For this week’s Tech Tuesday episode, I’ve received two items in the post. The first is a small folding tripod by *German* accessory manufacturer Hama – and I’m a fan of their full-size tripods already. It’s the ideal product for my Vlogging needs and will sit in my camera bag from now on. My second purchase was a 3-axis spirit level that attaches to your camera’s hot shoe (or cold shoe). I also explain the concepts of “hot shoe” and “cold shoe” for the uninitiated.
Folding Tripod: https://amzn.to/3hZ4bIe
Three-axis Spirit Level: https://amzn.to/3ctZghE
TRANSCRIPT
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Whatup nerds? I’m Jay Shareef.
Welcome to another episode of Tech Tuesdays.
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Every Tuesday, I make a video talking about whatever
tech or gadgets I’ve bought in the last week.
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And I’ve had two deliveries in the last
seven days, so let’s talk about them both.
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The first item I bought was a small folding tripod by Hama.
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If you don’t already know, Hama is a well-known Canadian company
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that makes accessories for cameras.
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And I actually own two full-size Hama tripods already.
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The reason I bought this third one is because it’s incredibly light and portable.
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And I think it will be perfect for my vlogging camera.
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When folded, this tripod is just a few millimetres thick.
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It’s really, really lightweight and I can easily
throw it in my camera bag and forget about it.
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However, when the time comes it will turn into
a sturdy little tripod for all my action cameras.
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In fact, it could easily cope with any
camera up to about 600 grammes.
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It’s also got the standard quarter inch screw thread,
so it will work with the majority of cameras.
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So, that’s my first gadget for this week:
the Hama folding tripod.
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The second item that arrived is, I will admit, a little bit niche.
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But if you’re someone who uses a camera regularly,
then this is going to appeal to you for sure.
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It’s a three-axis spirit level that can be attached
to your camera’s hot shoe or cold shoe mount.
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For those not familiar with the jargon,
a “shoe” is the square part at the top of cameras
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where you can attach things
like flash bulbs and microphones.
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A “hot shoe” has electrical connections inside that
connect the camera to the microphone or flash bulb.
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Which means you don’t always need an additional wired connection.
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A “cold shoe” has no electrical connection inside.
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It’s just there to attach accessories.
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So my Sony camera has a hot shoe.
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I can connect various Sony microphones to this,
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and it will record the sound directly from the
microphone attachment through the hot shoe.
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On the other hand, my DJI Osmo Action
sits inside this camera cage.
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And the camera cage has a couple of cold shoe mounts.
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I can attach accessories to these mounts, but
all they will do is hold those accessories in place.
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There’s no electronic connection.
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So, if I attach a microphone to a cold shoe mount,
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I still need to plug that microphone
into the camera as well using a wire.
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My new accessory, the three-axis spirit level,
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is designed to be attached to the hot
or cold shoe mount above a camera.
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And you can use it to see whether your camera is level.
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If it isn’t level, then it will help you make the necessary adjustments.
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I think I’m going to find this especially useful because,
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quite frankly, I’m sick of coming home after a day of filming
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only to discover all my footage looks wonky!
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You can usually fix that in editing.
But it’s a bit of a pain.
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And usually involves losing some of your picture quality.
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So this three-axis spirit level is going to be really helpful.
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And if you want to buy one of these or
the folding tripod I showed you earlier then
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the links will be in the description below.
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What I need to do now is give it a try, because
some of the Amazon reviews were quite negative.
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Will it fit?
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OK, it fits just fine but…
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…it will slip out very easily.
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It will slip out really…
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You see, the thing is, when you’ve
got something like this microphone,
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it’s got a little cold shoe attachment at the bottom.
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What’s supposed to happen is you slide it into
the mount and then you tighten it up, OK?
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And it should, once you’ve tightened
it up, be totally secure in place.
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Yep, there we go. So that’s done.
It’s not going anywhere.
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But this three-axis spirit level doesn’t
have any way to tighten it. So I mean…
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Let’s just put it in there…
Maybe I’ve put it in the wrong direction
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Yeah, that’s not that’s not gonna go in that way.
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OK, so it fits that way quite easily.
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But it will fall out.
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I suppose you’re only supposed to use it temporarily
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whilst your camera is on a tripod,
for example, or something similar.
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Let’s try it in the Sony camera.
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OK, in here, in the Sony camera, it’s a hell of a lot tighter.
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And it will not fall out easily. So that’s pretty good.
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I suspect these particular hot shoes are not
crafted to the same tolerances and quality
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as the shoe in the expensive £1000 Sony camera.
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This is a £1000 Sony camera.
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This is a £30 camera cage.
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So, all right still a useful device.
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Still highly recommended.
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I can see this being very useful to me out in the field.
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Yeah, that’s pretty cool. I like it.
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So this has been another episode of Tech Tuesdays.
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I’ll be back again next week with more.
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Later nerds!
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