Equipment and Tactics

Equipment

Everything I've recorded so far has been with the same camera: a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 (also known as a DMC-TZ7 in some countries). In 2009 it was amongst the first of a new wave of point-and-shoot cameras that also take "HD" video, and was probably the best purchasing decision I could have made with that budget at that time.

I also use a Joby Gorillapod, if I remember to take it with me, either as an easy way to hold the camera aloft or, rarely, as an actual tripod if there's some convenient furniture near where I'm standing.

Tactics

Or "Why are there no full-length concerts here? Why to the videos suck?"

First question: I only usually film one song (maybe two) per band, because it's more important to me to have fun at the concert and to not annoy others. I'm not willing to annoy the person behind me by holding my camera up all night (and my arm would get tired anyway) and I might want to have drink, talk to whoever I'm with, move around or headbang. Plus I never ask permission. Also the battery on my camera doesn't last that long.

Second question: It's shaky because I'm shooting handheld. It's badly-framed because I'm mostly looking at the stage, not the back of my camera. And because, often as not, I'm juggling a beer in my other hand. In fact, I might have had several beers. The sound might be bad because I'm standing in the wrong place, or I've forgotten my gorillapod I might be holding the camera with my thumb over one of the microphones. I only recently realised that if I operate the zoom with my left hand, that cups the microphones and affects the sound.

There are other places on the Internet to get pro-shot videos, or bootlegs made by people who are more dedicated than me. I hope my videos are fun anyway!

Technical

File formats and Macintosh software.

My camera records in AVCHD Lite format, which means that the movies aren't quite stand alone files but depend on other files that are also on the SD card. If you want to get your movies into Apple iMovie, you need to use iMovie to create a camera archive (essentially an image of the entire SD card) instead of just moving the files you want to the hard disk. If you just copy the files to your Mac, you will find that they don't import properly if you change anything in the folder structure.

A bit silly if you ask me. However, the audio and video are fully contained in files called FILENAME.MTS, which can be uploaded directly to YouTube, played with VLC or Movist, or converted to a more standard MP4 using Handbrake.

Shedworx makes a number of tools to play with AVCHD files, but I haven't tried any of it.