There is a commercial that I have seen on TV a lot lately for Disney parks. In the commercial it talks about how there are only so many 15th birthdays and so many pirates that need to be fought. There are a few things it mentions but the point of the commercial is that there are only so many memories to make, many of which are once in a life time memories. It’s the once in a life time memories that we need to capture and hold on to so that we can relive them and enjoy them in the years to come.
Most parents take many pictures and home videos of their children to document their first steps, their first words, their first birthday and all the many “firsts” that we experience in our lifetime. My husband and I have so many photos of our children that we can’t even keep count of them anymore. We have at least 30 photo albums, not to mention many discs with digital photos burned on to them. We also have dozens of home movies. We never want to forget a moment of our children’s lives growing up, from school plays to t-ball games and everything in between.
If your family enjoys making family videos and taking plenty of family photos like I do, you might enjoy these great tips from Robert Vince, who is the writer, director and producer of the Disney’s Buddies movies (many of which I have reviewed here on my site).
Seven Tips for Making the Most of your Family Videos and Photos
By Robert Vince
From soccer games, birthdays and graduations to talent shows, holidays and vacations — families today are more active than ever. And everyone seems to be having a great time capturing their memories on mobile devices and digital cameras but despite having high-tech tools at their fingertips, people are still often at a loss as to how to make their videos and photos better.
These tips will help make the most of these “shoots,” no matter how sophisticated (or not!) your family camera is:
1. Watch your lighting. Natural light is best, but if you’re indoors, it helps to turn on several lamps so the area is well lit. It’s also important to be mindful of any light behind your subject. If the camera doesn’t adjust, this could obscure faces and turn your subjects into moving shadows.
2. Prepare in advance. Professional photographers always create a list of shots they know their client will want. You can do the same by thinking ahead rather than trying to capture everything on the fly. For example, if you’re filming a birthday party, you can guess there will be a moment when the guest of honor blows out the candles. Plan ahead and scout the best place to stand before the cake comes out, candles blazing. The best shot would then run from beginning to the end of that off-key “Happy Birthday.” Likewise, decide before the event what else you’d like to capture: greeting guests as they arrive, opening presents, any special decorations, testimonials, etc.. Once the party is over, you’ll have a nice sequence of highlights from the event.
3. Steady as you go. Nothing makes a home video look more polished than the clean control of a tripod. No matter how steady-handed you may be, there are inevitably shakes and lack of focus that accompany a handheld shot. Sometimes a monopod serves the same purpose and is more portable. Other tricks for steadiness include leaning on a wall, placing your camera on the ground (along with yourself) and drawing your arms close to your body. And finally – something few people know – in a pinch, a conveniently placed lamp can serve as a tripod as the thread on its harp is the same as a tripod’s!
4. Avoid LP mode. LP stands for long play and although it allows you to record longer, it takes away from the quality of the video. Less is more, after all, and when you look back you are going to want the clearest picture possible.
5. Point of view. Look for any unusual angles to shoot from – high, low, off-kilter. When photographing children or animals, get down to their level.
6. Maximize storage. Capturing the image can be the easiest part but once the images are uploaded, they can get lost or forgotten. Yellowing photo albums are now a thing of the past, jump drives are easily lost and some hard drives get too crowded too fast. Many savvy parents have discovered that recordable Blu-ray discs will solve the problem. Blu-ray allows the most storage space (and thus the highest quality) for those special moments families will want to cherish for generations to come. Transferring your older videos and still photos is easier than ever today, and now everything can be conveniently accessible (and safer) anytime you want to revisit a happy occasion. Simply pop the disc into any Blu-ray player or computer with a Blu-ray drive and watch the memories unfold.
7. Make quality time! The best home videos capture quality time that family members spend with one another. It doesn’t really matter what you do as long as the time is well spent, so make a point to tune out outside distractions (phones, texts, TV) and set aside time to bond. You can do anything: a family hike through a local park, a trip to get ice cream cones, or even a miniature golf tournament. More important than any technical tips is the essence of your adventures.
These are some really great tips. I especially like the one about maximizing storage. We have a Blu-ray burner and we have been slowly but surely burning our home movies from regular discs to a Blu-ray disc. As you know Blu-ray discs are a better quality and they are made to last. Unlike like other discs that can crack or get scratched and ruin precious family memories, a Blu-ray disc is much hardier and with stand a lot of use, being dropped and accidentally rubbed up against other discs (which would scratch a regular disc).
Since burning our home movies on to Blu-ray discs we’ve been able to make a lot more room in our cabinet. The Blu-ray discs have a lot of space on them. We’ve been able to burn several discs onto just one Blu-ray disc.
I can’t tell you how nice it is to have room in my cabinet again. We still have many more discs that need to be burned, but we’re going to get them all done (we just need to pick up more Blu-ray discs to burn on to).
Sometimes when you burn a home movie from one disc to another disc the quality gets compromised. We have not noticed any of that with the Blu-ray discs. The quality is great, just as good as the original. The audio is nice too. Nothing was lost during the transfer/burning process.
The burner that we have is a Sony Portable BD Writer BDX-S600U, BD XL. I’m so glad it’s portable. When I first learned of the burner I thought it was going to be big like our Blu-ray player. We have a burner that burns VHS tapes to DVDs and it’s huge. It also doesn’t work anymore. We just haven’t got around to unhooking it from the TV. The last thing I wanted was another big device on the TV stand.
The Sony Portable BD Writer is just a little larger then a Blu-ray case. It plugs right into your desktop or laptop with a USB port. The USB cable even folds up nicely inside of the unit so that you don’t have to worry about the cord getting kinked or in the way. You don’t need to plug it into an outlet either. It’s powered by your computer. Its a lot like a “plug and play” game. You simply plug it into your computer and you are ready to start burning.
We had a little bit of a hard time figuring out the software but after some trial and error we figured it out. We’re using a different software then the one that came with the unit.
I could give you all the “technical” information but I figured it would be easier just to write about the burner in “layman’s terms” to make it easier. 🙂
The Blu-ray burner burns discs to Blu-ray rather quickly. I remember when my husband would burn home movies on VHS tapes to DVD, it would take a long time. The disc to Blu-ray seems to go by a lot quicker.
One of the things I really like most about burning our discs on to Blu-ray discs is that it allows my husband to burn several discs together on one Blu-ray disc (the Blu-ray discs have a lot of gig space). For example, we went to Disney World about 10 years ago. We have several discs (home movies) that we took on the trip. I believe there are 5 or 6 of them in total. My husband was able to burn them all on the SAME Blu-ray disc, in chronological order too! Now we don’t have to dig through cabinet to find all the Disney trip discs. All of them are now burned onto one Blu-ray disc, now marked Disney Trip.
We need more Blu-ray discs! I have to go and buy more. My husband can easily burn several discs on to Blu-ray in one evening from the convenience of his laptop while sitting in his favorite chair. It’s THAT easy!
For more information about Blu-ray discs you can check out the Blu-ray Disc Association, http://US.Blu-rayDisc.com.
Kimberly
*I received free product samples in order to do this review. There was no compensation. The opinions expressed are entirely my own and not influenced in anyway.
Lee says
I can’t hold my arms steady to save my life. I’m just bad at this stuff. Thanks so much for the tips!
Lee
Sarah L says
Having just returned from the trip of a lifetime to Patagonia, Chile I like the info about burning my photos/videos onto a blu-ray.
Alison says
I so want a Blu-Ray Burner! That would be awesome. 🙂 Also love the tips!!!