When you have a family that won’t stop doing wondrous things, you just can’t help but wanting to immortalized those moments. Taking pictures is obviously a good starting point, but for truly capturing the moments, taking videos is the better choice.
Family Video Camera – Which One is the Best?
A good family video camera should be light and affordable. It also must have a reliable autofocus so when you’re shooting moving kids running around or any kind of moving objects, the image will still be sharp. Thankfully, you have many choices that fit those criteria nicely.
Camcorders
Consumer camcorders have been the go-to solution for families looking into shooting family videos. It’s been like that far before digital cameras were the norm.
A camcorder is a fine choice for most situations you’ll face. Current camcorders can capture full HD movies without any fuss. Most have excellent optical zooms too. Up to 50X on the high-end models. That’s a sick zoom range. You’ll be glad to have it when recording your kid’s ball game and you can’t get near the action.
Mirrorless Cameras
With the advent of digital cameras, DSLRs are getting more traction by the day. As far as a family video camera goes, a mirrorless camera is the one you should get.
“Why mirrorless?”
A mirrorless camera tends to be lighter and smaller than a DSLR. It’s great to take anywhere without making your bag feels too bulky. It’s true that a still camera can only take short videos, but since most family videos are made of short clips anyway, a mirrorless still makes a great choice.
“Why this over a camcorder?”
Because a video camera cannot take still pictures as good as a mirrorless. When you bring a mirrorless camera on your family vacation, you can get capture both great videos AND great pictures.
The other reason is that many camcorders are lousy for indoor videos where the light is lacking. So if you think most of your videos are going to be indoors, get a mirrorless camera.
Action Cameras
If you’re going to the beach or any other places where the elements could be a problem, going for an action camera is recommended like a GoPro.
A GoPro takes great videos and still pictures. The image stabilization is excellent and the audio quality is nothing to sniff at too. If a GoPro is out of your budget, shop around its Chinese equivalent from XiaoMi. The quality is coming real close to a GoPro and you’ll be saving big bucks.
Just remember to get an external mic when you do get an action camera. The microphones on those tiny things may not be enough. If you want to clearly hear that cringey joke uncle Terry said to your cousin Geoff, an external mic should be on your shortlist.
If you’re traveling with family, you may do well shedding a couple pounds from your luggage. A mirrorless camera may not suitable for such occasion. Even the GH5 feel too big for some.
“What about smartphones?”
Ah, yes… smartphones should be taken into consideration too. Current smartphones do take excellent videos as shown on the many family vacation videos on YouTube. Many also have built-in stabilization to cover for your shaky hands.
In case your phone doesn’t come with a decent stabilization, the remedy is simple — get a gimbal. A good smartphone gimbal will make handheld shooting a breeze. You can chase your kids around and the movie will still come out smooth.
A phone and gimbal combo is more cost effective than buying a camcorder, mirrorless camera, or action camera. When you’re already on a stiff budget, this is the way to go.
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OK, that wraps our short discussion about the best family video camera. Just one more thing: be sure to back up your videos so you won’t lose those precious moments. It doesn’t matter if you make backups on external hard drives, USB drives, or store them in the cloud. Just do it.
If the files that your camera creates are too big, just convert the videos to MP4 files, which tends to be smaller in size. And if you wish to watch your videos on your iPad, the online conversion tool can optimize your videos for iPad as well.
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