Last week I managed to get my hands on a Flip Video (talk to Edsoft if you want to buy inside NZ). I’ve looked at them a few times and coped through my gadget lust. This time I fell prey to the cravings and bought the thing. And I am so glad that I did. After a few sideways videos and shots focussing on bright red shoes, I was able to get important footage of local education and business leaders mangaging their way through the challenge of new communication technologies.

The Flip Video is a great piece of equipment. Two of my grandchildren got hold of it yesterday and had a good time playing with it. The size and chunkiness of the unit means that even the four year old was able to comfortably hold and operate the camera. They were able to quickly work out how it worked. Quite quickly it was evident that”selfies” were more popular than filming their uncle or grandmother. One thing I will do before they grab it next is put it on a neck strap so that they can wander around more comfortably.

Footage from the camera is easily imported into Movie Maker 2.

I was also able to view camera footage on the eee PC which would make the little computer a great conduit for uploading to YouTube or other video sites. As I have no editting software on the eee PC I was not able to test that function. I was able to easily upload to my own webspace. I believe it works just as easily with iMovie on the Mac but as my Mac is being babysat by a daughter whose desktop is ill I was unable to prove that for myself.

If you are looking for a camera that’s small and easy to carry around, has no extra rubbish and takes good footage then the Flip is a good choice. If you want to shoot footage for the classroom or for the web it’s a great piece of equipment. This is not the camera to shoot for TV or DVD quality. It’s not HD or high resolution.

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