Okay, so I know that in today's competitive environment it's much harder to be successful on YouTube in terms of views, subscribers, and income. It can certainly still be done. I'm considering experimenting in this area to generate some passive income. For those of you who've had at least some degree of success, what was your experience generating views and income on YouTube? Presently, my roommate is looking to purchase a good quality digital camera for outdoor photography and asked me to do the research to help choose a model. We're wondering if there's a digital camera that can be used for both high quality digital photos and for high quality video recording. They need a camera with strong zoom capacity and the ability to capture in-motion pictures. Budget is $200-$350. The video quality should be semi-profession, good enough to produce high quality, mostly indoor videos for YouTube. My research has shown that there are some decent dedicated camcorders in that price range but the capacity to take quality stills in motion/zoomed is lacking. My understanding is also that, while most digital cameras do record HD video, it's more "gimmicky" and doesn't produce a high quality video.
I don't have any technical experience to offer, but as a YouTube consumer, I was recently looking for how-to videos on how to repair the heater on my Taurus and was astonished by the lack of quality I found, both in technical videography and in the on-air demeanor of the people providing the 'assistance'. If my findings are any indication of what's there generally, success should just be a matter of producing a professional product.
If you specialize in something other than "computer nerd" stuff you can become success if you have the equipment and know how to use it.
im currently using a panasonic lumix dmc-g3k as my camera, and use it for both purposes, i personally find it works well for both, but might i suggest getting a camera and editing together the sound, as the camera's mic picks up a lot of background sound
Sound trumps video image quality for youtube, IMO. For any dynamic media for that matter. When you look at the people who are really pwning youtube passive income, it's underwhelming. Just. Turned me off big time. Another thing you may like to consider - if you can / intend to do ongoing videos in series or what have you, is patreon.com. I think it's a bit more reliable at the lower bandwidth level (ie low but potentially more passionate subscribers / views) for financial support, and you can set it up on a per-month or per-video basis. Be very interested to see what you do - please keep us updated.
