video editing

[Laurent Pilotte]

I am not into spending money to enhance things. I just use what is available . Natural sunlight. The best advise I have to anyone is film , film , film ,film. The years will go by and the more experience you get the better you will be. Enjoy

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[Laurent Pilotte]

Video/photo camera is Sony DCR-Dvd403. Housing StingrayIII sport Light&Motion

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[Laurent Pilotte]

This was bought in the year 2002 . It cost me $1000 back then. The technology today has been simplified with the Go-pro. If I was deciding today that would be my choice. Just remember whatever you get get out there and film , film, film and collect an archive of video,pictures .

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[ronscuba]

Technology has definitely made things easier and more affordable. A Gopro at $300-$400. For me, that makes it an easy decision to spend $75-$100 on editing software.

 

[bvanant]

I think a lot of how you proceed depends enormously on what your goal is. If you want good quality videos you need good quality footage. To me (I am not a video guy but I am married to one) that seems to mean a good camera, good lights, a tripod if you want to shoot little stuff and enough editing power to make editing fun (although my wife doesn't always think editing is fun) so that the final product is worth the pain.
Check out
http://www.blueviews.net/assets/videos/indo13_aurorahighlights_640x360.mov

for an example. This was shot with an older Sony Handycam, with lights, mostly a tripod and edited (on the boat in Indonesia) on a macbook air with Final Cut X. When you spend $5K on a trip and you want to impress your friends with what you saw, spending $500 on editing software is not that big a deal since you will use it for the next 5 years.
Bill

 

[Shasta_man]

Having a Go-Pro as your sole device still won't be a positive when I'm looking for a videographer. It seems ironic to me that your focus is on collecting content, yet you are unconcerned about the quality of that content. Particularly since the cost of improving that quality is so very low even if upgrading beyond a Go-Pro.

 

[ronscuba]

The video section here on scubaboard is meant for beginning hobbyists. Pro's and serious hobbyists tend to be on wetpixel forum.

Technology has evolved fast. Many have not kept up and are unaware of the quality being produced with inexpensive cameras and software. Good content is a great thing, but much of that is dependent on being in the right place at the right time or diving in great locations. Good editing skill goes a long, long way. A good editor can create a very entertaining video out of average content. What was considered decent 12 yrs. ago, pales in comparison to what is being done today by beginner hobbyists.

To the thread starter, go ahead and try the free software. It's free, so there is nothing to lose. If you want something with more capabilities, the under $100 software packages are pretty good.

 

[Shasta_man]

What RonScuba said.

Yes, the camera is cheap now but you pay thousands to get to the good location to take that good shot.

The big improvement in newer gear is the ease with which you can acquire and edit your content and put out a decent product. You get high quality content quickly and can go directly to what you want. You can certainly use free software and actually there is more "open source" software out there to do editing with which is also free but much better than the MS product. Once you use it, you'll know if it does what you want it to and whether you need more software. I have a whole box of 8MM tape I'm capturing before the devices go away, and the content is very cool from memory lane but real time capture means real time.

If you're going to sell us some video, and be capable of a wider market, then it needs to be better than the camera on the phone in your customers pocket.

 

[oneshotshooter]

WMV sucks. I struggled through it for the first year. Took a gopro class at my local dive shop and learned the gopro 2.0 software, AWESOME and free!