Top 5 Cameras for YouTube Vlogs Under $500! (Complete Buyer's Guide)

these are the five best vlogging cameras that you can get for under five hundred dollars [Music] now these cameras are in no specific order each camera is very unique and has its special reasons as to why it made this list so make sure you stay tuned for all of them to figure out which one is going to be best for you you got to just press record hey guys my name is normal with think media and our first camera is the sony a5100 you can get this camera used for under 500 on amazon so check the lin

ks in the description and make sure that you scroll down to find the used current prices to get the best deal on this camera now i actually bought this camera back in 2017 for the purpose of vlogging just fun moments and memories with my wife and i remember at the time doing a lot of research and i was looking at buying this camera or possibly something like the canon g7x and the main reason that i decided to go with the sony a5100 is because i watched a lot of comparisons and i thought that the

microphone built into the sony 5100 sounded a lot better than the canon g7x that being said this camera does not have a mic jack or a cold shoe to put a shotgun microphone on there because you just can't do that however i found that the audio is totally acceptable for these youtube vlogs on this camera you are able to change some lenses and i do think that sony has some amazing cameras out right now so investing in their email lenses is a great idea if you want to upgrade eventually to somethin

g like the sony zv e10 now this camera shoots in 1080 hd however i found that it was a lot sharper than my previous camera the canon t3i so with that full hd image you are getting a very sharp and clear video out of it another thing that i love about this camera is it has amazing autofocus so when you're vlogging you are very easily able to keep yourself in focus you do get really good colors out of this camera as well and when it comes to low light this thing does really good for the price and

of course you get this flip up screen which just kind of goes onto the back like this but this is so handy when it comes to vlogging having that flip up screen to see yourself is a must for these vlogging cameras you're also able to shoot in 10 80 60 frames per second to get some really cool slow motion on the camera now as far as some of the cons go i already mentioned that this does not have a mic jack but you're getting some pretty good audio quality from the camera however you need to make s

ure that you remove these little straps when you buy your camera because if you shake your camera around you're gonna get some rattling that you do not want in your video and luckily that's really easy to do one thing that i noticed happened over time with my lens is it became a little bit wobbly so if i shake it like this you're gonna hear some noise now typically this never shows up when i'm actually vlogging on this camera and i think it's because i've definitely dropped this camera a few tim

es it doesn't have the best build quality so if you are going to pick up this camera make sure you take care of it you don't want to just throw it around and throw it in random bags you want to keep this thing in good conditions to make sure that nothing loosens up and then starts to rattle on the camera again i do believe this is just because of my specific lens because of how much we use this camera and just threw it around it's uh it's been through the paces you're a warrior you're strong you

're beautiful too far too far now i recommend this sony a5100 for the beginner if you don't really know how to set audio levels and you don't want to worry about a microphone and you just want to pick up a camera that does it all this could be the camera for you you have the flip up screen you have the autofocus the colors are going to be great and the microphone built into the camera is not bad so you can just shoot on this thing and upload it straight to youtube of course you probably want to

edit it first and then you can upload it to youtube the second camera that i want to mention comes in at 200 this is kind of a specialty camera and this is the dji osmo pocket camera now the two main features about this camera is one it's super tiny you can literally throw this in your pocket and take it with you wherever you go the second thing is it has in this built-in gimbal so you can walk around and get really steady shots with this camera now surprisingly enough this camera can shoot 4k u

p to 60 frames per second and when you combine that with the built-in gimbal you can get some really cool cinematic shots on this tiny thing if you want to shoot ultra slo-mo you can shoot in hd at 120 frames per second there's also some really cool features built into the camera that you can use like time lapses so if you want to get a cool time lapse for your vlog you can do that in the camera now you can hook up an external microphone but you need to get an adapter for 40 dollars but i think

it's worth it because this camera is so cheap spending that little bit of extra money for an external microphone makes a lot of sense now the cons of this camera is you're not able to get that blurry background on the sony a5100 you can get that blurry background and you can upgrade your lenses over time to get an even blurrier background but on the osmo pocket there is no interchangeable lenses and you aren't really going to get any of that shallow depth of field another con about this camera b

ecause it is so tiny and the menu system is so small it's kind of hard to control the camera that being said i definitely recommend hooking up your phone through the wi-fi connection and actually just controlling this thing through your phone and you're also going to want to do this to get a nice video feed so when you are getting shots you can see on your phone what it looks like like you could imagine the battery on this camera is very small so it's gonna die pretty quickly and you are gonna w

anna bring an external charger something like a phone battery charger and you can charge this thing while shooting now there is a newer version out the osmo pocket 2 that you can pick up this is going to be more expensive coming in at 500 for that creator combo i did find this used for 350 now this thing has a touchscreen a bigger sensor overall just a better camera and so this is a camera that kind of excites you and you want to spend a little bit extra money definitely look into that osmo pock

et too when it comes to this camera i recommend this for the vlogger who is moving around a lot maybe they're walking and talking and they need to get that really stable footage or maybe they just want to get some really cool establishing shots and mess around with that stabilizer this is a really cool camera that's really affordable that you can start out with next up we have the gopro hero 9 coming in at 400 however right now it is on sale for 350 dollars so make sure you guys are checking the

links in the description i'll try and keep those updated so you guys can get the best deals on them so let's start off by talking about some of the pros with the gopro hero 9. first of all you can shoot in 5k on this tiny little camera up to 30 frames per second and if you want to shoot 60 frames per second you can shoot in 4k on this if you want to shoot some super slow motion you can shoot in 2.7 k or 1080 all the way up to 240 frames per second if you're a traveling vlogger this thing totall

y makes sense for you because it is waterproof shock proof dust resistant all those things this is really the travel camera and also it's super lightweight you can just throw this in a bag you can throw it in your pocket and get some really cool shots when you're out and about another thing i love about this camera is the stabilization now another unique thing about the gopro is the accessories that you can buy for this thing pokemon you just want to take this car underneath and go first somewhe

re and you can do that what bro what are you talking about man you can also mount this thing to a windshield or a car if you want to get a car vlog another one of my favorite features about the gopro hero 9 is you have this front-facing screen so when you are vlogging you're able to see yourself and make sure that you are in the shot and it's all composed correctly there's also some really cool modes on the gopro if you want to get some hyper lapses or time lapses with this camera now you might

be asking should i get the gopro hero 10 because that is 500 and it is on sale right now for 450. if you have the money i would say yes get the gopro hero 10 however when it comes to value for the price i think the 9 actually stacks up against the 10. i go into way more detail in my gopro buyer's guide if you want to click the link in the description to check that out and then see which gopro is gonna be right for you the first con about the gopro is you aren't gonna get the shallow depth of fie

ld so you're not gonna get the blurry background everything's gonna be in focus also the built-in microphone on this gopro isn't the best it is usable but it's not really the best audio quality when it comes to shooting youtube videos this is a test to see how it sounds on the built-in microphones on the gopro now to get good audio you are going to need the media mod and then you are going to need a shotgun microphone and an extender to boost up the shotgun microphone so it doesn't make its way

into the shot because this is such a wide angle so if you're vlogging and you really need that crispy audio i definitely recommend going that way another thing i don't love about gopro is their colors i definitely recommend shooting in the flat picture profile this is going to give you a bit more dynamic range it's not going to be super contrasty it's not going to be over saturated and then when you are editing you're just going to have to add a little bit of contrast and a little bit of saturat

ion on the gopro you can't change lenses like you can on the sony a5100 however you do have this front element lens cover that you can replace and i actually do recommend buying the gopro 10 lens because it is much better than the one that comes with the nine for 20 you can get the one that comes with the new gopro 10 and this is gonna be water repellent and scratch resistant overall if you're a vlogger who goes outside a lot and you're shooting in nature and you can't pack a big camera this mak

es a lot of sense especially if you're gonna be in places where this thing might get wet or dirty i definitely recommend going with this camera next up we have a camera that is not necessarily for everyone but for me this camera really excites me for the price range and for what it can do and this is the panasonic lumix g7 if you look for this camera on ebay you can find this anywhere from 400 to 450 now make sure when you are looking on ebay you're finding a camera that comes with a lens you wa

nt to make sure that you buy this with the lens because this camera you can change lenses if you want to what's unique about this camera is you're able to shoot in 4k and it looks really really good if you were just going for the highest quality video this is probably the camera to go with the 4k looks really good the colors look great and overall you're getting a great image this camera does have a headphone jack so you can plug in a shotgun microphone and you do have that flip out screen so yo

u can see yourself as you're vlogging on this camera you're also getting a viewfinder that you can look into if you're outside and it's really bright you can look into this and then see your screen just fine so you can set your exposure and your shot up properly when it comes to low light this camera does a great job and definitely makes the top of the list when it compares to low light on the other cameras now let's talk about autofocus this is one of the first cons it does have autofocus it's

just not super reliable this camera does have face detection so if you are going to sit down in front of your camera like this and record vlogs where you're just looking into the camera and you're talking and you're not moving around a whole bunch it's gonna do just fine however if there's a bunch of people in the shot and you're moving the camera around getting all sorts of different shots it's not going to be super reliable it does work but it's definitely not the best when it comes to the son

y a5100 that autofocus system is gonna be a lot better than this one now like i said earlier if you're going for the highest picture quality then you can just manually focus this camera and get some really good shots and then when you are talking to the camera like this you can turn the autofocus back on and it's going to be able to keep you in focus so this camera i definitely recommend to the vlogger who also maybe wants to shoot music videos skits more higher production videos on top of their

vlogs or maybe you just want to make vlogs that have a higher picture quality to it are a little more cinematic and you're okay with manual focusing then this camera definitely is for you next up we have the tried and true canon m50 now on amazon this is used around 550 dollars but if you go onto ebay you can actually get this under 500 now specifically i'm talking about the mark 1 not the mark ii because the mark ii is a little bit more expensive and i don't think you need it when it comes to

vlogs one of the pros about this camera is that it is mirrorless so if you compare it to something like the sl3 or any other canon dslr this camera is going to be lighter and it's actually going to perform a bit better this camera can shoot in 4k though i don't recommend it because it crops we'll talk about that later but as far as it goes in 1080 this is a fantastic camera and most of us who are vlogging and just uploading to youtube we're doing it in 1080 anyways and this camera has a great 10

80 image now my favorite thing about this camera is the canon color science you're just gonna get beautiful images straight out of this camera when you are vlogging you also get a mic jack on this camera so you can have really good audio for your vlogs and you're also gonna get that flip out screen so you can see yourself when it comes to autofocus the m50 is fantastic and is definitely gonna keep you in focus and you can shoot video all day long and not really have to worry about your shot bein

g in focus one of the great things that canon does with their cameras is their lcd screen so you're gonna have a great lcd screen that is bright it is sharp and you're going to be able to see things really nicely with this camera you are able to change lenses as well however you need to keep in mind that there aren't as many lens options right now they are going to be building out more lenses for this camera one of our favorite lenses to get for this camera is the sigma 16 millimeter f 1.4 that'

s gonna give you a super blurry background and a wide field of view which is perfect for vlogging now really the main con with this camera is that in 4k it crops and you also lose your autofocus which this is totally fine if you plan on picking up a camera to shoot in 1080 and edit upload in 1080 anyways because honestly in this price range most cameras are going to be 1080 hd anyways and the computers that we're using sometimes can't handle the 4k files so shooting in 1080 makes a lot of sense

for vloggers who are filming a lot of stuff now who do i recommend the m50 for i would say most vloggers if you're not going to be running around travel vlogging getting the camera super dirty the m50 is just reliable so many people use it it has an amazing look amazing colors and if i was buying a camera this is probably the camera that i would buy or i would get the g7 if i wanted to be fancy and shoot some short films and stuff but when it comes to just autofocus vlogging sit down content the

m50 is super reliable now if you're vlogging on youtube i definitely recommend investing in a good microphone as well so you can click on the screen to check out the best microphones for youtube and i'll see you guys in the next video