Hi everyone.

I would like some advices.


These are example of students works that I'm emulating (our group is in one of the groups listed). (for our school). We call it Digital Student News Group. It is to encourage students dabbling in videography for hobby, or for their co-curricular activity.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt0kapLpsHlW48gEE06gDvw

May I ask for some advices?


What I need advices are on the hardware front. Software front I'm good because just not-so-recently Humble Bundle got a bundle on videography (Vegas Pro bundle) so I guess that's a really good start.
What I want to do is to buy the necessary gears for at least a "presentable" student news group.
For videography, normally phone cameras will do, but the shakiness, audio mismatching (and especially poor audio quality) is an issue.
I would like to ask the community what are the "must have" tools?
I think a gymbal is a must, or a stabilzer, but when I had a look at the prices, its at least few thousand bucks, so that's out of the window.
I'm planning to have students and teachers cover events easily, without seccond guessing if the audio and video quality will be good or not.


I think these are needed, but I'll appreciate your input, and what kind of economic yet practical solution can be done?

I've seen some other groups lugging a videography (in the workshop) drone all the way, even for normal shots and interview shots, and I find it cumbersome.

- tripod
- a mic? (but not sure what kind)
- some sort of filter? (not sure where to apply)
- what kind of camera / gymbal / setup

Primarly for those "newsroom" and "on site reporting" style of shooting. Many thanks.

This post has been edited by hyperyouth_firepower: Dec 25 2018, 10:46 PM

phone camera are getting better nowadays.
as a start.
probably would suggest
1) tripod
2) gimbal for phone
3) zoom h1 with lavalier mic

all 3 of above would cost u about rm1k
and alot can be done with just #2 & #3

Thank you! May I ask if LYN has any gimball reviews?

I read up on two popular gimbals, the DJI Osmo Mobile 2 and the Zhiyun Smooth 4. However it seems that both models are plagued with compatibility issus. I use an Android phone (BlackBerry KeyONE to be precise), but i'm worried about general compatibility, since I'll be sharing the kit with my students. The Zhiyun especially doesn't seem to play nice with Android phones.

Any suggestions?

As for the Zoom H1, I think its a great recommendation. Many thanks!
(now to hunt for a lavalier microphone)

i had the dji osmo mobile v1.
and only issue i had was with the old battery system keep on dying. 2/3 battery died after 1 year.
they upgraded to built in rechargable battery on v2.
no issue evenon osmo mobile v1 on the android phones i tried (samsung s5, samsung s7 edge, p20 pro, xiaomi mi a2 & pocophone)
some phone has bigger screen and may not be balanced before turning on, but osmo v1 motor did well to balance out without issue.

i havent tested the zhiyun version of gimbal for mobile.
but i do own the crane plus for dslr & played around with crane 2.
i would say both is good & if im not mistaken the zhiyun mobile gimbal is quite a new model.
so it should be as good.

i tested the zhiyun app on same phones as listed above with the zhiyun crane v1 & crane plus.
none had issue too.

for suggestion to buy dji or zhiyun.
i'd go for dji, but havent had any issue nor complaint for zhiyun yet.
check out reviews on youtube, as alot of content creator would have their own personal views of the stuff.

That's the thng. Zhiyun seems to be cheaper (at least in some shops it is) and also most function-minded (as in they really included a lot of functions and rely less on the phone's touchscreen. But some content creators are saying "it doesn't work for android phones", though Zhiyun says that they're upgrading as fast as possible.


I'm not that much in a hurry (as in I still probably have weeks before I decide) but Zhiyun's price point is really tempting.

-DJI Osmo Pocket - A Gimbal and Camera in one. It can connect to the phone too. Might be a bit pricier but not every student will have a good camera on their phone. And for audio maybe look at a Zoom F1 instead - A recorder and lav mic together. The lav mic is also screw lock so it won't get accidentally be pulled out during a recording.

DJI Osmo Pocket & Zoom F1 with Lav. Just those 2 stuff can carry good interviews already.

Other good stuff to buy is RODE VideoMic Me for a mic to connect straight into a phone.

Dude, you sure you want to stick with smartphone for your shoots?

I use a Sony A6300 with a Sigma 16mm F1.4 lens for my videos (Youtube). And a Feiyu A1000 whenever needed. Total cost of these will be RM5000, if you buy them second hand.

This post has been edited by wildcat90: Dec 29 2018, 09:14 PM

The students are the one doing it. They'll have to make do with whatever they have. I don't have access to any DSLR, unfortunately.

Interesting idea

As Rice mentioned, a RODE VideoMic Me would be perfect for recording videos from a smartphone. The price is also reasonable at RM 300 or so. This alone would be a huge upgrade in quality. Since this is for school use then I assume majority of the events will be in daylight so smartphone camera should be good enough. Also it's a good lesson to teach that equipment is not the most important. You can spend 50k on equipment but if skills are not there, the result will be shit anyway.

For tripod, make sure you get a three-way tripod (tilt & pan) instead of a ballhead.

Dont forget lights and reflectors though. DIY pun boleh.

How about computers? I imagine a typical school PC would be frustrating to edit videos haha

This post has been edited by dvlzplayground: Dec 31 2018, 06:25 PM

I have my Illegear. However, I lend my students a 2nd hand Microsoft Surface Pro 2 (2014 model). Its not exactly the "best thing", but when it was launched it was touted as a mobile PC that could do rendering works (it was a key point in their demonstration).

I'm lucky that I've just bought Vegas Pro from humble bundle a few weeks ago, but that's for my personal use.



On the lights and reflectors, how do you do it? We never got any training (except "let the sun be at your back" which isn't exactly the fix-all solution) on creating and using our own artificial lighting, except positioning of lighting. I'll be VERY interested to show this to my kids in school.

Sorry guys didn't mean to hijack the thread but may I know what are good compact cameras with good amount of bokeh for shooting a video?. I know a good smartphone can do that but only with the small objects not the big ones like human or car. Currently I'm using Canon 200D DSLR with 50mm lens and I'm happy with it but I think it's too bulky for me to carry around during my trip. I'm looking for a smaller camera with good amount of bokeh that I can hook up into my phone gimbal.

Thank you in advance

This post has been edited by kakamal: Jan 24 2019, 03:00 PM

LX100 II

Compact cameras don't have much bokeh because the sensor size is too small thus creating a large depth of field. You need a large sensor camera like DSLR (full frame but crop will do either) and a large aperture lens like (e.g. f2.8, f1.8 or lower).

Then, there is the quality of the bokeh. Bad quality tends to be harsh and ugly. Good quality is similar to gaussian blur and very smooth/non-distracting. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

Hi bro thanks for the suggestion and sorry for the late reply. Well, at first I have purchased Lumix GF10 together with Lumix 20mm f1.7 pancake lens. The body was very light for just 269gm only. Everything seemed good except the stabilization was very poor. All my video looks like an earthquake footage lol. Well, I could buy Fieyu G6+ gimbal to get rid the shakiness but kind of hate to carry a big gimbal since I've been using Osmo Pocket.

So I purchased another camera 5 axis in-body stabilizer Lumix GX85 with Lumix 25mm f1.7 lens. The stabilizer is quite good even when using with none OIS lens, but of course it's not as good as using gimbal. Overall quite satisfied with the setup except I noticed either Lumix 20 or 25mm f1.7 does not produces as much bokeh as my old Canon 50mm f1.8 lens.