Otakon Vlog Reflections

My photography teacher is always telling us to write reflections about how our assignments turned out so we can figure out where we went wrong and how we might be able to fix it in the future. As I'm going through and finishing the last half of my Otakon 2013 vlogs, I'm noticing some problems, and I figured I could talk about it! I'm at a loss for what to blog about right now.

I recorded my Otakon videos with a new camcorder I had bought this spring. I had recorded my Katsucon videos with my digital camera, but I wanted something that would take "better" video, as well as avoid having to switch between the photo / video options. Unfortunately, the camcorder is bulkier than my digital camera, and because of that I didn't use it as much as I probably would have with the digital camera. I'm still trying to find settings on the camcorder that work for me, but as of right now I haven't found how to make the quality better without making everything on my computer run slow while trying to use that footage.

It was also harder to get things in the frame while recording with the camcorder. It had a hand strap, but that made it hard to turn the camera around to my face. The camcorder is also heavier than the digital camera so I had trouble holding it up high enough while I was recording. I ended up cutting off my friends' faces a lot...

My camcorder does have a better zoom to it and doesn't have dust in the lens (as of yet) like my digital camera does. It can also take pictures while you're recording, and often takes them automatically every few minutes, though those usually aren't the best. (All of them somehow made us look bad ...)

This point isn't related to the camera issue, but with time management of sorts. I didn't really vlog while we were doing things. A majority of the video I have is while we're sitting down and resting between going to panels or Artist Alley / Dealer's and photoshoots. I'm not sure how much of this could be avoided, because I know at least Anime USA had a policy against photo / video recording in their Dealer's Hall last year. I'll have to look into that for Katsucon.

So, ways that I can improve for Katsucon 2014:

• Aim -- getting everything in the shot is good
• Vlogging more -- hopefully not just when we're sitting down and resting. I'd love to get more "action" video, or at least give a recap of what I did. 
• Content -- more talking! I need to get better at talking while I'm vlogging. 

Of course, I'll probably come up with more later, especially as it gets closer to Valentine's weekend. I'm already excited for Katsucon and it's still about two months off! I'm not sure how I'm going to bide my time until then.