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I would love to have the same camera as my son, a Sony EX1 but there was no way that my funds would run to that sort of money. For the most part what I have, the Canon Vixia HF100 does what I need anyway. The lens is good enough although I have just bought a cheap wide angle lens to put on the front of it and while it didn’t make a huge difference it did help some. I felt I needed it for a documentary style video I will be producing starting this month. I will not have a lot of space to step back and get in all of what I want to shoot in a lot of places.

The other addition is for the audio. While I was in Liverpool before Christmas there was a friend there with a similar camera to mine and he had a converter cable to go from the 3.5mm mic jack on the camera to an XLR cable with a Shure SM58 microphone on the end of that. It worked pretty good and so I have got the same. The guy from Shure was suggesting a cable that they sell costing about 60  but I found one much less than that. Maybe it will work right and maybe it won’t. At least worth a try anyway.

I had tried to use a wired lavalier mic but while it works connected to my Zoom H2 recorder it did not work in the Canon Vixia camera. To have the EX1 would be great seeing as it has XLR inputs already. I can record the audio separate with the H2 and I might still use that method for some shooting. It is just that it takes time to marry the audio back up with the video afterwards. I think I had better start saving to get a better camera.

I have just set up a Video20Q Newsletter. I will only be sending infrequently because usually if I have something to say I will put it in a blog or post onto Twitter. But after seeing a video by IzzyVideo about running a site like this he was saying that he wished he had set up something like that much earlier than he did. Here is the place to get the video from Israel Hyman. Also do check out his Video site that shows how to use FinalCut Express. which is a series of very good video tutorials.

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Ray Ortega otherwise known as the Produce Picker or @Podcasthelper, works as a professional podcaster and I we had an excellent chat about podcasting, using the Mac and making video. Ray searches twitter to find people asking questions about how to podcast then helps them become a better podcaster. Good Man Ray !

So naturally we talked about the equipment that we use to make podcasts and it seems he likes the Heil PR40 microphones. he also has a Blue Snowball, great USB mic. When he is making his video podcasts for the Microbe World Podcast a science technology podcast he gets to use a prosumer Canon video camera and Final Cut Pro for editing the final result.

Ray talked to me about the process that he goes through to make the podcasts for Produce Picker Podcast, telling me about the early episodes being a bit horrible compared to the quality of the content that he produces now. But that is the great thing about podcasting, you can get started with no experience and cheap amateur equipment and move to greater heights when you get further into  podcasting and you know you have gone past the Pod Fade stage of the game.

I asked Ray about the niche he has with produce, as in fruit and veg. and he says that he took the advice, he would give to anyone starting a podcast from new and that is to talk about something that you know about. So seeing as he had been working in that realm for many years while he was a student, it was natural to make a podcast about Fruit and vegetables and how to choose the best from the supermarket or market fruit seller.

At the end of the podcast I asked Ray about the statement that Leo Laporte had made recently which stunned a bemused podcasting world. You would think that Leo Laporte knows what he is talking about seeing as he is doubling his podcasting  income each year, but I don’t agree with him one bit. Listening to podcasts is not hard, you can turn up at a web site and just listen, without any extra equipment. You can easily download a podcast through iTunes or other podcatcher and have the downloaded files ready for your listening pleasure on your computer or even if you feel like it have them transferred automatically to your mp3 player. it doesn’t have to be an iPod either.

It really is not rocket science and all it will take is for the traditional media to promote it in the same way as Twitter is getting mentioned on main stream TV programmes. Podcasting is in its infancy and will evolve more to be hugely popular and not something that has to be explained as it is now, due to it’s newness. The BBC puts out many of its programmes as podcasts and in the U.S the media giants are jumping on the boat to join in with an exciting media that is about to explode.

Obviously Ray and I are biased towards podcasting and there is a possibility that Leo is making statements like that to get his name talked about even more than it already is. Other podcasters have commented on this also. I suspect that podcasting will change as it gets more popular and more of it will be streamed to computers and smart phones, rather than be downloaded. The general public are more and more getting the idea with podcasts and having media available for when they want to watch or listen to it, instead of being hog tied by traditional TV programming.

If you heard the rubbish that leo was talking and would like to comment on it or comment on what I have put in this blog post then please leave a comment. Or you might send  me an email to mac20q at gmail dott com. Looking forward to getting your thought on the matter.

Follow Ray on Twitter  - @podcasthelper