Batteries not Included

Bill Davis
Special Issue 2005

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Gift Ideas for the Videographer.

T'was the night before the Big Event
And all through the malls,
Not a video tool was available,
So you make some quick calls.

Let's face it, the craft of making video takes a lot of stuff. If you're shopping for a loved one, (or hinting for yourself!) you should leave the big-ticket item decisions like camera and editing computer to the recipient. However, that leaves plenty of room for an almost mind-numbing array of video gift choices. Here are some tips for video-friendly gifts (in a variety of price ranges) that are sure to put a smile on the face of the person who's likely to be spend a significant part of every event behind the camera.

Video accessories don't need to be expensive and we have some budget items later in this article, but if you hit the lottery this year and have a "sky's the limit" budget for video gift giving, there are plenty of pricey gizmos that will add to anyone's video creation experience.

Underwater housings, for example, can easily exceed the original price of the camcorder. Look online or in video catalogs and you'll find underwater housings that can inspire a videographer to break out of his land-based shooting habits and move the camerawork into an underwater world. Underwater shooting is at least 100 times as hard as surface interval videography and you had better have your SCUBA basics well in hand for safety's sake, but this is a great advanced-level hobby.

There are also less expensive submersible bags that will work for near-surface videography, such as when snorkeling. All the light and many of the creatures you want to videotape are near the surface anyhow, so this can be great fun. Even if you aren't planning to break the surface, special rain capes and plastic bags can protect your camcorder in extreme situations. For example, videographers in the southwest desert are constantly concerned with dust in their gear. A rain protector can be a great advantage, even when there's not a cloud in the sky.

Pricey production gear like jib arms, cranes and flying camera systems were once relegated to rental houses, but are now being manufactured on a smaller scale to fit the new small prosumer camcorder models. With this downscaling, prices have also fallen. Don't count out the larger class of video gear until you check out what you can get within your budget. We're still talking about the $1,000 and up range of gear, but it is available. Glidecam, VariZoom and JonyJib are a few of the companies that specialize in these products.

Perhaps you aren't made of money. A guaranteed useful gift is a proper camcorder case or bag. You'd be amazed at how much stuff video hobbyists and pros alike have to haul along when they go out to shoot. Over the years we've assembled a motley bunch of bags and cases that house and safely transport our gear. Custom-built cases for individual camera models are available, but even generic cases work well for the cables, adapters, spare batteries, microphones and the host of other small items that typically need to be lugged around when you shoot a video. Lots of pockets and good padding are requirements here, but slots for additional lenses are not, (which are common for still camera bags). A collection of smaller padded bags that fit inside your larger equipment bag is good for the easy to lose items.

With all the high tech gadgets that we carry around these days, it's no wonder that a company has evolved that specializes in clothing customized for the gadget driven consumer - Scott-evest (www.scottevest.com). James Bond gadgets and Dick Tracy talkie-watches aside, you gotta stow your stuff somewhere, and Scottevest has some solutions! With a little imagination, you can see how those same clever clothing channels that they designed to run headphones to your snug and warm iPod are every bit as useful for running, say, battery cables to your camcorder from a battery pack nestled snugly inside your vest.

While it's easy to concentrate on visual gifts, let's not forget that more than half the battle of shooting good videos is capturing good sound. Most beginning shooters start off relying on their on-board microphone for audio, but any pro will tell you that getting your microphone nearer to your subjects is the key to quality audio. In the camcorder world, that typically means an external microphone. Unfortunately, that usually also means adapters to make the connection to the mini-plug jack on the camcorder. A proper balanced to unbalanced adapter such as those made by Studio One or Beachtek is ideal, and maybe something you or your video enthusiast have done without for a while now.