Exploring Vlogging: Selecting the Best Cameras & Lenses

A Vlogger’s Guide To Camera Lenses

Richard Bennett

Nov 01, 2022• Proven solutions

The staple of any vlog is the talking headshot, a shot of the speaker talking directly to the audience. You can compose this shot with different kinds of lenses for your interchangeable lens camera.

But which kind of lens is the right lens for you as a vlogger?

In this article, I’m going to help you figure that out.

Part 1: Three Focal Length Groups: Wide, Standard, Telephoto
Part 2: Vlogging With Each Focal Length Group
Part 3: Crop Factor
Part 4: Focal Length Equivalency Table
Part 5: Aperture
Part 6: Vlogging With a Fast Lens
Part 7: Optical Image Stabilization

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Three Focal Length Groups: Wide, Standard, Telephoto

There are three main ranges in focal lengths that camera lenses can be categorized into wide, standard, and telephoto.

Wide-Angle Lens

Wide-angle lenses can “see more.” They allow more of your scene to fit inside your frame. Objects that are closer to the lens appear much bigger while objects that are further away appear even smaller. Perspectives are also enhanced, making close objects and people that just make it into the sides of the frame appear more stretched out. Out of all the other ranges in focal lengths, wide-angle lenses will appear the least zoomed in.

Standard Lens

With standard lenses or normal lenses, you won’t get the stretched out objects or enhanced perspectives that you get from wide-angle lenses. Instead, standard lenses are meant to see scenes as the natural human eye is meant to see them. If you shoot a scene with both a wide-angle lens and a standard lens from the same position, you’ll notice that less of the scene fits into your frame. Standard lenses will appear more zoomed-in than wide-angle lenses, but less zoomed-in than telephoto lenses.

Telephoto Lens

Out of all the other ranges in focal lengths, telephoto lenses will appear the most zoomed in. This can be beneficial for the shooter who wants to get a closer shot of a scene without having to physically be in close proximity to the scene. Objects that are further away in the background also appear larger and closer than they would appear on wide-angle or standard lenses.

Vlogging With Each Focal Length Group

You can get your talking head footage using lenses from any of the three focal length groups. Depending on how you plan to vlog most of the time, though, one of the three focal lengths might be more suitable for you.

When to vlog with a wide-angle lens

Wide-angle lenses are the most commonly used lenses for vlogging. Wide-angle lenses are great when you need to be close to your camera. This might be the case for you if your recording space is small or if you want to film yourself as you hold your camera up with your own hand.

Being close to your camera not only gives you the option to use your camera’s built-in microphone, but it also gives you the option to make use of camera-mounted shotgun microphones.

When to vlog with a standard lens

Standard lenses are great when you have more space to be further away from your camera. The perspectives in your shot will look more natural through a standard lens, making your talking head footage feel more corporate or professional. You’ll also be able to get blurrier backgrounds using a standard lens versus a wide-angle lens.

Being further away from your camera, however, means that you’ll have to use a separate microphone positioned closer to you.

When to vlog with a telephoto lens

As telephoto lenses are even more zoomed in, you’ll need to be even further away from your camera to fit yourself inside your camera frame. Why would any vlogger ever need to be that far away from their camera? One word… teleprompter. If you want or need to stick to a script, you’ll have to be far away enough from your camera that it doesn’t appear like your eyes are scanning left to right. You then close in the distance with a telephoto lens.

In the above video, Marcos Rocha compares different focal lengths for talking head videos. Which focal length range do you like the look of?

Crop Factor

Focal lengths in camera lenses are measured in millimeters. You can vlog yourself handheld with a 24mm lens on a camera with a full-frame sensor (the sensor is the piece of hardware inside your camera that turns the light it receives into a digital image). But if you use a 24mm lens on a camera with a smaller sensor, like an APS-C sensor or even smaller Micro 4/3 sensor, more of you will get cropped out (see below).

In order to make up for the cropping that occurs, you will need to use a wider lens on cameras with smaller sensors to get the same shot you’d get with a full-frame camera.

Focal Length Equivalency Table

This table shows you the focal lengths needed to achieve the same shot between cameras with different sensor sizes. In order to take a shot as wide as the shot I took of myself with the 24mm lens on my full-frame camera, I would need a 15mm lens on an APS-C sensor camera or a 12mm lens on a micro 4/3 camera.

Focal Length / Sensor	Full Frame	APS-C	Micro 4/3
Wide (Handheld Selfie-Safe)	16mm	10mm	8mm
Wide (Handheld Selfie-Safe)	18mm	11mm	9mm
Wide (Handheld Selfie-Safe)	24mm	15mm	12mm
Wide	35mm	22mm	18mm
Standard	50mm	31mm	25mm
Telephoto	70mm	44mm	35mm
Telephoto	100mm	63mm	50mm
Telephoto	200mm	125mm	100mm

Aperture

The next thing to consider when you’re looking for a lens is the aperture, the hole (often adjustable) within the lens that lets light in. Aperture for camera lenses is measured in f-stops (f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2.0) - the smaller the f-stop number, the larger the aperture (bigger hole letting even more light in).

Because larger aperture lenses let more light in, they need a shorter time for cameras to compose an image. This is why larger aperture lenses are also called “fast” lenses.

Fast lenses are more expensive because they cost more to produce. There’s a lot more that goes into them, including larger and higher quality glass elements.

But do you even need a fast lens?

Vlogging With a Fast Lens

Pros of Vlogging With a Fast Lens

Better low-light performance
Better autofocus performance
Better “bokeh” (out-of-focus areas, like your background, having that nice blurry look that you see in a lot of movies)

Cons of Vlogging With a Fast Lens

More expensive
Moving subjects more likely to get out of focus when shooting with a large aperture
Better continuous autofocus performance needed when shooting moving subjects with a large aperture

Optical Image Stabilization

Finally, you’ll have to decide whether or not you want your lens to have built-in optical image stabilization (OIS).

OIS is very beneficial to have on a lens if you’re a vlogger who films mostly handheld footage. Although this technology adds to the price of your lens as well, it can greatly help you to capture smoother footage that may otherwise be shaky. Nikon calls this technology “Vibration Reduction” (VR) for their lenses.

In the above video, you can see how much OIS can help to stabilize your footage. MicBergsma simultaneously compares the footage between two GoPro Hero5 Blacks, one with OIS on and one with OIS off.

If, however, you are shooting most of your vlogs on a tripod, you won’t need a lens with OIS.

Looking for ways to set up your talking-head shot for YouTube with any of these lenses? Check out our post on 4 Ways To Set Up Your Talking-Head Shots For YouTube .

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Expert Conversion Tools for Video Content

Have you ever wondered why there is a need to transcribe YouTube videos? Well, let us enlighten you! Turning content from YouTube to text is essential for numerous content creators as it allows them to gain more views. Recent studies have shown that around 33% of the audience watching YouTube videos do not necessarily watch them in English. So, by converting them to text, translation becomes a whole lot easier and subtitles can be generated more efficiently.

In this article, we will explore the procedure through how one can convert a YouTube video to text, and learn about numerous effective online YouTube video to text software.

Part 1: How to Convert YouTube Video to Texts by Copy/Paste YouTube Transcript

When people think “Get the transcript from YouTube” they believe it is going to be a daunting and lengthy procedure. Well, let us tell you that it is certainly not! All you have to do is follow the steps outlined below to transcribe YouTube video to text - that too through the YouTube player itself.

First what you have to do is open YouTube and select any video for which you require the transcript. Once you have selected the video, wait for it to load and then click the three dots located beneath the video, as shown in the image below.

Following that, a menu will appear, just select the “Open Transcript” option and the transcription will open on the top right side of your screen.

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Simply select the entire transcript using your mouse, then copy and paste it into a new Word Document or Google Document. If you don’t need the timestamps, you can click the three-dot icon to toggle timestamps off.

By following the steps outlined above, you can convert a YouTube video to text in less than five seconds!

Part 2: Best YouTube Video to Text Converters Online

Aside from the basic method of getting the transcription from YouTube itself, many individuals make use of effective YouTube video to text converter online free. This allows them to get the complete video into text, small parts of the video to text, as well as options to convert the text into multiple languages. Below are some of the best software to convert YouTube video to text online.

1. Inqscribe

This high-quality cross-platform tool allows users to transcribe audio and video files into text . Whether it is a meeting recording or a YouTube video - you can convert them all to text. Making use of this free online software is extremely easy, all one has to do is just upload their file and click the process. Then the system will automatically transcribe the video into a text document for you. The software is uni code so all file formats are supported such as txt, XML, HTML, WebVTT, and more. The only drawback of this online software is that video files that are larger than a certain limit cannot be accepted.

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2. Sonix

For individuals who have premium quality audio transcription, a tool by the name of Sonix is the right choice for you. This tool enables users to turn all types of YouTube videos into text. All they have to do is simply download the YouTube video they need to transcribe and then upload it to the online interface. From there, this software uses its comprehensive text reader to convert the video to text. This platform supports more than 40 different language choice inputs and outputs. Users are allowed to transcribe up to five videos for free, then they must pay a subscription fee.

3. Otter

This video-to-text converter works best in real-time. Simply play the audio of a YouTube video and let Otter do its magic. In real-time it will convert audio into text. Moreover, if you would like to only convert some parts of the audio to text, that is possible with this tool as well.

All you need to do is play the audio accordingly and the text will automatically generate itself. The AVI (Ambient Voice Intelligence) of this tool allows it to accurately understand what the audio is saying to transcribe the video. While many do find this tool handy, learning how to use it can be a tiny bit tedious and confusing.

Note: Currently, Otter doesn’t support uploading YouTube video link, you may need to download the YouTube video first and then upload it from desktop.

4. oTranscribe

This online transcription tool is extremely easy and convenient to use - and it is entirely free! All you need to do is head on over to its homepage and drop a link to the YouTube video that you would like to transcribe. Then from there, you can access the video and text all at the same time, without having to switch between videos.

The best part is that you can record and translate text according to your need, cut and miss parts that you do not require. This tool supports all file formats which just adds to convince. The only challenge is that it will only accept videos and translate them into English.

5. Go Transcribe

If you are looking to convert any sort of video format to text, then Go Transcribe might just be the tool that you require. This tool makes use of the latest voice technology to convert videos to text - and gives you the output in the form of an SRT, PDF, or DOC, which are all editable. All you need to do is upload the video in one of the formats below,

3PG
FLV
AVI
MOV
MPG
MPEG

Then simply click the processing options and your video will be generated into a text file within minutes. However, this software may require a subscription fee.

files. Moreover, the output format is PDF which individuals cannot edit unless they convert the PDF to a TXT file online using different software.

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6. Trint

Turn your speech to text through magic - or in other words, through state-of-the-art technology. Trint is an online transcription tool that allows individuals to turn video files into text. People can download and upload numerous video files at once and turn them into text documents.

This is an extremely handy tool to have considering it comes with numerous options such as editing the text, only inducing certain parts of the video in the text, and so much more. This tool only has one shortcoming, it only accepts English language videos.

7. Happy Scribe

If you are wondering how, you will convert YouTube video to text, then we have just the answer for you. Make use of Happy Scribe to automatically transcribe all sorts of audio and video into comprehensive and readable text. You can get numerous features and options in this tool such as advanced grammatical functions as well as timestamps.

If your videos are in different languages, do not worry because Happy Scribe has more than 60 language formats. However, to make use of added features, individuals will need to pay for the tool and upgrade to the pro version.

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8. 360Converter

360Converter, as its name suggests is a video to text converter which individuals can use online and offline. All you need to do is download and then upload the YouTube video that you would like to transcribe and the tool will automatically generate the text for you. The supported video formats include 3GP, MP4, MOV, AVI, and many more. This tool uses advanced technology to get accurate language and grammatical transcriptions, so everything is word to word - the exact same as the video. While this tool is extremely user-friendly, many state that it takes a while to process videos to text.

Key Takeaways!

Technology has come a long way which is why we now have numerous options available online to help us convert YouTube videos to text in less than 5-10 minutes. All you have to do is upload the file and let the tool do its magic! You can transcribe in different languages, segments, and so much more now!

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02 Best YouTube Video to Text Converters Online

Part 1: How to Convert YouTube Video to Texts by Copy/Paste YouTube Transcript

Following that, a menu will appear, just select the “Open Transcript” option and the transcription will open on the top right side of your screen.

By following the steps outlined above, you can convert a YouTube video to text in less than five seconds!