I’ve been playing around with video recently, partly because I’ve wanted to and partly due to necessity (we all live and die by budgets). I wanted to share with you a couple of simple ideas that you can use in your day to day work to produce much better video. And action!

The Right Lenses

Most of us have brilliant cameras in our pockets. Your smartphones are probably more powerful than five year-old DSLR. But one area which can be improved on your smartphone is the lens itself. If you don’t have over US$1,300 bucks to shell out on the latest iPhone of Galaxy, why not buy a couple of lenses to attach to your camera.

I did that, and shelled out money on lenses from a US firm called moment. Have a look below.

These lenses are simple to mount (you also need to get a case from Moment), and you can get wide, telephoto, and also anamorphic (used for filming) lenses that add so much to your photography and videography. The lenses aren’t that expensive (you can even buy used lenses for about 70 to 90 dollars), but they really make visuals pop, especially the wide and anamorphic lenses. Moment also has a very useful camera app that gives you much more control over your picture-taking (you can set ISO, shutter speed and other wonderful stuff via the app). Check out Moment’s product range here.

Stop the Shake!

The one thing that cameras aren’t great at doing is dealing with shaking hands. But help is available, thanks to the increasing number of gimbals on the marketplace. I bought a DJI Mobile 3, a really handy device that allows me to keep a steady hand whilst filming. Gimbals can do all sorts of things these days, including shooting options such as object tracking and hyperlapse. They’re also being bundled with mobile apps that allow you to quickly edit and share the content. If you’re looking to get rid of the shake, a gimbal is the way to go. This costs about US$100 to US$130 dollars with a kit that includes a stand (which is very, very handy).

Shooting Top Down

The other big change in videography is drone filming. Shooting from the air used to cost a small fortune. Now, that’s been turned on its head, and you can buy a drone with a HD camera for about US$500 dollars. If you want to splurge, you can even now buy a drone with a Hasselblad lens (Hasselblad to cameras is like Ferraris to cars). I splurged for a second DJI project, the Mavic 2 Pro. The latest drones allow you to do a whole host of things that’ll transform your video capabilities (nothing beats hyperlapse or active track which makes the drone automatically follow a moving object).

The Editing Piece

Ok, you’ve got the content but is it going to be the final product? I doubt it! You’re going to need an editing tool. And, ideally, that tool will be on your phone. One of the best and simplest out there is Adobe Premiere Rush, an app that sits on your phone and lets you edit your content (both video and audio).

Premiere Rush offers lots and lots of benefits, including reframing your video depending on the platform and device you’re shooting for (is it vertical, 9:16, or horizontal, 16:9), graphics templates, and also a sync option so you can start editing on your mobile and continue editing on your computer.

If you’re looking for a simple video editor to start with which is initially free, then try out Adobe Premiere Rush. You can thank me later.

And Subtitles!

Last but not least, please do subtitle your videos. It’s a simple final step that adds a lot of value to your work (how many times have you watched a video and not been able to turn on the sound?). One tool I use is Veed, which is an online subtitling service that uses algorithms to automatically subtitle. You’ll still need to edit those subtitles for mistakes, but Veed makes subtitling pretty simple. And at a cost of US$20 a month, it’s affordable.

Check out Veed and see if it works for you.