Before You Buy a YouTube Camera... WATCH THIS!

welcome to this complete master class on the 13 things you need to know before you buy your first or your next camera for YouTube we're going to be breaking down in detail the features so you don't waste your money and after watching this you're going to be the smartest person in the room when it comes to cameras the best camera for you is at the intersection of budget features size and skill and so there really isn't the perfect camera there's just the perfect camera for you so these are some things to decide ahead of time what's your budget let me know in the comments what features do you need we're going to learn about 13 different features you should consider so you make sure you don't spend your money in the wrong way and buy a camera that is missing something you need first is sensor size if you look at the camera here you can see that that right there is the sensor this is going to influence your image quality if you want that cool blurry background this is what influences depth of field this influences low light performance and typically bigger is better but also the bigger the sensor gets the more expensive most like wedding videographers filmmakers in today's world typically want to have like a full-frame camera there's a lot of Buzz around having that but for most YouTube creators it's unnecessary and if you go to What's called an aps-c sensor camera what people will call this that's a crop sensor this is like perfect for YouTube is anything in kind of this range now if you go to a one inch sensor if you look at different cameras like the Sony RX series or the Sony zv1 they usually have a one inch sensor inside of there if you think about your smartphone it has a tiny little sensor now smartphones can do some pretty good video these days but remember this is one of 13 different things to consider for most of us as YouTube creators aps-c is fine meaning a crop sensor camera now number two is video resolution when it comes to cameras for YouTube HD is kind of the minimum you're going to want to go for and some cameras that are a little bit older are limited to that it's pretty standard that you're going to have some level of 4K just because a camera is 4K it doesn't mean that it's good because there could be different weaknesses to that camera so if you're picking out a camera I would say 1080p is minimum but 4K is definitely mainstream on TVs and even phone these days and if you want to Future proof your content I definitely recommend 4K 4K does require a better computer to edit 4K is like four times bigger than HD so I could crop into my wife's face or my son's face or the dog in video editing and essentially create multiple angles you've got the wide angle right and then you've got you could then crop in crop out 4K is definitely a feature that I think is pretty essential in a 2023 world number three lens aperture this is going to influence your low light performance your depth of field to get that blurry background and the lower number means better typically but the lower number means also more money so let's look at some examples if you buy a Canon Rebel t7i kind of more of a more budget DSLR mid-range camera the lens that we see here we can actually read on the lens in small numbers it says 3.5 Dash 5.6 what that's telling us is that when it's wide out the lowest the aperture can be is 3.5 and that is not very low and if you zoom all the way in it's going to force the lens to 5.6 little Point shoot camera you could Vlog with this camera but it starts at 3.2 on the aperture whereas if you look at the highly recommended at think media in the Sony zv1 that starts at 1.8 but notice the difference in prices of these two cameras and so that's going to be a big piece that influences that so a couple questions you have is what is the starting aperture of your lens can you upgrade your lenses later if we go back to these two cameras you cannot these two cameras have non-interchangeable lenses whereas on a camera pictured here you actually can change your lenses later number four auto focus during video I think that autofocus during video is an essential ingredient of a good camera for 99 of YouTube creators for the last few years Sony and Canon have been killing it with the best autofocus when it comes to cameras however it's a new world and things continue to change in our top four cameras we recommend right now at think media the Nikon z30 does have what's called hybrid AF that's phase detection and contrast detection it checks all of our boxes it's fast it's Dependable but this is a very intelligent question you should be asking saying hmm how's the autofocus number five is audio does it have a mic input does it have a headphone output does it have a good on camera microphone for YouTube content creators a mic input is pretty essential a headphone output is much more rare and a great benefit if you can have it kind of a filmmaker situation you know where you're filming others and you want to monitor the audio the whole time in that case you would say I want to make sure I have headphones or if it doesn't have those things your question is does it have a good on camera microphone right and so for example the Sony zv1 has a really good directional mic that has clear sound on camera if you say Sean I'm frustrated I don't have a mic input I'm stuck with this camera what am I going to do audio wise well here's a couple options you know a while back I filmed a video with a little action camera from Yi and it didn't have a mic input so what I did was I bought a 15 lav mic from Amazon plugged it into my iPhone and turned on my audio recorder I hit record put it in my pocket and I was able to record the audio separately now I've got the audio file separate from the video file so that's going to mean it's more work that's going to mean that in video editing you're going to have to stitch those two things together but all of these things can add complexity to your content creation workflow and so as we are approaching our list of best cameras for YouTube a mic input is essential because you want speed really in a 2023 world it is about creating content fast trying to remove as much friction as possible removing as much stress as possible and not having too much extra time and editing number six size weight and build quality is it too big is it too heavy what can happen to a lot of creators is they buy a camera and they get all pumped to create content like this guy right here this thing's pretty bulky there's a lot of excuses I can make to not leave the house with this and just leave the house with my smartphone or with a g7x so remember the best camera is the one you have with you what what what do you want to carry around and do you even need to carry it around I mean if you're going to be locked down doing live streams or content creation at your desk no big deal but really important to consider the size weight and the build quality so what are you going to use it for do you have the budget for multiple cameras are you going to have different cameras for different solutions and if you're only going to have one camera then maybe you want to be very selective on which camera you choose always remembering as well that your smartphone can be a second angle could be for extra clips and other things you may need now another thing to consider is do you need it to be weatherproof or not 99 of us probably don't because you're if you're filming YouTube videos in your house or your business owner on the flip side the the gh5 is super weatherproof it's a super durable Rock Solid built for rugged use so that may be a feature you want to consider number seven selfie screen and type touchscreen this is another one of those features that I would say is essential for YouTube creators a lot of us are shooting by ourselves we're filming by ourself we want to make sure that the shot composition looks good we want to make sure that we're in Focus Canon's probably the best at this great selfie screens that pop off to the side the ability to tap the screen right on your face so that it tracks your face selfie screen would be another one to consider as we go into number eight which is the record time limit this one will surprise a lot of people they get a camera home record a 45 minute conversation and then you get behind the camera and you go oh shoot oh oh no stop recording why did it stop recording historically over the last really 10 years cameras have been limited to right under 30 minutes they have a record limit fast forward to today this problem has been fixed for a lot of the newer cameras but a question is do you even need to record Clips longer than 30 minutes in my opinion I want the camera to have as many future-proofed features as possible in case someday I do want to film a video podcast number nine does the camera have Wi-Fi Bluetooth or NFC and is that something I need this can be something that can be very useful and there's a few reasons why one is you can transfer content from your uh camera to your phone for social media out in the field like really quick and easy so you take super crispy video clips or or photos and then you could just get that to your phone secondly though you can use your phone as remote control for your camera and here's a power tip if your camera doesn't have a selfie screen you can actually use the app on your phone as the selfie screen most modern cameras dare I say all of the newer cameras in the last one two years for sure would have these features now number 10 would be skill level one of the questions you got to ask yourself is do I even want all this complexity and I've learned that actually can complexity is the enemy of execution when you're creating content on YouTube you want a camera that's going to be fast easy to use that doesn't make you intimidated so you don't hesitate to even create content because you're so overwhelmed by the complexity of your camera so in some cases getting a camera that's simple and good enough is the best way to go number 11 image stabilization this is a big one there's really three types of image stabilization there's Optical lens image stabilization the second is electronic this can get kind of weird because this is actually like a digital correcting of of the image and then finally there's what's called Ibis which stands for in-body image stabilization inside of the camera there's Motors around the sensor itself that you know you go right it goes left to keep the shot smooth so it's like these motors reacting in real time both Optical lens is and Ibis are the best those are actually taking out Shake mechanically essentially and then electronic is taking it out digitally you might be like this sounds amazing I need to make sure my camera has Ibis well not if it's forever at your desk just sitting behind your computer like this camera you only really need these things yes if you're going to be vlogging or maybe behind the camera number 12. frame rate and slow motion 24 frames is what people usually film if they want that film look 30 is kind of just standard 60 frames or above is for that super slow motion for people who care about slow motion they also a lot of times care about log format recording some cameras have it so you actually have a wider dynamic range and a tonal range for color grading this is usually going to slow down your video editing I personally avoid this because it's like get the content out let's like even if the camera has it a lot of times for Speed we will not shoot in log just because it adds more steps to the workflow but if you would say Sean I want to be more cinematic I really want to be a cinematic vlogger I'm an aspiring filmmaker then log might be important to you number 13 is does my camera have a clean HDMI for live streaming now what does that mean if it's not clean it would mean you'd see like the time code you would see the battery you know amount and you don't see any of that stuff on screen so you may get a camera and you're like I like all the features and I'm ready to start live streaming and then you plug it in you're like shoot it's I I can't get the the feed clean I can't actually remove the stuff that's on screen a lot of these newer cameras have software I know for sure Canon has the EOS webcam utility Sony has a similar software based utility where all you have to do is use a USB port skip the cam link you go USB from the camera and USB into your laptop or computer and then you use their software and boom you can create a feed and start using your camera for live streaming all right so what are the four best cameras for YouTube considering all of the 13 things we just talked about if you've been getting value smash like number one is the Sony zv1 you've got the screen to see selfie you've got a microphone Jack it's great for live streaming this one of my top recommended cameras we love it at think media it really checks all of the boxes now it is just a one inch sensor but it's absolutely amazing camera I can't recommend it enough if we go into mirrorless cameras and lenses the Sony zve10 it's been making major waves um it really for 7.98 including the lens and it's then these are aps-c sensor cameras crop sensor cameras so the sensor is bigger than the zv1 great in low light lens options you're really good to go there and then one of the newer cameras is the Canon r10 I think that Canon finally caught up with all the other cameras the Canon r10 is essentially the new M50 this right here my friend is really the top four best all-around cameras for YouTube in 2023 but if you want to go to full frame and it's definitely a good place to go it's just going to cost you more these are the four cameras we actually would recommend and that we personally use heavily the Sony a7c is the most optimized full-frame camera for YouTube the Sony a74 that's like Nolan's favorite camera along with the a7s3 really good for low light cinematography and then for more Pro type Cinema Camera really pumping out the content building out a studio Sony Alpha fx3 we have used extensively at think media but you look at the prices so you might want that budget live so you could screenshot this this is a a great list of budget cameras that you may want to check out but also a money saving tip is that instead of buying a camera you could use your phone or invest in video accessories and so my question for you is what do you think is the best camera for YouTube this year and do you agree or disagree with my top picks when it comes to cameras let me know and then click or tap the screen to watch another video from think media to help you on your content creation journey and I'll see you in a future video

Channel: Think Media

Views: 71,267

Keywords: what camera should I buy, best camera, best youtube camera, best camera for youtube, camer buyers guide, what camera to buy, think media, sean cannell, camera buyers guide, youtube camera, camera for youtube, youtuber camera, best cameras 2023, best camera 2023, best mirrorless camera, best camera for youtube 2023, best budget camera for youtube, best camera for vlogging, best camera for youtube videos, best camera for beginners, Think Media

Id: U4lyFbZW9JY

Length: 15min 17sec (917 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 06 2023