Flips Are Fantastic

We took our Flip Mino for a test-drive on our recent trip to Whistler, so today for Photo Friday I'm going to showcase some video clips which we took on that trip instead of still photos - just for fun. Setting up the Flip is incredibly easy. Literally, you take it out of the box, connect it to your PC and once charged, it just works. It's also tiny, a truly pocket-sized device. The geek in me loves the fact that there are no memory cards or other storage media to fiddle with. This is truly a well-designed product. Taking videos is just a snap, so easy in fact, that I was able to record this short clip while snowboarding along-side CAM.

And here's one the WanderDad took of BigB and me coming in towards the Catskinner chair on Blackcomb.

I have two small criticisms of the Flip Mino: firstly, 2x digital zoom isn't quite enough for filming your children tearing down mountains. They become indistinguishable dots on the horizon very quickly. The range of the zoom is only about 30 feet which is OK, but not great. Secondly, within moments of downloading my video clips to my PC, I found myself hunting around online for video editing software. The application supplied with the Flip is very good at helping a novice user navigate through downloading and copying videos from the device to the PC, but does very little else. Wander on over to DeliciousBaby for some more Photo Friday fun. And if you're so inclined, Amazon.com has a great selection of Flip camcorders. 9 comments

Comments

On March 12th, 2009 at 10:46 pm, Peace Mitchell (Australia) said:

Whistler looks like lots of fun!

On March 13th, 2009 at 7:32 am, Beth Whitman said:

I can’t believe the ease of use with the Flip. Thanks for sharing these!

On March 13th, 2009 at 10:41 am, Mara said:

I agree with everything you say about the Flip. And I’m jealous of the skiing!

On March 13th, 2009 at 3:40 pm, Debbie Dubrow said:

Sigh, it doesn’t look like we’ll make it up to Whistler this year – I’m glad you had so much fun!

On March 13th, 2009 at 9:20 pm, Angela Nickerson said:

Thanks for the feedback on the Flip. It was one I was considering. Cheers!

On March 14th, 2009 at 5:57 am, Dominique said:

I was curious about the Flip, too. I’ve hardly taken video when I’ve traveled over the years, but this looks pretty no-fuss for short clips.

On March 14th, 2009 at 7:30 pm, Nik said:

Hey now, there’s actually a contest running at TripWolf where you can win a FlipMino HD!

Check it out: http://www.tripwolf.com/en/page/bloggers

On March 16th, 2009 at 3:55 pm, Linda said:

Still have never owned a video camera, but if I do, this might be the way to go.

On April 4th, 2009 at 12:01 am, LiLing Pang said:

I love the Flip too! Love it so much we’ve been giving it away periodically on Trekaroo to families who are sharing their tips about traveling with kids. It’s been lots of fun for us to take videos as a family with each ease. So nice to be able to video with just one hand and one click of button. Glad you are having fun with yours. Post more videos.