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A Video Guide To Akihabara
freaklabs writes "Tokyo Hackerspace just put up a video guide to Akihabara in Tokyo, an area that's densely populated with electronics components shops. We get a lot of questions about where to go over there and also requests for guided tours so we figured it's probably best just to put up videos, descriptions, and Google map markers. It was always difficult to tell people where to go, since the places are hard to find, so we're hoping this makes it easier for visitors to Tokyo that want to get their geek on."
Looks like "Family vacation," quality camera work. Ummm, that may be fine if you are just shooting something to preserve memories but if you are trying to make something as an online guide/information site, take more time. As you noted, image stabilization is key. Best idea is just a camera with simple optical image stabilization. You don't need an expensive one to get it these days and it works great. Then take some time on shots and frame them. Let people get a look at what you are showing them, in particular if you are showing something neat/unfamiliar and with a lot of stuff in it. Try to keep everything in focus. AF works pretty well more of the time, but you may need to focus it yourself from time to time. Also, roll a lot more tape than you think you need. Want to show people 5 minutes of something? Roll 10, 30, even 60 minutes of tape (or files on a flash card as the case is now). Why?
Because editing is the second part. Don't just shoot a video and dump it raw on to Youtube. Good video editing software can be had for a low price or even free. Get some. Then take all that footage you rolled and edit it. Toss out the parts that aren't good, where things are blocked or out of focus, where it isn't as interesting and so on. Just keep the good bits. If you rolled extra tape this should be no problem, you probably have more than you need. You don't have to do anything fancy, you can just cut or crossfade from one scene to the next. Just try and keep only the good bits for people to watch.
Then maybe take a bit of time for narration. Don't feel like you have to narrate on the fly, video editing software will let you talk over top of what you did. If something isn't clear, or what was being said on the day isn't reliance or hard to understand, redo the narration over top later.
Basically, if you want to put together something to show the world, spend a little time on it. It won't be professional, but that's fine. However with some effort you can make something that looks good, rather than something that is very amateurish.
If you care enough to try and post something special, like this site, you really should spend the time to do a better job on the video.