It seems I didn’t have enough passions because I’ve now added vlogging to that list. At this point it might not come off, but my girlfriend and myself are certainly planning on it.
Actually it’s something we have both talked about doing since we decided to buy a caravan and hit the road. We had all these plans of documenting how caravan renovations and going from newbie to pro.
Of course health and self-esteem issues were way to intimidating for us to go ahead with it, but we now find ourselves in a space where we want to try.
We still have self-esteem worries due to being overweight, but the health side of things is officially on the up and up. We want to share our experiences in hopes to inspire other people to follow their dreams.
We ourselves found inspiration in watching other people, and because we related to them, it was like “if they can do it, then surely we can to!”. Now it’s time to pay that forward!
Like anything I do, I’ve researched the hell out of it!
I’ve figured out the best camera for us, the best editing software and have hopefully pulled together an awesome setup that will work awesomely for us. Of course there will be adjustments and evolving like anything, but hopefully sharing the beginning through to the “I wish I knew this” and so on, will help others thinking of doing the same thing!
Camera
Let’s start with the Camera. We didn’t want anything bulky to carry around, we’ve been there and done that when we went down the photography rabbit hole. Frankly carrying a bulky camera around with us just never happened, it always got left behind and we’d end up pulling out our iPhones instead. So learning from that I jumped right into the Action Camera pool.
GoPro seems to be the big name in this category, so instantly I went down that rabbit hole, I started watching all these reviews and different vloggers who use it. Needless to say it comes highly recommended, and the main choice was going to be which one, 8, 9 or 10.
As per usual, I can’t just go off the first big name in the category, so I did start looking at what other brands were in the action camera category. Somewhere down this particular hole, I found a side passage leading to 360 action cameras.
This particular camera had me going on a massive search, because the one thing about vlogging I’ve always been hesitant on is the whole shoot process. You know that process where you have to make sure everything you want in the shot is always in the shot. So you end up watching the camera screen more than you do experiencing the moment. This is one thing I never wanted and has been my excuse for a LONG time as to why we weren’t even giving it a second look. I really didn’t want to spend my time worrying about the camera when we are experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So a huge, big, massive, awesome feature of the 360 cameras is that it records every view possible!
So all I have to do is hold this little camera on its selfie stick and it will record 360. I do have to be a little aware of anything that might be obstructing possible views, but otherwise what views I want shown in the final product is all done post. So I can enjoy the moment and figure out later what parts of it we want to show. This also cuts down on the whole ‘Darn, I missed that’ moments.
Again, once I decided that a 360 action camera was going to be the best option for our type of filming, I researched which particular one was going to be the best. Insta360 was definitely the biggest contender here because the GoPro Max was a few years old. Plus we found the Insta360 One RS Twin Edition, which meant we got a standard action camera plus a 360. Since we are still not 100% sure which will best suit us, the One RS Twin Edition means we get to play around with both styles of action cameras.
Having received the camera in the mailbox a couple of days ago, we are truly excited and have been playing around with the 360 camera so far. Interesting enough we haven’t yet even tried the standard camera. Either way I’m sure I’ll have much more to say as the weeks go by. If you’re interested in what will come of it our YouTube channel is ‘All Our Colours’, however I have no idea when the first video will go up.
Video Editing Software
After choosing the camera, I now wanted something easy and fun to do the videos with.
Insta360 cameras come with their own software, which will be standard in choosing which views of the shoots I actually want. Since I haven’t yet played around with that software, I can’t say for sure, but I’m probably only going to use it to adjust the view and zooming of each part and then export everything into a second piece of software.
I did heaps of research on which software was going to best suit my needs, but the first one I looked at is LumaFusion because that’s what I already have on my iPad for my music videos. I figured the easiest would be going with what I already know but turns out LumaFusion’s Mac version is only compatible with M1 Chips. This really disappointed me, and I could write a whole slew of comments, but I’ll refrain and simply say that I decided then and there that I’d happily replace LumaFusion on all platforms if I found something.
Off I went looking at free video editing software, because I didn’t particularly feel like paying for something again after the whole LumaFusion issue. After tons of software crossing my screen, I finally narrowed the list down to 2 options, well maybe 3 because if all else failed I could consider iMovie. I can’t say I’ve ever had much success working with iMovie though, so I really didn’t want to bother with it again, especially since it didn’t have any filters and other minor things, I felt I needed.
This left me with Davinci Resolve and VN (Vlog Now). Davinci has so many reviews on how awesome it is, so it was only natural that it made the list, and each time I’ve considered video editing software for different projects over the years, it’s always been a big contender! However, this thing is a beast! If your serious about getting into the video editing side of things in a big way, then this would certainly be the best way to go, having said that though, it is not necessarily beginner friendly. Which isn’t a big turn off for me, I’m always up for learning a new piece of software if it’s something I’m really keen on. This time however, I’m not sure how much I’m going to enjoy video editing, so I didn’t want to dive in the deep end and potentially have myself avoiding the whole process just because I didn’t enjoy the software.
This is where VN stepped up, not only was it cross platform (look out LumaFusion), but it also looked wonderfully beginner friendly and still had some great features. The only thing it seemed to lack was the ability to edit the audio of the imported video, and the only reason I was thinking about doing that was if I needed to remove wind noise or such. But I figured it ticked everything else, and I’m sure there is other ways around any potential wind noise issues. Other than this, it seems to be packed full of features in a wonderfully easy and perhaps even fun experience.
Wrap Up
After all is said and done, all of this is the complete beginnings.
In a year’s time I may look back on all this research and subsequent decisions and go “what the hell was I thinking”, but you have to start somewhere, and this will be ours!
We will play around with our Insta360 One RS and see if will blend seamlessly into our current lifestyle, and if editing all the footage in Insta360 Studio plus VN, will be the best way for us.
Perhaps having to edit so much footage will get to be too much, leading us to rethink a 360 camera. Or we may discover that vlogging full stop is just not us, either way I’d prefer to try than to regret not trying.
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