Video rig

At my day job, we have been doing a lot of video lately and the majority has been done with my iPhone. Seriously. With plenty more video projects coming that will require sound better audio, we picked up a Canon Rebel T2i and a Rode microphone.
Playing with it so far, it's been great. We recorded some video over the weekend and with the exception of poor image stabilization, it's what we needed. So far it's provides pro level video without the pro price.
As far as the still picture quality, I'm loving the High ISO capabilities! No noticeable noise at ISO 800, something unheard of on my Canon 1D MK II.

-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

Equipment change

Saturday my wife had a photo shoot and needed to use my camera. No problem, but as we were doing a pre-shoot check, my camera focused in all the wrong places and wasn't consistent despite setting it to one focus point. One shot it'd back-focus, the next it'd front focus. So not given much time, we ran to Best Buy and picked up the cheapest Canon camera they had. That happened to be the Canon Rebel XSi. It worked out great for the shoot and I have a vacation coming up, so it'll get it's legs stretched there as well. So far it's been a pretty good camera despite it's limitations. I'll keep you updated on how it continues to work.


-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

Upgrade

So the major thing that has been lacking in our video has to be sound quality. We improved the lighting by adding some lights which helped our video quality. And if you click the HQ link on the YouTube videos it helps out a lot. Well, without powerful speakers, the videos tend to be too quiet. Our previous filming set up consisted of a few Flip Video cameras. Hey, we're on a limited budget. Anyway, it was time for an upgrade. So, we purchased a Canon FS100 flash memory video camera with one very important feature. A mic input! This way we can get better sound quality and bring the mic just a little bit closer to us. For this we picked up an Azden ECZ-990 shotgun microphone. You can see the whole setup above. This will undoubtedly increase the quality of our videos for you. Since we film in advance, don't expect to see this in action on YouTube until probably middle of next week.

-TFAM