5 Tips for Travel Videos with Aidin Robbins
Over the years Aiden Robbins has certainly evolved and matured as a video maker from his humble beginnings as a fledgling video creator.
And when I say “fledgling” I really mean it, I think he was about 14 when I first saw his videos!
As part of that journey for the past year or so he has moved away from his original strategy of creating great “How to” videos and more into developing his own skills and style.
For him that’s obviously been great but selfishly for the rest us us, his tutorials have been sadly missed.
This week he came out with a fairly rare tutorial style video centered mainly on the subject of travel videos.
Although for many people he is operating at a level beyond what we would be aiming for I still think there are some great tips all of us can put into practice.
How to Use and Set Up Your Camera: A Beginner’s Guide
If you have decided to move from your Smart phone over to a dedicated camera for shooting video then you might as well take advantage of what’s on offer.
The beauty of shooting on a phone is that they are equipped with correction algorithms that work on the fly and do most of the thinking for you.
This results in “OK” video footage most of the time.
Yes you can step in and take control over some of the parameters you are shooting at but at the end of the day you are using a tiny little lens in front of an almost microscopic sensor!
Added to that is the fact that the amount of data being used to record those videos is tiny compared to a camera which means post production correction and effects can be problematic or at least limited.
Of course it is pointless to go up to the level of a video camera and then set the thing on Auto and continue as if you were still using a phone! In that case what was the point?
There are a few things you need to learn to really release the Kraken when it comes to video with a camera but really it’s not all that much. Here’s a little starter.
How to Modify Settings for the Preview Window in PowerDirector
One of the problems all of us will have these days is how to maintain the best possible quality in previewing projects as we are working on them without overly stressing the computer.
Modern video codecs are designed to minimize file size while at the same time maximizing image and motion quality.
The hidden fact here is that they do that by throwing a ton of work on the processing power of the computer… and that’s just for playback!
When it comes to editing things go really crazy given that those codecs were never designed in any way for producing files that could be edited.
So finding a preview setting that gives you a good representation of your work without crashing your computer has to be a good thing right? Here’s a look at it in PowerDirector.
Create Pac-Man Animation with Filmora 14 Keyframes and Path Curve
OK so I don’t know about you but this is a project I would never be interested in creating!
So the question is why would I then bother to add it to this week’s Friday Roundup?
Well I’m glad you asked!
The actual value to me in this tutorial is not the end result at all.
The value is that it is a great exercise in using various tools and controls within Filmra to achieve certain actions.
Keyframes, motion paths and curves are all tools within many video editing solutions these days but they are all kind of useless unless you know how to use them.
More importantly the key is knowing how to use them, when to use them and how they can be used in conjunction with each other to create your projects.
CapCut Video Editing Tutorial for Beginners
A relatively recent arrival in the video editing software for newbies space is CapCut and through its introduction as part of the TikTok universe it has grown quite significantly.
At this point in time CapCut probably occupies a position that Filmora held a few years back.
By that I mean it is a fully functional and effective video editor with a very easy to understand interface designed to get you up and running pretty quickly.
It is essentially a free program but offers premium features at a paid level as well depending on what you need.
At the free level it works very well and would be a great choice for someone just starting out in video editing.
Here’s a run through of all the features it offers.
How to Use OBS Studio – Complete OBS Tutorial for Beginners 2025
OBS is a free open source live streaming and screen capture software program.
As far as this class of software goes OBS is one of the best if not the best and let’s face it, you can’t beat the price!
Having said all of that there is one basic problem.
The software itself especially the interface is a nightmarish hellscape… or at least that’s how I felt when I first saw it!
Anyway, once you start to learn a few bits of it you soon realize that a lot of the features probably don’t really apply to you or your use of the software and with a little help you can get it tamed pretty quickly.
Here’s that little help!
Make Your Own Motion Graphics in Resolve! – Free Workshop for Beginners
OK this is the first of two posts from Casey Faris this week… if all has gone well the other one is just below!
Anyhoo, this one goes first because it is a totally free course being offered by Casey to get you started in the world of creating your own Motion Graphics in DaVinci Resolve.
By itself that pretty cool BUT WAIT! There’s more!
As part of the course you can download (also for free) a bunch of assets that he uses in the tutorial and a bunch of other assets (still free!) that are not part of the tutorial but are pretty cool anyway.
The juiciest of which is a whole bunch of sound effects you can use in any project using any software you like.
Stabilize Video in DaVinci Resolve 19
This is the second video I am adding this week from Casey Faris because he has unusually popped up with two very good tutorials in the one week.
I mean his tutorials are usually very good and all that but sometimes they are perhaps a little too advanced or specialized for my use.
In this video he covers the stabilization options available in DaVinci Resolve.
Now of course because it is DaVinci Resolve there are a gazillion ways to stabilize and a gazillion settings within those various methods!
However if you need to stabilize footage then I would highly recommend delving into DaVinci for that purpose.
I use a Sony camera which has stabilization built in through the use of gyroscopes.
They record motion data and later I can process that footage through Sony’s Catalyst Browse software to add stabilization.
To be honest I get better results from DaVinci and more importantly it takes about half the time to process so DaVinci is well worth looking at for that task.
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