battery powered for that microphone to pick things up if you want everything into one feed so why is one feed nice you don't want things getting out of sync so when your lips are moving you don't want different words getting out of sync so everything goes into the camera camera processes it brings it out one feed one feed goes into my computer i record audio and video at the same time and it works great i don't have to worry about it you can always record audio separately a lot of people do that where they'll have a secondary audio recorder where it's just recording audio then they record their video separately to a separate hard drive and then in post production they combine the two together to be one seamless video you can do that in my mind it takes more time to do that and i didn't want that i can actually once i get all the recording done i can edit and upload a video pretty fast i would say within 30 minutes i can edit the video add what i need to add and get it uploaded to youtube and online for viewers to watch so it all depends on what you want to do and in your post production and with your software again i'm not getting crazy as you can tell with what i'm doing here but you can do all sorts of very cool things with your software and get crazy with that so when you're doing that kind of stuff bringing in the audio bringing in the video isn't very difficult it just adds more time to it and i didn't want that time so things to think about with your camera or cameras again if you're going with multiple cameras i would stick with the same manufacturer just to make things easier two um think about future proofing so don't necessarily get the cheapest thing just to get you by think about what you're going to be doing um kind of use it going forward again the sony line they're very good they're 4k cameras for the most part on the 6000 series they all share the same lenses which is very nice when you stick with the same manufacturer you don't have that as well because lenses can get very very expensive um so those are two very things um audio is important you know think about how you're going to connect the audio are you going to be mobile and need a better mic connected to it so then that 3.5 connector works great or are you going to be stationary like myself and you can use the xlr output i always want to combine everything to what you have into the clean hdmi so that's another item to look for is that clean hdmi out if you're going to be recording to a computer or some other kind of capture device and not on the camera itself if you're capturing to the camera itself that clean hdmi out is not very important but when making the investments in these high-end cameras i would definitely look at streaming with your camera for like your zoom calls and stuff because these cameras make a big difference in quality and i would kind of reuse some of my investment so those are the things to look for in your camera or cameras how you're going to use them how are they set up stick with the same manufacturer audio clean hdmi out i know that was a lot to cover as always if you have any questions please reach out to me either calling the office at 760-770-5200 or you can email me directly i'd be glad to talk with you about setting up some video marketing for your business until next time bye