Sipsey Street Irregulars: Came down with some virus while out in Yakima. (Also, suggestions on video cameras.)

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Came down with some virus while out in Yakima. (Also, suggestions on video cameras.)

I'm running behind on my posts. Also, there were no videos taken of my speeches or my classes, so I'm going to replicate them from here and will post on YouTube. The problem is that I don't have a video camera or even phone capable of taking suitable footage. I do have a reader who is volunteering to pick me one up so that I can get started with sending out these and other blocks of instruction on armed civil disobedience, 4GW, improvised munitions, etc. Neither of us know what to buy, however. Do you have suggestions as to the best compromise of capability, quality and price at the moment. Idiot proof would also help. In addition, there should be a way to obtain the best sound quality in a small package, since videos with pristine pictures and crappy sound don't get watched. Suggestions?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...: Did a lot of folks there, come down with a virus...
Not paranoid, just curious.; June 25, 2015 at 11:33 AM
ExGeeEye said...: Most decent inexpensive point-and-shoot difgital cameras willl shoot 1080p video. A little cheaper, and you might have to settle for 720p, which is still considered "high definition" and is adequate on a 32" LCD TV. My own favorite is a Pentax X-5, which shoots 1080p and also 16MP still photos, and runs off 4 AA batteries (so no carrying around a charger). Amazon has them here:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=node%3D330405011&field-keywords=pentax+x-5&rh=n%3A172282%2Cn%3A502394%2Cn%3A281052%2Cn%3A330405011%2Ck%3Apentax+x-5

You can go cheaper and still do pretty well.

Hope that helps.; June 25, 2015 at 11:43 AM
Phelps said...: As a guy with formal Radio/Film/Television training, it was drilled into us that you can get by with mediocre video is you have excellent sound. Get a middling camera, but a good wireless mic. The good news is, even the cheap ones are pretty good nowadays. With a middling camera, you aren't going to get balanced XLR inputs, but that is OK if the mic pack is on the camera and the cable is short.

This isn't a bad budget kit:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1070562-REG/polsen_uhf_handheld_and_lavalier.html

If you have some money to spend, you can jump up to a diversity receiver, which means that you are receiving on two separate antennas and the unit is picking the best signal moment to moment. I doubt that you will be working a ranges that require diversity, but when you need it, it's sure nice to have.

I believe this one will let you use both mics at the same time, as well.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/733910-REG/Azden_330ULH_330LH_UHF_On_Camera_Handheld.html

As for cameras, I like the glass in Canon cameras. This is the less-pro version of the one I use at work:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/909792-REG/Canon_8063b002_32GB_VIXIA_HF_G20.html

If that's a budget squeeze, this one is nice for the price:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1110404-REG/canon_0280c001_vixia_hf_r600_full.html

The optical stabilization is a very, very nice feature, but you'll want to stay away from that zoom -- it's a fake digital one about halfway in, so you lose a lot of picture quality. (Sometimes you can turn the digital zoom off in the menus, and if you can, DO IT.) For 99% of field shooting, you want wide zooms and up close. (Note the way that the pros do their standups next time you see them -- that camera is RIGHT in the newstalker's face.); June 25, 2015 at 12:17 PM
Anonymous said...: This might work, a Canon FS11 or a Canon Legria HF21 both are ok,
and have a mic in. Then you need a wireless mic setup like an audio technica
pro 88w. You could always bug Michael W Dean for specifics, like say, where he
put all the stuff he used to have on his websites about assorted gear. ;)
Need the foam things for microphones to get rid of the whoosh sound, and if
you can, a sort of screen thing to keep the speaker from bonking the mic or
clipping every time they overdo it on the "plosives", which I'm sure a certain
dutchman NEVER does more than once every 5 seconds. :D; June 25, 2015 at 1:38 PM
Anonymous said...: Was there but no virus.; June 25, 2015 at 5:54 PM
Anonymous said...: If money is a issue, I am getting very good results with a 4 core android phone with HD camera and HDR photo capability I paid 70 bucks for. It is actually a bit better than my 2 year old iPhone

I bought mine in asia but Amazon has one that is slightly better

http://www.amazon.com/Unlocked-MTK6592M-Android-Smartphone-GPS-Leather/dp/B00S82OZSK/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1435274837&sr=8-13&keywords=4+core+android+hdr

With the factory unlock you can prepaid sim cards and switch cell providers as needed.; June 25, 2015 at 6:50 PM
Anonymous said...: My father just picked up a Nikon 3200 for around $300 and it's a decent little camera. Personally I have a Nikon 5200 for about $200 more. Both have excellent picture quality and I believe can be hooked up to external or improved microphones.; June 25, 2015 at 9:00 PM
Mike Stahl said...: I would be happy to ship you my old phone, a Motorola Droid Razr Maxx.
http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_droid_razr_maxx-4417.php

It shoots in 1080p and although it no longer has service, it can still connect to a wifi hotspot or be plugged into a computer to transfer the videos. I also have a charging stand that could serve as a tripod of sorts.

Let me know if you're interested. You should still have my email address and/or cel phone number from when you met me in Cincinnati.; June 27, 2015 at 7:28 PM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Came down with some virus while out in Yakima. (Also, suggestions on video cameras.)

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