Best camera for shooting cooking videos?

[methodx]

I'm pretty new to this and I'm getting into shooting cooking videos. I just bought a GoPro HERO4 and after shooting a few tests, I'm not overly impressed with the video quality. What would you recommend I use for cooking videos? Should I stick with the HERO4? There won't be much action going on. It just has to be a camera on a tripod looking down on the food. I want the video to look really crisp and professional with an emphasis on close up detail.

[smrpix]

What's your budget?

GoPros are great for POV stuff, but with their wide fixed focal length lenses you'll need to get right down in the food for closeups. You'll want a boom pole for that.

GoPros are also capable of excellent quality, so if you're not getting it you're doing something wrong.

Probably better to get a regular camcorder, then park yourself in front of food network for a few hours to get ideas on how to make it exciting.

[methodx]

What's your budget?

GoPros are great for POV stuff, but with their wide fixed focal length lenses you'll need to get right down in the food for closeups. You'll want a boom pole for that.

GoPros are also capable of excellent quality, so if you're not getting it you're doing something wrong.

Probably better to get a regular camcorder, then park yourself in front of food network for a few hours to get ideas on how to make it exciting.

Thanks so much for the quick reply! I'm probably doing something wrong. The reason I chose the GoPro is for the exact reason you stated: they're really good at POV stuff and cooking videos are all about POV. Especially first person point of view with a GoPro chest mount. As for the field of view issue you brought up, I don't find that a problem at all. The "fisheye" effect GoPros are known for can be disabled. You've got three options: wide, medium and narrow. Filming on medium looks pretty normal to me.

[glenpinn]

[QUOTE=methodx;2404339]

Filming on medium looks pretty normal to me.

Doesn't the medium setting still have a mild fisheye look, last time i used one i think i noticed it, and i hate anything that remotely appears fisheye, really does my head in.

I too support a video camcorder as well, try and get in as close as you can to avoid too much zooming in on your target.

All my roaming video is done without zoom, always try to get as close as i can, if that fails, i reluctantly hit the zoom button, but limit it to around 3 to 5x and thats it, after 5x on my cam, it just falls apart.

[julitomg]

I´ve done a few "how to" handcrafts videos that could resemble a cooking video. smrpix made a very good question about your budget. The videos I´ve done have been very low budget and I shot them all by myself (one man band shooting style), generally I put a camera (in this case a bridge or superzoom camera I have) on a tripod, on one side of the table where the work is bein done, as high as posible and tilting down to cover the area where the teacher makes the crafts. That camera is fixed. I also have a camcorder that I place in front of the table, also on a tripod and with a remote zoom controller attached to the tripod´s handle; it allows me to perform nice smooth movements and focus changes (since I use that camcorder to zoom in very close to the hands doing things, as well as zooming back to a wide medium shot for presentation, showing results or explaining stuff), both cameras run at the same time (I use the old clapping hands for sync points)
This style of shooting may be rather conventional or even old fashioned for many members here but for it´s intended purposes works well (the viewers are usually middle to old aged ladies that are more interested in the handcrafting techniques shown than in the latest trends in audiovisual experiments), even the lightning is designed around those lines, I use a combinations of lights (none of them specifically made for video work) that somewhat mimicks the lights used in a small TV studio (low contrast, few shadows, bright colors, etc), the rest is done in post, titles, logos, music as well as cutting away "dead" time, helping the pace of the video (of course cutting from one angle to another, creates the illusion that there were more cameras-or more personnel for that matter- than there really were)
I´m not saying you should do it this way exactly, but I just wanted to give you an idea. And about the GoPro, well I have a lot of respect for these cameras but for me they sure wouldn´t work.