Digital Photographer - UK (2020-05)

y is no longer just

till image or capturing

g moment. Life is quite

xperience, and many

to capture it in all of

y. As such, vlogging

rounds since the

beginning

o entury, gaining massive

popularity from 2005 onwards with the
advent of YouTube.
Nowadays, it seems like the whole
world wants to share experiences and
opinions online, so how do you stand out
from the crowd? Naturally, it helps if you
have something interesting to say, but it’s
also important that you don’t let second-
rate video quality stand in the way of

vloggingsuccess.

Butwhatmakes

agood

vloggingcamera?

Firstup,you’ll

needsomething

reasonably

lightweight

andcompact,

something

youcancarry

aroundwithout

itweighing

youdown.

AnAPS-C

format

DSLRlikethe

CanonEOS

90Dinour

testgroup

isprobably

asbigand

heavy

asyouwould

wanttogo.

Although

it’s

amirrorless

camera,the

‘SLRstyle’

Panasonic

GH5isabout

thesamesize

andweight,

whilethe

‘compactstyle’

FujifilmX-A7

andSony

A6400are

bothsignificantly

moreslimline

and^

lightweight models.

Most vlogging involves speaking to the

camera. Unless you have an assistant

to take care of the filming for

you,you’ll

want to see what you’re doing

while

recording. A front-facing rear

screenthat

has a fully articulated mechanism

orcan

flip up over the top is therefore

essential.

With 4K ultra-high-definition

video

in the ascendency, this feature

has

become another essential tick-box

on

the specifications list. And to

makesure

that your vlogs sound as good

asthey

look,asocket

forattaching

anexternal

microphone

isanother

must-have

feature.

Andwhen

you’redone

filming,built-in

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enable

quickand

easy sharing with the waiting

world.

Let’s take a closer look at

whatour

four

contenders have to offer.

GROUP TEST