Dave JonesInterview
Electrical engineer, video blogger (EEVblog)
Adapted from Dave Jones's interview on Uses This, published 9 May 2013. The kit is drawn from their answers and each reason is an excerpt, lightly edited. Shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full interview ↗
Is this you? Claim this kit →Hardware
A Canon HF G10 video camera is my main blogging camera, with a mix of microphone solutions.
An external Rode VideoMic pro shotgun mic (Australian made!) is used for interviews and other field work.
And an Audio Technica ATR-3350 lapel mic is used for talking head work in front of the camera.
10x High Definition II+ 1 other
Most video cameras are useless at really close macro shots, so I use an Opteka x10 macro lens for this.
My B-Roll camera is a Canon HF-M400, sometimes useful for cutaway shots.
I use a Samson C01U USB mic for computer capture work, and also my radio show.
Communication
Coding & Development
So I render at a high bit rate in Sony and then use Handbrake to convert this large output file into a Constant Quality H.264 MP4 file suitable for YouTube.
Media
Almost all my editing is done in Sony Movie Studio Pro 12.
I also use Handbrake to produce a smaller 640x360 H.264 iTunes-compatible file (CQ=26) for a podcast version of my show (some people like to watch on their phones, etc.) I have some custom scripts to ensure that the same settings are used each time, and I can simply drag my file onto a desktop icon and it does the rest.
I occasionally use Corel VideoStudio for footage I need to speed up and/or do some fancy effect with that I can't do in Sony.
For the podcast radio show we use Audacity, a free open source audio program.
Each recording is put through The Levelator, which automagically fixes all our audio issues.
Other
I make a living making niche Electronics Engineering YouTube videos for other electronics nerds like me.
For computer tutorials I screen capture using Camtasia.