Evan Carmichael recommends starting with cheap gear to test if video creation sticks before spending real money. He began with a Sony Handycam from Costco ($90 clip-on mic, $100 tripod), then upgraded to a Canon XA10 after a year. Audio quality and speaking skill matter more than expensive equipment.
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What camera and mic setup do I use? So I got a great question from one of my YouTube viewers, Dan, love you guys, who wrote in on YouTube and asked me a question. Evan, what camera and mic setup do you usually use? So this is a great question. When I'm starting something new, I hate spending money until I'm making money. So I always try something on the cheap, bootstrap, low budget, just to try to get it going and see if this is something that's going to work for me or not. I created a whole Zuga guide on this as well. The reason why is because you may not like it, right? Like, most people say, "I'm gonna start into something and maybe I'm gonna get into videos and I'm gonna go out and buy a camera, a tripod, a microphone, and all this stuff." And then you do it for a couple weeks and you find out you don't like it, and then you end up— you've burned all this money. So always try to get it to the point where you're making money, you're enjoying it, you know you're gonna continue before you invest in it. So how I started with the camera, I started with my first— it was a DSLR, whatever I had. I think it was a Nikon, filmed myself. I moved to a flip, um, and then I just went to Costco and started upgrading along the way. And the reason I went to Costco is because they had a 90-day return policy, so you could really test out a camera. But most of the camera stores were like 14 days only. And so I kept upgrading through Costco to the point where I got their highest-end camera that they sold, which was a Sony. I think I still have it here. Let me pull it up here. It was a Sony Handycam. This was it. It's a— what model is it? I don't know. It says HD AVC HD Handycam. Oh, HDR-CX160. This is probably an old model now. It's maybe over a year old. The reason I went with this, it was the only version at Costco that had an external microphone jack. So one of the things that's important is getting good audio, right? So most of my earlier videos, there was no audio. I was just using the camera microphone, and people started complaining to say, hey, great video, but we'd love to have better audio. So I had to go find a camera that had an external mic jack, and this is the only one that Costco sold. So I got this, and I used this for at least a year. It has a little tripod plug-in here, so I bought a tripod from a camera store and just stood in front of the camera, and that's what I used for a while. I went to the Sony store and there's just a little clip mic, nothing special, just a little clip mic. I think it was like $90, whatever their, you know, base model was, and it's still the one I use today. I recently upgraded my camera a couple months ago maybe to a new Canon that I'll pull up. Let me find it here. I'm shooting on it, so I can't show you, but this is the box. It is a Canon XA10. So, I love this camera. It's great. When I was getting into buying a new camera, the reason why I did it— so the Sony was great, no problems with it. Christina, who edits all my videos— hi Christina— she likes to punch in on my videos. So, You know, you see me here, and then you'll see me, you know, zoomed in here, and then you'll see just my face. She likes to punch in and out. She likes to pan as I go through. And so that's, that's great. The problem was with the Sony camera, whenever she zoomed in, it lost the quality. So I needed to get a camera that was, that was higher quality. And so I was confused. There's a lot of research, and I got to the point where I was like, there are so many options out there, I don't know which one to go with. So I called up a buddy of mine, Mark Drager from Phantom Media, and Mark basically went through and showed me— he picked a camera. I'm like, Mark, here's my budget. This camera costs about $2,000. The Sony one from Costco is maybe $400 or $500. So as I do more videos, I get more— it makes sense to invest more into it. He said, this is the camera to go with. You know, I wanted all automatic settings. I don't want to play around with anything. And so he picked the right one, and I trusted his advice, and I went with it. And so far I've been really happy. So the total cost, you know, I'm looking at $2K for the camera, the tripod is maybe $100, the microphone $90, but you can definitely start cheaper. And I would definitely encourage you to start with something like, you know, that model at Costco, or just start with what you have, right? Like, it's not the tools, it's not the equipment, it's how good you are on camera, right? There are some videos that are taken on on your iPhone that if you are a powerful speaker and you learn to get better, right? I've gotten better because I've done over 1,000 videos. You have to get better, you have to practice, and you can start with whatever you have right now. You don't have to go out and invest in equipment. The better equipment will not save you. And I've always said it doesn't matter about the lighting and the camera and where I am. Like, I've had some great videos, me walking on the street with my Samsung phone just recording me. Practice and get better and make sure you're impacting people and you're happy with what you're producing and that you can justify spending money. I don't want you going out there dropping a whole load of cash on the equipment and then not continuing with it and not producing quality products. The production helps, you know, the tools help, but it's minor. It's more about how good you are in in speaking on the camera. So practice, practice, practice, practice. Anyway, that's what I use, Dan. Hopefully I answered your question. Get out there and let me know when you make your first video. Share with me. I want to check it out, and I'll leave a comment for you. For those of you watching, if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment below. Ask me a question below. I'll make a video response. And click on my face to subscribe to the channel and get more videos. Thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate it. And I'll see you soon!
