 Hi guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rosel here. I want to do a video today about the Canon Vixia HF-R800, which is kind of an entry-level camcorder. It's the camcorder I've owned for a couple of years now. In general, I've been really, really happy with it. Unlike a lot of camcorders at its price point, it does have an external microphone input. So if you want to go ahead and connect a 3.5 mm microphone, it is on power. So that means it doesn't supply either phantom power or plug-in power. So you effectively need a self-powered microphone. But once you have that, you're good to go. You can use an external microphone and that really has a rookie that's opened a lot of doors for me to play around with different mics and stuff like that. Now, one of the negatives is that it doesn't have any cold shoes or also called accessory shoes, which is that little fitting that you, you know, use to attach camera monitors or microphones or lights or what have you. So the purpose of this video, I just want to run through a quick slide showing in a show a few little very cheap pieces you can pick up online to get over that limitation. So as I mentioned, there's no accessory shoe. And if there were an accessory shoe on the camcorder, I think probably the most obvious place for it would be a little bit to the front of that nook on the top. You can see where the zoom slider is just in front of that. I think it's actually the microphone. So I suggest if you are putting an accessory shoe on to just go a little bit to the front of that. So what you need basically the first thing is a adhesive cold shoe. Now what you can do you have two approaches here. Firstly, you can look for an adhesive cold shoe. There's a few different companies make these. You can buy them online on Amazon. You can buy them on B&H and the second option is to buy a piece of metal. Now I've seen a YouTube video where the guy shaves down metal. I haven't done anything that sophisticated. I don't have the hardware for that, but you could just find a flat point of the camera and use super glue. Obviously, this is a less destructive method if you later decide you don't want to use it. So these are what the adhesive backed accessory shoes looked like. They're basically just a cold shoe. They've got a little 3M sticky strip on the back. You peel off the backing and you plunk it on your camera and you leave it to set. So it's really, really simple. These things cost like 10 bucks. So I would pick up this is a two pack. I would, you know, personally pick up a couple just to just, you know, in case it comes off to have a spare and a spare to a spare, etc. So that's option one. The second thing you can do is, as I mentioned, the kind of more rough and ready approach is buy one of these cold shoe. So they have a cold shoe on the top on a female quarter inch 20 on the other side. So these things are like, you know, nothing. They're like a dollar on Amazon or Aliexpress. And just get some super glue and glue around the screw. And again, find a perfectly flat place. Now, there's a couple of actually options besides. I'm just going to go back in the slide show for a second. There this space is flat, but that obviously isn't a great place to put on accessory shoe because it's where the monitor comes out. The other side actually has a flat point as well. So you can even put on a couple of cold shoes, one on the top and one on the side. It just, you know, the more you add the harder it is going to be to get it into a camera bag or whatever you're adding dimensions to the camera. So, yeah. So that's where personally I put my culture where I recommend putting it. It's just to the front of that little slit there and just no further because the closer you go to the lens, the higher the likelihood that the microphone you fit or whatever is going to get in frame, which you don't want, obviously, so that's where I've gone for. So the next thing just to personally, if you're going to do this, I advise picking up is these cold shoe adapters. And what these are is it's got a cold shoe on the bottom. And that just then comes up to a three shoe adapter. So it's a one to three effectively. So these things again are just like, you know, five dollars and Amazon, all this stuff is pretty cheap. And what this does is, you know, if you have one, you can connect one device. If you have one of these and you can just leave this attached to your culture adapter, then you can put on, let's say, a light, a microphone and a monitor at the back. Well, actually, the Vixia HFR 800 doesn't support a monitor, but you get the idea you can put on more accessories. So I reckon I recommend having buying one of these as well. They're just handy things to have. So another option actually is you can also just buy something like this. So a lot of lights, less commonly microphones, more commonly lights. They so the light will fit in and they give you a couple of shoe fittings on the actual body of the light itself. So that's another option as you can put the light below and a microphone on top. So you just fit the microphone into the culture bracket. I'm sure they exist. Microphones that have a cold shoe like on top or whatever, but they're less common. So that's another option you can do is and I've run through a gallery at the end of this. So this is what the Vixia looks like with the cold shoe attached. This is my Canon Vixia HFR 800. This is the cold shoe adhesive, which I bought from Amazon, and it's just sitting there at the top. It's not brilliantly secure. I actually added super glue under the cold shoe just to make it even more robust because personally, I think I'm going to stick with this camcorder for a year. And I see no disadvantage to having a cold shoe fitting on the camcorder as in I can't see any reason why even if I have nothing else on it, it doesn't create any problems. So therefore, I've just really put it down as firmly as possible using super glue in addition to the adhesive it came with so that if it's having a couple of really heavy lights or fittings or because you can daisy chain these cold shoes as well. So I want to just make sure that this being the point of failure or the weakest point was pretty secure. So this is what it looks like with the Vixia HFR 800. I've got my cold shoe adapter and I've got my three to one cold shoe adapter on top of it. So now that's, you know, it adds a little bit is a little bit ugly. It adds about, you know, a few extra centimeters to the height of the camera. So it's less compact, but you do have more more power now. You can you can use an external light with the camera and you can use a proper shock and microphone. So this is I'm just I'm just going to run through. I just took a few photos of various setups and I'm just going to end my little S light like this. So this is what it looks like just with a really compact Lansy light on top. Honestly, these things are really cheap. They're like 15 bucks and it comes as a cold shoe. That's a cold shoe at the top of the light. So you just stick a microphone on top of that. I have tempted to just leave this permanently attached to the camera because frequently a light is often so useful, you know, even when you're even when the internal microphone will do a light is just a really handy thing to have because the low light performance on the Vixia HFR 800 is definitely not wonderful. Here is another setup with this time, a just just a microphone on top. So this is a little compact shock and microphone. As you can see, a style of microphone like this kind of goes up and then out. So, you know, you can test look in the monitor, make sure it's not in frame, but something a more compact shock and microphone is going to have, you know, a smaller form factor and therefore a smaller likelihood of getting in your frame. But obviously check before you start rolling to make sure you're not accidentally shooting footage of some microphone foam. Here is a much clunkier shock and microphone. The reason I included this is just to show that another advantage of having an external microphone is that it's directional. So, you know, shock and mics are directional so you can shoot forward facing. And then if you want to do, let's say you want to shoot a outdoor market and you want to capture audio from you. So what you can do is just rotate the microphone for that shot. And that way the directional microphone is capturing from behind. I also have a really interesting microphone called a comic attract shot that has a forward. It's got two shotgun arms, and that's another option as you can have one arm back and one arm forward. Here's what it looks like was the Vixia HF-R800. Then I've got my three to one shoe adapter. I've got my light coming off to the side and I've got my microphone coming off to the other side. So now our very entry level budget cannon. Camcorder is starting to look a bit more like a higher end cannon. You know, when you get into the thousand dollar territory, the cameras typically have a built in light and sometimes a built in microphone as well. So we're starting to look a bit little bit more like a proper, you know, higher end camcorder here. Here's that option I mentioned because, as I said, the Yulanzi light has a cold shoe. So what I've done here is screwed the comic attract shot into the top of the Yulanzi light. And there you go. Now, I mean, it's a weird looking setup. You've got the microphone way up there sitting on top of the light. But, you know, it works. And what you could do is just when you're done, if you want to put this back in your camera bag, just take off the accessories and fold them away. Finally, here is a more elaborate setup. I've used up all three of the cold shoes here. I've used one light here. I've used another light here and I've got it in one of those arms. I mean, there are literally tons and tons of these camera accessories you can use on the market. This is a this is a ball bearing on a little lateral arm and it's got the microphone up on top. And here's what it looks like as if I were shooting from behind. So you can see the monitor. It's throwing light onto my computer monitor, but you can actually even kind of see in the monitor that it's lighting up the background a little bit. And for audio, I'm using the comic attract shot, running that cable there into the external microphone port. And now I've got my external microphone plus lighting into the Canon Vixia and that's the end. So I just wanted to basically show some possibilities if you're frustrated by the Colchee, which is something I didn't look for when I purchased this. Then just to say that there are sort of workarounds that you can use in order to, you know, make your Canon Vixia HF-R800 a little bit more powerful. Thank you for watching to get more videos. Feel free to subscribe to this YouTube channel.