This is my first attempt at a Product Review type of video.  I purchased this bag in the middle of the afternoon in San Francisco and had carried with me everything I intended to use it to carry.  I then spent the whole day traveling around the city carrying this bag in different ways.  Gave me a great chance to test it out and then share what I learned.

There are a lot of things I dont like about this video that I hope I can improve on the next one.

• The whitebalance doesn't seem right
• The framing is bad
• there was a take 1 with better framing, but the focus lock wasn't on so it had to be scrapped,  then after adjusting the focus again I didn't see the that the bag had ended up lower in the frame.   The iphone was mounted above head height to give a good angle to see into the bag, but this left me with no monitor of what i was recording
• The audio is inconsistent and too quite on the whole.
• because I was so far from the iphone and moving around I couldn't use the headphone mic I used before.  I will have to find another solution before my next video.
• It is very long
• my first take wasn't as organized,  in this one I tried to divide my comments into three sections (features,changes,complaints) and stay short and to the point.  but even still there was a lot of moving the bag around to get the part I wanted to show.  5 minutes is just too long,   I will aim for 3 for my next product review video.

First Batch of Compass Videos

This first set of videos was sort of a proof of concept,  I wanted to try filming extreme close ups, and in particular of my compasses.  Later I may do more instructional videos and even use other subject matter.  But to start off easy I just did quick explanations about the features of my compasses.

For all of these videos I used my Iphone on a Gorilla-pod like tripod mount, and a tripod attachable grip that I use with my Iphone.  Funny enough the most convient thing to wrap my flexible tripod around was the head of a real camera tripod, wich gave me control over height and angle; wich was very important as the Iphone doesn't any way of zooming (at least without simply enlarging pixels)

For audio I used my Skullcandy headphones with mic.  plugged into the headphone jack and just worn as usual.  I was pleasantly surprised by the quality using this mic,  I use it to make phone calls but had never really listen to a recording using it.   I wanted to use a lavaliere for my voice and possibly even an extra boom to capture the sounds of my hands manipulating the compass.  But I dont have a TRRS splitter for my Iphone yet so I couldn't connect the output of those mics directly to the Iphone.  I could have recorded them to my laptop (again as I dont have a TRRS splitter it would have to be through my USB sound interface) and sync them later.  But this would introduce a lot of extra work before upload and possible problems of the audio going out of sync if the sample rate is off.

Lastly for lighting I used a white poster-boards and a white cloth napkin to make a subject area and something for the light to diffuse off of.  I used a single pin-spot (I wanted to use something better but i was limited on power for this shoot) and had to aim at the poster board and place the subject down in its reflected light,  as its "hot spot" was far to concentrated,  leaving a large ring of shadow around the frame of the video.  (these lights are usually used to highlight a cake or floral decoration and hung from the ceiling.  so from only a few feet away it was creating a bright circle of light about the size of a drink coaster)

Enjoy my first ever YouTube uploads