Choosing Budget and Portable Audio Recording Setup for Your Travel Videos

I am out looking for budget audio recording setup for my home and holiday trips video production. In this post, I will discuss the options available during my hunt.

Have you ever recorded your traveling videos that you can’t really hear what the person is saying? If you have, and you want cheap and simple solutions, and you do not want to carry so many equipment around; Why not join me in my hunt for video-audio solutions?

After researching around, I found that the best options lies in external microphones/recorders. These options mainly fall into 2 categories, external microphones or audio recorders. Most of these recommendations surround film or YouTube type of productions. However, capturing travel video is not quite the same.

No to Boom pole setup

When traveling, I prefer to travel light: this means as little equipment as possible. Secondly, unlike film or YouTube like productions, often, you only have one shot at the scene. If you mess it up, that’s it! Thirdly, you do not have much space around you to work with, and often, in unfavourable conditions. Fourthly, I don’t want to be discrete. Therefore, in my setup, I am intending to use the camera’s on-board microphone together with some portable audio recording device. That way, I can use the portable audio recording device to record the subject’s voice clearly, while my camera’s on-board microphone can capture the sounds from the surrounding atmosphere. Then, I will have the audio choices during post-processing.

In the near future, I will post another article with the available equipment in the market for my setup. I intend compare the equipment there.

I would like to hear your views on my video-audio setup. If you are already using this setup, please let me know your experience. Also, if you noticed that I have missed out any challenges that you faced when shooting your travel videos, please post them below and we can discuss about them too.

It's Sizzling Here!

Manchester Ship Canal during a sunset

The heat wave struck Britain and lasted for 3 weeks with reported highs of 33 degrees centigrade in London. Manchester was not spared, and towards the last few days of it, I was looking forward to the storm forecasted. The photo above is a sunset shot of Manchester Ship Canal with BBC and Lowry Outlet Mall in the silhouette to the right.

For more sky watching, enjoy the beautiful skies from all over the world at Sky Watch Friday logo

Running with Map My Run App

Regularly I do 3km run routes, and depending on my mood, I will change the route or play around with tech stuff to make my run more interesting. However, I do not document my route, and often, if I want to revisit a route, I cannot really remember it. So in this post, I am intending to document a 3.3km route and test the Map My Run App on my iPhone running iOS6.

3.3km route with Map My Run app - Click to see map larger

Review of the route: This circular route is great for evening runners/joggers that want lovely views. Besides the start and end of the route, most parts of it are away from traffic and next to the waterside. The route is well paved and is fairly flat with gentle incline and decline. Great from beginners and elderly people!

Review of Map My Run App ( 3.5 / 5 stars ): An excellent iOS free App (You can pay to upgrade it to MVP). It documents the route fairly accurately, and you can revisit or fly through your route online using the account you registered before you can use the App. It looses half a star because it is energy hungry. It drained 11% of my battery while running only this App on my iPhone for the 3.3km route. Furthermore, it looses 1 star for its poor documentation of the route’s elevation. Disappointingly, most part of it is incorrect! This said, I would still recommend my readers to give the App a go and let me know your experience below.

If you have any thoughts about this article please also post them as comments below. I would love to hear them.

Rolling Out Blog's Design Refinements

I will be rolling out my refined and updated blog's design in the next few days. This will be done over 2 phases and a third optional phase. I intend to conduction phase one on Monday, 22 July 2013, and then phase two on Tuesday, 23 July 2013. In phase one, the main/default page of Alex’s World will be updated, as well as the content of the new sections will be uploaded. Phase two will be an update of all the remaining sections with the refined design. A third phase may be required if further refinements are required as a result of the refined design. If required, the third phase will be carried out on Wednesday, 24 July 2013.

This version of my blog’s design refinement will also see some content reorganisation. I will be removing the “Gallery” section and replacing it with “Heritage” section. I will also be refining some of the features available on the blog to enhance their capabilities. So please bear with me meanwhile. I apologise for any inconvenience caused during the process.

If you want to report any bugs you have noticed during the process: please comment them below. Thank you! Happy Smiley I will really appreciate them.

Lincoln's Inn in HDR

Lincoln's Inn in HDR

This is my first attempt at High-Dynamic-Range imaging (HDR). The photo above features Lincoln's Inn in London. If you have any suggestions how I can improve the image, please leave your comments below. Thanks! Happy Smiley

Just a gentle reminder: I'm still in the progress of updating and fine tuning my blog's design. Therefore, if you notice any inconsistency please bear with me. Thank you!

For more sky watching, enjoy the beautiful skies from all over the world at Sky Watch Friday logo

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