Making videos drives me crazy.  Or at least it used to.  I would work *very* hard to try to produce videos of a consistent/best quality that I could, and for the most part I succeeded.  But it was very trying.

Cameras

My first camera that I used to produce some of my crafting videos was built into my tablet, Asus Transformer 300T.  This didn't work very well, and there was no way to adjust the brightness - it was horrible.  These videos never made the light of day to Youtube.

My second camera I thought would be better, an HD Webcam.  However, Logitech has neglected to provide quality drivers and support for their webcams for the Mac OSX operating system.  Logitech provides a of program for recording on OSX and a program for adjusting in Windows.  Not even Techsmith Camtasia could find this camera and would constantly lose connection.

Nothing out of the ordinary - but I would come to regret purchasing the Logitech HD Webcam C615 due to the constant, inconsistent performance that this camera gave me on the Mac OSX system.

To say that these cameras have OSX support is a vast overstatement.  They work - but yet cannot be fined tuned or controlled for powerline settings (US vs AUS/NZ) - producing a strong flicker for AUS/NZ markets just from your lighting and camera shutter.  I would have to have something to take out the flicker - and no amount of editing can remove it.

I had to purchase another program, the wonderful Webcam Settings through the App Store to be able to utilise this camera at all.  After what seemed like an HOUR before every video of fine tuning and adjusting - the camera itself would sometimes forget to record, drop frames, or shut off altogether during a video.  The focus was fuzzy, and if you attempted to refocus you could lose the fine tuning and adjustment you spent an hour previously to get right.

I think my record for re-recording a video was 5 in one evening - I had started the video 5 times and failed and just gave up.  I have videos half finished that will never see the light of day - beautiful fairies, dapper gentlemen, and sweet puppies.

Camcorder to the Rescue

I've recently purchased the Panasonic HC-V110 and have had good results so far.  Easy import into Final Cut Pro, battery charges while transferring videos - however one drawback is that it cannot be mounted to my lamp and must use a tripod.

This means my video isn't truly lined up to my craft mat and will drive the OCD part of my brain in circles, but at least I don't have to constantly adjust and readjust mid video.  I can even finish a video or pause mid video.

Look out soon for videos and let me know if this was a great purchase!