Zoom Q2N (Camera) questions.

A thunder of Coxy

Senior Member
Hi everyone and a Happy New Year!

I'm looking at purchasing a camera/mic to record practice, gigs and rehearsals etc. After researching I found that the Zoom Q2N is held with quite a high regard. I've also noticed people having a few problems though with the battery life etc. My questions are do any of you have a Zoom Q2N and what do you think of it? If you use any other kit then i'm also open to hear about that.

Also at the moment I am without a computer so if I were to buy the camera, which software is best to use for editing and would it be possible to do this on a smart phone or not?


Cheers,

Callum Cox
 
If you're without a computer, but have a smartphone, it would be better to get a mic for your phone.

Yes, you can edit the video on a smartphone.
 
I have Q2n, and a Q8. I also have the Shure MV88 mic I can use with my iPhone, and I think the iPhone does better video than the Zoom cameras do. I also have the Focusrite iTrack mic pre that can input any audio signal into my iPhone, and thats a cool product. Right now, any editing I do with iPhone video (or any video, for that matter) is just to trim the dead space at the beginning and the ends of each video, and you can do that in the phone, or I can do it in QuickTime in my Mac, or import into iMovie or Adobe Premiere Elements. I don't need a full-featured video editor.
 
I have a Q2N. Battery is good for a couple of hours at most. You can get a power supply for it though. I prefer it over using my iphone because then my iphone is free to be with me. Last thing i need to worry about is my iphone on a stand in the middle of a venue or a rehearsal space being knocked over, having a drink spilled on it or being stolen. Plus video takes a lot of memory, which is a premium on a cell phone.
 
I own a Q2n ;
Nice product, I like it. The video quality is very relative to the lighting, you can get washed colours or strange light effect. Still, the quality is sufficient though.
The sound and ergonomics of the camera are top notch. Buit quality is good. The menus are intuitive. The device is light and easy to carry.
I record my drum in a small room, this camera is perfect : wide angle, perfect sound, no saturation, no boom.

I appreciate the fact that you can use it as simple mike (I used to have a H1) and put it on a mike stand or a tripod.
Managing the file with the Zoom software is fine, though I would have liked a exportation (with compression) option from this software.

The two biggest flaws :
Autonomy : you hardly get 1h30 / 2h from 2 AA battery.
The included accessories are, how to say ? : 0 . 0 . 0 . 0
You don't get a cap lens, nor lens hood, nor box, nor cable.

We ended up using it with a phone charger and a long USB cable, that way it works well.

Something I have noticed, but maybe it was an erratic bug, on a 1h30 rehearsal, the Zoom cuts the file in two (in the middle of a song) as if it could not handle a more than one hour file - only audio file.
 
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I use a external phone charging battery to get double the record time without dragging in a power cable.
 
I don't rely on batteries for the Zoom -- battery life is pretty good, but just short enough to piss you off, haha! Better to get an extension cord and connect it to an outlet, especially if you're recording an entire set, or gig.

and I think the iPhone does better video than the Zoom cameras do.

This is true, but only to a point.

When you set the Zoom to 1080p/30 fps, the quality is very close. The iPhone has a narrow field of view, so the picture looks a bit crisper and cleaner. However, the Zoom has a much wider field of view, and can capture the whole band easily, and in great quality. The field is so wide, you can set the Zoom two feet in front of the lead singer, and get the whole band in frame, if the stage isn't too big. This you can't do with an iPhone (nor would you want to).

BUT... if you're going to hold a camera in your hand and move around to shoot the subject(s), or get up close and personal shots with a narrow field of view, then the Zoom isn't really built for that. The iPhone is better, here.

The stereo mic on the Zoom is much, much better than on a GoPro or iPhone.
 
Also at the moment I am without a computer so if I were to buy the camera, which software is best to use for editing and would it be possible to do this on a smart phone or not?

The Focusrite mic Bo mentioned certainly looks like a very good product if you have an iphone. I have Android phones though. Maybe there's a similar product for Android.

Can you edit on a smartphone? Yep. I have a Zoom Q3 HD and Q8. Although I have a computer, there was a time I was just editing on my phone. There's various decent editing apps. A couple I used that are free from the Google playstore are Timbre and Kinemaster.

For my Zoom cameras, I bought a cheap USB to mini USB adapter to connect them to my phone. All my Zoom files automatically appear on the phone. Phone video quality these days is better than Zoom, but Zoom audio quality is amazing.

I mostly mount my Zoom cameras to a photographers tripod when filming myself on drums at home.

 
I picked up a Zoom Q4 which seems to be a step up from the Q2n and. it's not great.

I got it because it has an audio input and I wanted to record straight from the board or from a decent mic.

As far as editing video, you are on your own. I have tried and failed too many times.
 
The best spot for the video camera is usually not the same as the best place for the mics. It is better to have separate audio recording from a good Zoom or Tascam portable, and then sync the sound recording to video recording afterwards, Having said that, I get useable good sound from my Yi 4K action camera.
 
From Merlin5

"Can you edit on a smartphone? Yep. I have a Zoom Q3 HD and Q8. Although I have a computer, there was a time I was just editing on my phone. There's various decent editing apps. A couple I used that are free from the Google playstore are Timbre and Kinemaster."

"For my Zoom cameras, I bought a cheap USB to mini USB adapter to connect them to my phone. All my Zoom files automatically appear on the phone. Phone video quality these days is better than Zoom, but Zoom audio quality is amazing."

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Thank you very much guys I appreciate it. So I will purchase the Zoom Q2N and just so I understand it, you can record and then upload the files to a smart phone (android) and edit them?

Callum
 
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