 Hey guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rosal here So today I want to cover a topic that I think might be of interest for anybody starting out with a YouTube channel or like me They're starting with really basic budget-friendly rudimentary kit But they're starting to get more advanced and you want to connect External accessories to your camcorder, but there's only one problem and that's that your camcorder doesn't have any shoes on it So an example of such a camcorder is the one I'm holding right here the Canon Vixia HFR 800 And it doesn't have any shoe fitting. So before I go any further, let me just explain Just to cover this what a shoe is so a shoe is basically a standard type of Connection that you'll see in camcorders on mirrorless cameras on DSLR cameras And basically it's this little if I can just get it out from this accessory I was using to demonstrate This is what a shoe is. It's a little attachment that has a little opening here and An accessory that has a shoe fitting basically typically has a square at the bottom That's because the shoe socket has a square to go into it and the way this works is you just screw Your you just push literally an accessory with a shoe fitting And then they usually have this little locking ring so that you can make sure that your lights Your expensive lights and microphones and whatever else you're connecting to a shoe fitting is secure and doesn't fall off when your camcorder is Moving about in whatever environment you're in now. That's what shoes are There's two types of shoes just to finish off this Intro there's cold shoes and hot shoes the difference is that a cold shoe is just basically a piece of plastic or metal It just has a physical. It's just a physical connection into which you can connect anything that takes a shoe A hot shoe has a circuitry on the shoe So not only will you physically tether something if you have an accessory with a hot shoe and you put that into a hot shoe mount Then you don't need to have any wires the actual the accessory can actually communicate with your camcorder at the shoe fitting So that's really useful If you have such accessories now what happens if as in this situation your camera doesn't have a shoe So all hope is not lost is a good news. The bad news is that I think it's definitely better If you want to start working with accessories It's better to get a camcorder with at least one cold shoe and the reason I say at least with one cold shoe is because because of the way that there are so many brackets and adapters once you one cold shoe You can expand out of that and get yourself more accessories connected But if you don't have any even to start with that becomes pretty much impossible So if I were buying a camcorder again, I bought this camcorder because it had an external Mic input, but I would definitely look for a camcorder with with at least one cold shoe on it Now I just want to show you guys a few different things I've bought to work around this issue So the first thing that I picked up was this L bracket. Now. These are all pretty much the same There's a few different types available on amazon b and h And other camera stores to be honest They all look almost identical and the concept here is that you'll take your camera It's got a little sliding rail with a quarter inch screw now. Here's my hack I added a couple of washers just between the quarter inch screw and the sliding rail The reason I did that was I had this attached to a monopod And when I had this when I put in the monopod and screwed this into my camcorder It actually ended up Overtightening the screw to the point that I had to use a vice as you can see from the fact This is all scratched up to actually get the screw open. So you don't want to do that. So I went to my hardware store and he just sold me a bag of washers And I just stuck a couple under here and that solved the problem I can now tighten this really really well, but the screw doesn't get stuck, which is what was happening before So basically, um, you know this this explain this this device is almost self-explanatory But you can use it in two ways. You've got a hand grip and you have a couple of cold shoes here So the way you use this is, you know, the classic way would be using it In its L shape configuration. So I'm just going to screw in the bracket to the camcorder Now I have my camera secure. I've got this nice little hand grip here And I've got two shoes and uh into those shoes I can put Let's say firstly my mini light I have it on the little shoe adapter And I can put my mini light and I can also put the shotgun microphone and that'll allow me to use an external microphone Now if if a camcorder doesn't have a cold shoe, it doesn't have a hot shoe But if it did have a hot shoe on it, you could connect stuff directly What I'll do here is put the let's say I want to put the microphone here And the camera here and then I just can open up like this And just connect in my microphone bringing the cable around the back And now I have an external microphone And a light on a cold shoe. Now this is kind of cumbersome to be honest But at least it's better than not being able to use any external microphone Now another good thing about these brackets is that they have a It's a actually a male to female quarter inch thread. So what you can do Is put this rig up on a monopod or on a tripod. So the setting I was using At a march I went to last week Was that I had the albracate On a monopod and that way I was able to use the light like so And use the microphone and I could also get this set up 1.5 meters into the air, which was kind of nice. So yeah, everything's very interchangeable For instance at the bottom of this the monopod I've actually added here another type of bracket Which I will just show you so that you have a few options That's the albracate. You also have c brackets um And you know, whichever one you use really depends on your preference because Of the fact that um, I really want to use all these accessories I bought I kind of went a bit, uh, maybe ott And bought a bunch of different kinds, which is why I have all these ones to show you So that's number one number two option two Is uh, you can just use something simpler like this now. This doesn't have shoes. It's just a simple piece of metal that has a quarter inch thread here So you can put this on again your monopod or your tripod and you've got two quarter inch threads here That'll lock in so you could have let's say a camera here You could have a webcam if your webcam has a tripod thread and you could have a light or something like that here That's an option a lot of stuff I bought from yulanzi including these two pieces I'm going to show you this one has a quarter inch here And a shoe a cold shoe here. So this is kind of my daytime recording Um adapter when I don't have a requirement to use Uh any additional lighting so just to give you guys an example What the way I would use this would be to Um push this actually has a shoe on it as well I could connect the monopod into this adapter then Connect the camcorder Into the quarter inch here And it's just got kind of one of these, uh, you know easy locking mechanisms If I can get it to work momentarily This one I've had a bit of trouble with it doesn't like stay There's a little bit of uh, there's flexibility here, which I'm not sure that's intentional I can't tighten this any further and there's a cold shoe here. So I could put my You know this guy here the microphone and then tighten that in So that's another type of adapter if you go on to aliexpress or amazon or ebay You'll see tons and tons of yulanzi adapters. They have a gigantic catalog and I've bought quite a few of these things just to find various ways to Set up rigs So that's that's those are options one two and three Just a couple more to show you before I end this video Um another another option you have now. This is why I said at the start of the video This is the yulanzi pt one that once you have one Um cold shoe you can do a lot you can kind of split stuff off from it So this guy is an example of what he'd use this for you could have You could have your camcorder here, but it's a bit tight What this is really designed for is uh gimbals. So if you have a gimbal, let's just pretend this monopod is a gimbal So like most monopods or gimbals it has a quarter inch fitting at the bottom what you can do is Now these are generally called like flap brackets. So I've just screwed that in and now I have just going out a couple of inches a uh triple one to three cold shoe adapter So, you know, I wanted to rig up a microphone here If I wanted to get my little mini light onto it Then I could do that because if you're working with the gimbal The balance and calibration is very sensitive. So generally from what I understand Most people will want to be connecting their accessories Not on the gimbal itself, but just a little bit offset So for instance like something like this and I could just run the microphone Up into the camcorder or into the phone or whatever the case was and just have it out to the side So you can find these all really easily on the internet as I said Um, I'm almost almost done one one one more two more things to show in my uh Shoeless camera show until day. So this is a handy piece of kit. This is another Ulanzi piece And what I like about this one is it's a one to three cold shoe adapter So you've got your cold shoe slash quarter inch here and you've got three shoes here What I like about this piece is the fact that uh, these are all rotatable. So I'll just give you an example of what you could do And while I'm at it, I'll show you one more piece. You can go from a um quarter inch to a shoe You'll find pieces like that I don't have an in front of me and you can also find these little adapters to go from a shoe to a quarter inch So this is a cold shoe here and it's got two nuts here. So what I could do Is put this into this one to three adapter Uh, use the bottom locking ring to secure this here Put this down temporarily put the camcorder here and just Secure this better, but you got the idea and then Put this guy up to lock in the camera Then I would have these two shoes now. I'll tell you why this is really useful Let's just say my camcorder, you know, I'll go ahead and do it I'm not going to do all these connections Super perfect, but hopefully good enough to demonstrate. So my camcorder is up on this guy now And um, this is why this this is a ulanzi This is a ulanzi pt Something or other so I'm going to hold it because it's not it's not very securely attached And I can put the microphone into one of these cold shoes here Secure it, but uh, what I like about this particular adapter is that these can all be rotated so I can rotate the microphone around Uh, now I didn't do this very well, but uh, you get the idea. It's uh, it's lockable I should have put the stuff. It's on the wrong site But this is useful for instance, if you're recording you're using a directional microphone like the shotgun Sometimes you're recording this way And other times you want to be doing, uh, you know, you're narrating to the camera as you record You want to pick up audio from this side so you can just swivel it around Final final piece is the uh grip. So this is um, kind of a um classic Poor man stabilizer. Now, obviously this isn't comparable in any way to a proper stabilization system or a gimbal I've actually not succeeded and I've been trying very hard To find a gimbal for this for this camcorder the shape just seems to be um A sticking point. Um, I'd be into like six camera stores In my area and none have They've all told me to get lost basically Uh, but this is you know, this kind of does a little bit of stabilization So it's a c grip or u grip you'll find these sometimes called c grip sometimes called u grips You'll find these very easily on amazon It's got a little quarter inch thread on a rail here. So what you want to do is um, these are a bit finicky They tend to kind of get stuck But uh secure your um device whether it's a dslr mirrorless camcorder onto the rail And then you've got one two three shoes up the top to fit your uh devices to and as I said before The the beauty of uh of the the shoe world if you will is that everything's so interchangeable So there's nothing stopping you from let's say fitting this uh one to three cold shoe brackets here Now I can put three lights up the top um And I can put a microphone up the side Microphone back monitor can put another three brackets you get the idea You can mix and match to your heart's content caveat being of course that the more accessories You're adding and the more the more weight you're accumulating if you use the more weight's going to be On your hands when you end up holding it, especially if you're using something like a gimbal So I hope that overview is helpful. I know I went into a lot of detail Uh, that's primarily because I spent a lot of time Over the last two weeks ordering these things and trying to figure out the various ways I could connect things with Um, I definitely think these things are kind of handy to have in your video cabinet or your vlogging drawer Whatever you want to call it um much more ideal to just have a shoe on your camcorder If this camera had just one cold shoe at the front You know, I could get away with mostly just having a microphone mounted And that is a lot easier to fit back into a bag Uh than having to put this big bracket out and back every time So that's a bit of a a bit of a nuisance But in any event, uh, there at least are a couple of options Um, if you have a camcorder without any shoes and you want to use different accessories Thank you guys for watching. I hope this was helpful