Camera Of Choice For A Football Freestyler?

In this post, I will not be going into the detail stats of a camera, you probably be able to find many of such videos on youtube.

Instead, I want to share some of the concerns and things you have to look out for when getting a camera. The opinions and experience of the camera will be from a panna/football freestyler perspective.

First point that I want to talk about is portability. As a competitive Panna player, I travel abroad a few times a year for either leisure or for competition. However, I would often bring my ball along with me for the trip even if it is just for leisure ( HEHE you know me, the ball has to follow me everywhere HAHAHA). If you have been on a holiday, you will often realize that luggage space is ALWAYS an issue and this is when a small camera is important. For me, since I want to be in the shot of my videos, I will have to carry my ball, camera and my tripod as I walk around a foreign land hunting for good locations to shoot. That small little weight difference is gonna make a big difference during such occasions.

Many of you guys may think that bigger cameras will offer better quality videos and pictures, well that is some what true...but along the years, compact cameras and mirrorless cameras has really improved a lot. They now have amazing performance and it is definitely worth the buy as they are much smaller and can still give you quality results.

Next factor to consider is a camera with a wide lens. Just like many others, I think the first camera that come to mind is the GoPro. I have used the GoPro a few times and I personally do not like the camera. However, I do find it useful when filming panna matches. If you are a spectator watching a panna game, you would realise that you have to stand in the first row if you do not want any objects or people blocking your view when you are recording, but this also mean you will be standing very near to the action and if you are using a normal camera, you may not be able to get a full body shot or an overview of the playing arena. Instead the shots you will get will be quite close up to the players lower body since the focus is on the ball and legs, this result to the upper body and face not being captured during certain parts of the video. It is possible to get a wide lens to compensate for this need but it is gonna cost more money. The reason why I do not like the GoPro is because it takes away many functions that a normal camera has, eg manual focus where you can switch focus between objects, taking high quality pictures with the option to zoom, send pictures to my smartphone immediately after taking it with Wi-Fi and the many different modes a normal camera would usually offer. Another issue is with the SD card error that pops up more often than my usual camera going out of battery HAHA! This is a big issue when filming sports like panna and freestyle when you only have one chance and if you miss it because of a camera error, it is gonna cause you that valuable shot.

So after doing some research, I eventually went with the Sony Rx100 series(Very popular compact camera). At the moment when I bought the camera there were 4 models in the series, all of which looks exactly the same (in case any of you who are new to cameras decided to get one and realize that the price is so much different despite its identical look). I got the Rx100M3 which I sought of regretted only because the Rx100M5 came out just a few months later(Incredible camera with ridiculously good performance. I WILL DEFINITELY RECOMMEND !!!) Anyway the price difference between the two cameras were about $400+ which is A LOT. The camera that I currently has is amazing though not as good as the newer model but it does capture amazing pictures and video quality and most importantly it is VERY SMALL for a quality camera! Some features that I love about the camera: It has, electronic view finder, tilt screen (allows me to make sure I am in the correct position when filming alone with a tripod), shutter speed (Important when taking pictures of freestyle tricks), good low light images, a ring that can help change aperture or zoom with ease, WiFI capability (So I can send pictures to my phone and post it without a laptop). With such a amazing capability I will definitely recommend you guys to get it too!