As the technology of various fields has improved, eventually, the tools come down in price and up in quality. This has especially been true of the video/film field. I’ve always wanted to film things. I loved having my various still cameras over the years. I’ve always wanted a good digital stills camera, that could take really good video. Well, the time has come. I’m still a little short for the time being of funds for what I want, but in the meantime, other things, less expensive options have appeared.

1. My Samsung Galaxy S4

2. My wife’s (well its become mine now) Canon Power Shot

Both shoot great 1080p video, although the audio suffers a bit. One thing I have found is an app that lets me shoot time lapse video. However, it is a pain to stand there with the phone in hand trying to hold still.So tool number 1. My adjustable Glif (pictured above left). It allows me to put the phone in to the little clamp on one end, so that I can put it on a tripod (which I have a couple) so that I don’t have to hold it anymore. The other end works as a nice stand so I can watch stuff on it.

Tool number 2 is my Zoom H1 Audio recorder (pictured to the right on top of the handle looking thing). In the future I would like to get the H5 with all of its options, but for me to get started and not learn anything I decided that this would fill the gap. Also the little lav mic that I picked up for my smartphone works with an adapter with this recorder. So my audio quality is now going up!

Tool number 3 is the handle looking thing. I needed a way to put this all on one rig so that I can record the audio and video at once. It reminds me of a similar handle rig that my dad used with his camera and flash unit when working as a freelance reporter, when I was a kid.

So between the Power Shot and the phone, can do some basic video and audio recording. The next investment is a better computer so that I can edit the video and audio clips together without so much jerky motion or freezing (That happened tonight.). So my wish list grows a bit more.

So what am I doing? Well, I have about 15 years left in the NWS, so I figured that I might as well take a hobby that I really like and see if I can eventually convert it into a second career. So I have been trying to learn all that I can on how to shoot, light, record, and edit properly so that can create artistic pieces of film. I’m liking some documentary for now. We’ll see what God has in store.