subject: VHS To DVD - 4 Tips For Making Great Vacation Videos [print this page] VHS To DVD - 4 Tips For Making Great Vacation Videos
Do you like to summer vacations? Who doesn't? How about winter vacations? When you can afford them, right? OK, now here is the most important question. Do you like to take home videos on any of these vacations of yours? If you do, then this article is for you. Here I will present some very useful tips that can make your next vacation home video even better.
1. Wherever your vacation is, always try to get some video or photos that help tell the audience where it is that you traveled. The object is to provide interest and information at the same time. You can illustrate the destination with road signs, billboards, landscapes, tourist brochures, local maps, etc. You will want to edit these images into the rest of the home video on either side of your video footage of your family and vacation activities.
2. One of the most vital things to remember is to be sure that you get a little bit of every family member. Usually the children are the subjects of our family videos and Mom and Dad get unfairly overlooked. With digital editing, you will be able to add the few stray still photographs of Mom and Dad from the trip.
3. Try to videotape a few "candid" scenes. These are the shots that your family will remember the most and ask to see again and again. There are a couple of ways to obtain these candid shots. The first way is to try to let the family get used to the camera by holding it in you hands for a while prior to actually taping. It doesn't even matter if you are taping or not. This can sometimes ease any awkwardness that people in your family may have in front of the camera. It should also help them act more naturally when you do start taping them on videotape.
If that method fails, then turn the camera on, set the lens to a wide angle, and then place the camera in a stable place that can see all of the action. You need the zoom lens to be wide enough to see the whole scene but not too wide.
4. Finally, here is my favorite. I love to capture my kids on video especially when they are really being funny. I always look for a classic moment of humor and then try to tape it on video. Sometimes the conversation between my two boys (4 and 7) is so hilarious that I can't even hold my camera steady because I am laughing so hard. Sometimes this works and sometimes this doesn't but I feel it is always worth trying.
Well, these are just a few of my secrets that I use to tape my own vacation home videos. Use these methods and you will have much more success and fun taping your next vacation video. Good luck!
