4 Useful Pieces of Gear to Record Great Travel Videos
If you want to record great videos of your trip, it helps to bring the right gear. But apart from the essentials such as your camera, spare batteries, and extra SD cards – there are a few pieces of gear that will be particularly useful in helping you to capture impressive videos.
Some of the more useful pieces of gear that you should make it a point to pack include:
• Portable tripod or monopod
Having a tripod or monopod can make a big difference as it will give you a way to keep your camera still, stable, and steady as you record your video. Although the tripod is the more popular and more stable option by far, monopods are growing increasingly popular as an alternative that can be set up more quickly and carried more easily.
• Handheld stabilizer
If you want to keep your camera steady while on the move, a handheld stabilizer may be a better option than a stand. Nowadays there are lots of options available that vary in size, weight, and effectiveness.
It is important that you carefully consider and choose the right handheld stabilizer based on your camera, the type of stabilization it offers, its portability, and all other relevant factors.
• External microphone
If you want to record good audio along with your travel video, a good external microphone is almost a necessity. It should be the right type too – such as a shotgun microphone to record audio from a specific area, or a lavalier microphone to record a person’s voice.
• Portable lighting solutions
Relying on the light to co-operate while you travel is rarely a good idea. Having a portable lighting solution of some kind could help – though the type that you bring with you will depend on the type of video footage you intend to record.
If you’re going to be recording lots of outdoor footage then a collapsible reflector may do the trick. If not a more general option is a traditional flashlight or headlamp, preferably with a softening filter.
As you can see the types of gear listed above can have a dramatic impact on the videos that you record and will help you to capture far more impressive footage overall. The one other useful item that may be worth bringing along is a laptop that will let you edit, convert, and backup your videos.
It may help to try out Online Video Converter as an easy, and web-based option to convert videos. If you want you can use it as a free MPG to MP4 converter or to convert any other video formats you require. Unlike many other web-based converters it has no file size limit, and will quickly convert your videos to the format that you set.
And for your information, if you want to upload the travel videos to Instagram, YouTube or other streaming sites, there may be a time/size limit. In such case, you should try a video editor to trim clips and reduce MP4 video file size.
While thinking of the gear that you want to take with you, be sure to consider the fact that you will need to carry it around. That is key when you are traveling, and you should limit the gear that you bring to the options that you feel will be most useful.
