The Rules
Baguley's five golden rules for making the most of your camcorder.Richard Baguley, PC World
Got a great tip for making movies? Send e-mail to Richard Baguley at makingmovies@pcworld.com.
In this column, I'll be talking about the fast-developing world of digital video and audio editing. While video editing used to be a complex and time-consuming business, the increasing power of personal computers and the falling cost of digital camcorders have put movie-making tools into everyone's hands. Stick around for my reviews of the latest gear as well as tips and tricks for making great videos.
Let's start off with my five golden rules for getting the most out of your camcorder.
1. Know your equipment. As a wise man named Oscar Wilde once said, "Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." So be sure to practice using your camcorder: You want to make your mistakes when you're not recording something important. Even the cheapest modern camcorders offer a huge range of features to improve your video, but they won't count for anything if you don't know how to use them.
Get familiar with what your camcorder can and can't do by taking some time to read the manual and record everyday things around the house. That way, when you spot Bigfoot wandering through your garden, you can quickly enable the low light mode and capture video to sell to the National Enquirer for big bucks--instead of fumbling around while he trips over the cat and runs away.
2. Steady as she goes. Few things are more irritating than jumpy video caused by shaky hands. It may have given the Blair Witch Project a spooky, authentic feel, but it won't work for your family trip to the beach.
Although most modern camcorders are designed for one-handed use, using two hands makes for steadier shots. Safety permitting, put one hand in the camera strap and use the other to brace the camcorder. Many modern camcorders also include image-stabilization technology that corrects for slight movements. This can be very effective, but only if you remember to turn it on (see previous tip).
Most professional camera operators wouldn't leave home without a tripod to mount their camera on, but that's not always practical. Instead, you can improvise. When you're shooting video, try leaning on a door frame, putting your elbows on a low wall, or finding a surface that's unlikely to move and bracing yourself against it.
3. Just because you have it, you don't always have to use it. Your camcorder may come with built-in digital effects to "enhance" the video, but do you really want to use them? I'm continually baffled by folks who think that a video of their family playing by the pool will be more interesting if it looks like an old film. You don't live in the 1930s--so why should you try and make it look like you do?
While special effects can enhance a movie, they should always be used sparingly and with caution. And remember: If you record video using effects built into your camcorder, you can't undo them afterwards. So if you shoot something with an effect and then decide you don't like it, tough. But if you shoot an unadulterated video, then add effects when you edit it on your PC, you can always change your mind.
4. Get organized: Label your videotapes. Once you've been shooting video for a bit, you'll face a dilemma. Which tape in that huge pile contains the video of your daughter's third birthday party, and which one records her eighth birthday?
At the very least, each videotape that you use should have a label on which you've written the date it was recorded. Folks who are a bit more organized may want to use the insert in the videotape case to create a short list of what is on each tape, or even to set up a database of tapes for easy reference. It's a bit of a pain to remember to label your tapes, but it's easier than having to watch hundreds of hours to find the 30 seconds of video that you need.
5. Watch more TV. I'm no great fan of reality TV shows, but you can learn a lot from watching them (apart from realizing what a total bunch of losers most humans are). It's interesting to see how the professional camera operators that film these shows approach the type of everyday occurrences you'll probably want to record. In particular, you can see how to video someone without getting in their way, a skill I've wished for many people I've seen using camcorders at parties and in public places.
Gearing Up
In addition to offering tips, in this column I'll look at video and audio equipment, including some we haven't covered in PC World.
First up is the Sony DCR-PC109 camcorder. This $750 MiniDV camcorder packs a lot of features into a small case, including a 10X optical zoom and the ability to take still images at up to 1152 by 864 pixels, and save them to a Memory Stick Duo card. (You can go to our Product Finder to find the latest prices.)
At 14 ounces, the PC109 is pretty light, fitting comfortably into the hand with the zoom control falling under the index finger. It's certainly not the smallest camcorder I've seen, but the tall-and-thin form factor means it would easily fit into a largish pocket or small shoulder bag. Another nice touch is the built-in lens cover, which is much more convenient than a lens cap you're bound to drop somewhere.
One interesting aspect of this camcorder is its cable dock. Instead of plugging the FireWire, USB, and power cable directly into the camcorder, you plug them into the camcorder's dock, which Sony calls the Handycam Station. This clever design makes it easy to connect the camera to a PC for video editing and recharge the battery at the same time. But there is a downside: You can't plug the FireWire or USB cables into the camcorder body itself, so if you want to do any editing on the road, you'll have to take the dock with you. You can, however, plug the power cable into the camcorder body to recharge its battery.