Looking for recommendations for video cameras for an almost 8 yr old.

July 14, 2020 11:15 AM

Hi - my son will be turning eight years old in August. He really wants to make short videos (I'd say around 5-10 minutes in duration). I'm looking for recommendations for video cameras for him.

I bought him a kid's digital camera with video capability but the audio is not great at all. Do you have suggestions for something a kid can use to make short videos? Ideally we could connect this to a laptop and do some editing (he has a chromebook but also access to a Mac if needed). I don't want to list a firm budget because I don't want to limit suggestions. Thanks so much.

posted by JenMarie to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

If you have either no qualms about or an easy-to-execute plan wrt giving your kid access to a smartphone I think a used one with no SIM card is definitely the easiest and most futureproof way to do this (i.e. he'll be able to continue using whatever workflow he comes up with as he gets older if he's serious about doing it).

I would suggest just giving him whichever OS you're comfortable with, but if you don't have a preference iPhones are all very good at video and (at least when I last had one) have some nice editing features built in. The sweet spot in terms of price/usability/quality might be something like a 6s or a first-generation SE, but you'll want to make sure it's got plenty of storage space (he'll run through 16 GB in a hurry).

If you don't want to go the smartphone route—and I'm sympathetic to this as someone who loves cameras and hates smartphones—I think he might have a hard time collecting and editing the footage without your help/access to the Mac. (I could be wrong though—I haven't actually tried to edit video on a Chromebook, I can just imagine it being a pain to do so without local storage. I think the important thing to do if you're interested in going a non-phone route will be to do some research into what, if any, video editing you can do in Google Drive.)
posted by Polycarp at 12:31 PM on July 14, 2020

Rather than a phone I'd give him an old digital camera. Any compact camera made in the last 10 years ought to shoot decent enough video, and he can take the files off the SD card and onto the Chromebook, and use WeVideo or another video editing program (there seem to be quite a few for the Chromebook) to slice and dice the results into a "movie".

Something like the Minolta Z5 can be had on eBay for $30 or so and will shoot better video than all but the latest few generations of phones, and I believe runs on AA batteries.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:36 PM on July 14, 2020

You might consider a refurbished GoPro. You can see the current stock here: https://gopro.com/en/us/shop/refurbished.

The advantage here, I think, is the ruggedness offered by GoPro or knockoffs you can find on Amazon. Add a case and a helmet mount, and he can take video while he rides a bike/skateboard/scooter. Some models have built-in stabilization, too, so holding the camera perfectly steady is less of an issue.
posted by malthusan at 3:26 PM on July 14, 2020

If you don’t wish to go down the phone route, perhaps an iPod Touch?
posted by Eikonaut at 11:06 AM on July 15, 2020

My 8 year old son actually uses my old iPhone. I upgraded and kept my old phone, put an otterbox on it and let him have it. It's not hooked up for calls, wifi only, but it's perfect.
posted by Sara_NOT_Sarah at 12:54 PM on July 16, 2020