I made a youtube video showing my new swivl personal camerman. I absolutely love it in all ways. It works flawlessly and the designers of the product are very open to suggestions on how they can make the product even better. Check it out!
I was looking for a solution to capture video in a 360 degree rotation as I often work with horses in a round pen and want to see how the horses respond to commands. I would ask my wife to stand in the middle of the round pen and film the horse as it walks, canters, etc based on my hand gestures. Needless to say, my wife would get tired and dizzy from spinning around in place while filming.
Now with Swivl, I simply place my iPhone into the Swivl stand, place the marker on the horses saddle, launch the app and press record and am able to record 360 degrees perfectly. Swivl has a built in tri-pod mount, so I'm able to use my old tripod for a sturdy platform. My wife loves the product, not just because it alleviates her filming and getting dizzy, but she's able to use it in the kitchen for facetime or skype handsfree calls with our daughter who's away at college. The marker has a built in mic, so she's easy to hear what she's saying on the other end.
The Swivl has a solid build to it and has gone from horse barn to house to office with ease because it's battery powered (easy to replace, buy purchasing regular batteries), no cords to carry and the ability work with iPhones 3 and 4. I just ordered another Swivl from Amazon to allow my wife and I to have our own.
Highly recommended to those of you who want to capture video when you're active by yourself or when you want hands free video conferencing at home or in the office. Great product.I am a dog trainer, and I frequently need to send video to my client to show them how their dog is progressing. Previously I just set up a flip video and was careful to stay in frame while training the dogs, but that is very difficult to do. When I heard about the Swivl I thought it might be a good fix for my filming dilemma. I did my first filming with my flip video, because my iphone in the otterbox would not fit into the base. I did have some troubles with the base "losing" me for a bit as I moved around with the dogs, but Swivl customer service was very responsive and helped me to make better video. I then found the Kungl iphone case which let me protect my iphone and put it into the Swivl base. One of the issues I had with the Swivl, the fact it does not pan up/down automatically, is about to be changed with a software change to be able to be made automatic. I like that improvements to the system can be done through software updates.
Whenever I have had an issue or a question the Swivl folks have gotten back with me very quickly, by email or by calling me. I think this is a good product that will get better via software improvements with the feedback we early users are providing.
Tod McVicker
This is the second Swivl that I am purchasing. The first I bought for myself. This second one I am buying for my brother as a birthday gift. I travel frequently for work and wanted a more relaxing way to video chat with my husband while I am on the road and to also use it to capture presentations for work. After a month of using my first Swivl, I must say I really enjoy using the product and it works as advertised. It works smoothly, quietly and fits easily in my travel bag. And it definitely turns heads at work when I use it! Initially I thought the dongle was large, but as I used the product I got used to it and now it doesn't bother me at all. I like that you can use it with Facetime or other apps and not just the standard Swivl app. The Swivl app is clean and easy to use. No major complaints. I like that it keeps my videos from work separate from my normal iPhone photo library so that I can keep things straight. And they just added a new feature to the app that allows me to download it through iTunes directly to my Mac. The first app version didn't allow this and created some initial complications.
Only reason why I didn't give it a 5 star rating is that the app capability is pretty basic. I'd like to see the Swivl do more things like photos and prescribed motion scans for panoramics . It sounds like those are on the way based on what the company says. If that turns out to be true, I would give it 5 stars.Was able to use it to record in a short time. Documentation was OK, but not as helpful as it could have been. Had to order the connector in order to plug it as a separate purchase from manufacturer; $20 seems ridiculous for the part that arrived that should have been included with the purchase even if at a higher cost for the swivel. I look forward to trying it out on a different camera device using a different remote mic.
It does what is says it will do and I will continue to use it and look for improvements as they develop.
No comments:
Post a Comment