Camera / video
 

Hi, I am planning to do a travel in Mongolia this August and I still could not find which camera I should buy to record and do a short film about it as well some photo shoots. All for the Internet needs. Can anyone help me what I can take please? It cannot be too big but also has the good voice recording without terrible disruption.
I am starting panicking as I am leaving in 3 weeks and still has not got it!
:helpsmilie:

I do quite a bit of filming when I'm on my travel's. What I have found is, you don't need an expensive camera. Try Argos or any of them kind of place's. It's not as if you going to put it up on the silver screen.


Tip....
Find one that has a microphone in put, and buy a micro phone. You can cut out a lot of the back ground noise. Rather than go with the in built mic. A small tripod is another useful add on. With it, you can get the camera held in the right place at the right angel. Movie camera running on an sd card. ( don't they all ). Will set you back about £100 max, shop around and you can get them cheaper. Don't go for a class 10 card ( sd ). They will tell you that you will need a 10. I find a standard card will do. Try e bay that will do a bunch of 5 or 10. That way your will never be short of a card. There will be a few other thing's you may look in to as well. I use a cheap note book, no cd drive. Pack's up small easy to use, and you can still get on the net. A side thought is an external hard drive. I've got a one gig external hard drive. Reason? Copy all the film on to the hard drive. That way if your note book get stolen, you still have your film's. The note book can be replaced. You can't go back and re shoot the video.


Hope that help's.
John933

I'd add some detail ...

Buy a directional microphone .. may reduce background noise.

The "low speed" memory cards may work ..but they may not when they get cold/hot. I'd not risk it. Money is better saved buy not buying the biggest cards - usually one size smaller is much more memory for the $. Most of the time you can buy 2 of the smaller cards for less than the price of one larger card .. and the total memory size is the same.

Tripod ... get a good head on it if you want to pan! And a hook under the camera mount so you can add weight for stability. Use a backpack/tank bag what ever with stuff in it.

Thank you for all advices but I am still a bit confused as it cannot be super delicate and big. I am also considering GoPro. Is that something which is ok in recording with the sound? I have the photo camera so maybe I should but a video camera as additional? How do you think?

This will come down to;
how much it costs... how much are you prepared to pay?
how rugged? Waterproof will cost, dropable will cost...

Some are prepared to pay lots for a 'good' camera. Others have less to spend .. or maybe they spend it in other ways.

Whatever I take .. it has to be 'expendable' .. it can get damaged or stolen without it hurting too much. Gopros ... they have a name ... may attract theft. You can see the quality of the shots/film by looking on the web. You'd certainly have heaps of help if needed with a gopro. Whatever you get .. have your name engraved in it ... or an email address .. if it gets stolen/lost someone may contact you about it.

I had a bash at this stuff for the first time last year. I didn't spend loads, but used 2 cameras both quite cheap. One waterproof and one normal hand held type. Both used cards to record on to. Both were charged from USB sockets on bike. Both were HD1080 type so the footage matched quite well. Sound on the waterproof was rubbish. Sound on the hand held was Adequate in my humble opinion, wind as always was the biggest issue.


I posted a thread last year for help and received some great advice from hubbers and charted my voyage of discovery on this new pastime. The results are on youtube via link on post #17 , content is perhaps not to everyone's taste but shows quality possible with cheap equipment and no idea! The equipment I used is detailed in post #8

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...ng-video-77111

Thank you for all the answers.
Finally I am considering to buy GoPro 4 Black.
What do you think about this camera?
Additional have anybody used the solar charger for the equipment? Can you recommend any?

I'm not a fan of solar charging - anything small enough to take with you (paperback book size or thereabouts) is going to take for ever to charge up a camera battery (think days at best). Anything much larger is going to be awkward (unless you're in a car - but then you'd only need a cheap 12v charger) and expensive.

I'd suggest one of the battery bank things that are increasingly available on Amazon, eBay etc. A paperback book size one of those will recharge a camera (assuming it's a USB battery) half a dozen / ten times before it needs mains or car recharging itself.

Sound is the main issue with consumer level video cameras in my experience. If you can't plug in an external microphone it's always going to be the poor relation. It's probably why loads of YouTube travel films have interesting visuals but replace the the sound track with music.

I've been using a pistol grip Panasonic video camera (HX-DC1) since 2011 and found it ok visually (decent HD and 14mp stills) but poor on sound in windy conditions. Cheap though (around £100) and well made - it's survived quite a few bike (both motorcycle and pedal) trips and is still working well.

If your travelling by motorcycle .. use the motorcycle to charge stuff!
No adaptors from country to country, not dependant on finding the sun or a spare power socket in the hotel/campground/etc. No thefts (solar panels are not cheap!) doing while your doing something.

Sort out charging stuff from the motorcycle while the engine is running. Done.

Thank you all for all the information! You are great!

I will be travelling on the horseback so I do not think that I will find any socket there ;)