Saturday, December 12, 2009

Advocacy, Citizen Journalism and Documentation - Buying A Digital Camcorder

There is a world beyond mainstream media and scripted reality programing. Now is the time for sane folks to grip their camcorders and move into documenting and bearing witness to the events of our time.

This is a video from Fora.tv on the type of camcorders and devices like cell phones are being used for documentation of human rights and advocacy.


Advocacy, Citizen Journalism, Documentation– $120 -$699


Have a cause, want to educate or document your world? Know up front that you will have to invest time to learn basic video editing skills. Not a lot but a little trimming or a snip here and their can help make a video clear and effective. There is also the other side that says keep it raw and uncut.

No matter how you swing these are the types of things to consider for your purchase.

You might need:
  • Small lightweight camcorder
  • Good audio or an external audio microphone jack
  • 10x or more optical zoom
  • Image stabilization
  • Video storage options, such as a hard drive or high capacity flash memory cards
If recording just web video you could do well with Kodak Zi8, Panasonic HDC-TM10K or Panasonic SD-RS26R with 70X optical zoom.

For reporters and journalists if recording good audio is more important and you can live with non-high def video then take a look at the Samson ZoomQ3 Handy Video Recorder. It is standard definition 640x480 video but the audio recording is spot on.

If you want to records in 1080 high definition then the Canon Vixia HF200 might be of interest. If that is over you budge but you still want 41X optical zoom you could swing over to the Canon Vixia FS200 , a standard definition version that includes a microphone jack.

Video Editing Options

As always, I suggest that you try a trial version to see if you and the video editing program are compatible.

This is the third extract from a post I wrote for BlogHer with additional information added and yanking a few bug-a-boos.

Other Posts of Interest

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