Just bought one! :-)

[Jongleur]

I just bought the camera/Rode Videomic combo from Alpha Electronics. It ships today. I'm really excited.

This is also my intro to the group, I suppose. Let me fill in a few details.

I live in South Carolina and do a lot of spoken word poetry stuff. I have a master's in computer science and have always done computer stuff as a hobby, but I need my arts fix, y'know?

I'm starting a new spoken word venue in early September, and the need to film that (and eventually get it onto Youtube, etc.) helped me pull the trigger on this.

I have a pretty decent home PC, and my goal will be to work out the quickest/easiest way to film shows, and then downsample them and cut them up into individual poems. I'll be looking for advice on this.

Looking forward to learning from all of you,
Chris

[Erik Bien]

Hi Jongleur,

Welcome to the forum! Depending on how far away from the performer you need to set up the camera, the VideoMic might pick up more ambient sound than you like: since its output is mono, not stereo, you could always run another microphone, say a wireless body-pack lavalier to the other channel and mix to taste in post. See this thread (http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=1344) for the gory details.

The other thing to put on your shopping list is a tripod with a decent "fluid action" pan/tilt head. This is a much-discussed topic in these parts; see here (http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=1334) for a recent example. Good sticks = real money, but few things can make an amateur's footage look better than a silky-smooth pan/tilt head, while even a pro would struggle to make sweet moves with a bad one.

[Dodgy Nick]

Welcome to the forums Chris! Can't wait to see some of your footage. If you're interested in jazzing your spoken word productions up a notch, I can recommend checking out Digital Juice's Editor's toolkits (www.digitaljuice.com). They're ending their SD line and will bring out a HD line soon. The editor's toolkits contains backgrounds, lower thirds, wipes and bugs, all things that will spruce up your video to the next level.

[muroshi]

Me too. I believe Canon has delivery problems though..

[Jongleur]

I ordered the camera Wednesday from Alpha Electronics, and it already got here!

I didn't use expedited shipping or anything. All contents appear new and in great shape.

Thanks, guys!

Big thumbs up to AE.

- Chris

[Ten Ounce]

I ordered the camera Wednesday from Alpha Electronics, and it already got here!

I didn't use expedited shipping or anything. All contents appear new and in great shape.

Thanks, guys!

Big thumbs up to AE.

- Chris

Thanks Chris. I expedited your shipment from Ground to UPS 2-day Delivery at no extra charge which explains why it arrived so quickly. I hope you enjoy your new camera. :hv20-smilie77: