From Photos to Feeds: Selecting the Best 9 Gear Upgrades

Smartphone Camera Accessories Vloggers Should Try to Improve Recording

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

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As smartphone camera technology is rapidly advancing, more and more people are using smartphones as their primary vlogging device. They’re convenient and they draw the least amount of attention. But since most smartphones weren’t made specifically for vlogging, there’s a lot of room to make them more suitable for that purpose. Here is a list of the nine best smartphone camera accessories for vloggers.

Table of Contents 1. PORTABLE CHARGER2. TRIPOD MOUNT3. ANTI-GRAVITY CASE4. SELFIE RING LIGHT5. DIRECTIONAL MICROPHONE6. LENS SET7. FILMMAKING RIG8. FILMMAKING RIG9. GIMBAL

1. RAVPower Portable Charger

Vlogging uses a lot more power. If you’re planning to vlog all throughout your day with your phone, you need a portable way to charge it back up. RAVPower has a great line up of portable chargers with multiple USB inputs that hold a total charge of more than 20,000 mAh. With that amount, you can fully charge your smartphone more than 6 times! I own one myself and it’s been great for me during my travels. A 22,000 mAh charger goes for about $42 USD.

2. Arkon Tripod Mount

The Arkon tripod mount is a great portable tripod option that you can get at the fair price of around $20 USD. Not only does it have bendable legs, like the more expensive Joby GorillaPod tripod, that you can wrap around all kinds of structures, but it also comes with the smartphone mount, which Joby sells separately. Another great thing about the Arkon tripod is that its smartphone mount can be rotated so that you can position your phone to film in either widescreen or portrait mode.

3. Mega Tiny Anti-Gravity Case

For all the flat surfaces that the bendable legs of the Arkon tripod mount can’t wrap around, Mega Tiny’s anti-gravity cases will do the job of holding your iPhone or Android phone in one fixed position. These cases can stick to glass, mirrors, metal, and more. They range from $20 to $30 USD.

4. FLII Selfie Ring Light

As much as smartphone camera technology has advanced, phone cameras still underperform when it comes to filming video in low-light. In low-light, your footage is very grainy because your phone is equipped with a small camera sensor, an engineering choice by the manufacturers to keep the size of the phone small. A handy accessory that you can use to get more light is the FLII selfie ring light. This ring light clamps onto your phone and emits a neutral white light. You can clamp this light to either side of your phone, depending on whether you want to use your rear-facing camera or your front-facing camera. This selfie ring light sells for around $16 USD.

5. RODE VideoMic Me

The mic that is already built into your phone is equally sensitive to the sounds that come from behind the phone as it is to the sounds that are in front of the phone. This can be problematic when you’re trying to vlog in selfie mode while there’s a loud concert on the other side. One smartphone accessory that can improve the sound that you record from your phone in these situations is the RODE VideoMic Me. This mini directional shotgun mic plugs right into your phone’s headphone jack and sells for around $60 USD. In windy conditions, the dead cat windshield that it comes with does a great job of minimizing noise from the wind. In quiet, indoor conditions where you are the only person speaking, this device performs no better than your phone’s internal microphone. Your phone will also have to be in airplane mode to prevent the Rode VideoMic Me from recording unwanted clicking noise caused by background processes performed by your phone. So you wouldn’t want to use this for livestreaming.

6. Aukey Optic 3-in-1 Smartphone Lens Set

Aukey makes a 3-in-1 lens set that you can clamp onto your smartphone so that you can vlog at different focal lengths. The 3-in-1 set comes with a wide-angle lens, a fisheye lens, and a macro lens. The clamp it comes with is long enough for these lenses to reach any camera on a smartphone, not just those of iPhones which are positioned close to the phone’s outer edge. To get the most out of these lenses, you’ll have to use them without your phone’s protective case on. Although you are free to use this lens set on either your phone’s rear-facing camera or front-facing camera, the metal housing of these lenses is likely to show up in your footage when you use them with your front-facing camera. So, instead of having your recorded image stretch to the ends of a 16:9 ratio rectangular frame, your recorded image will look as if it is contained inside a circle. This lens set sells for around $30 USD.

7. iOgrapher Go for Android and iPhone

There’s many more accessories that you can take advantage of if you don’t limit yourself to just smartphone camera accessories. Sound and lighting equipment made for stand-alone cameras perform much better too. Many of these accessories are meant to connect to the camera “shoe” (a bracket on top of the camera that accessories can be attached to). Smartphones don’t come with these kinds of shoes. So, to take advantage of these higher quality accessories, you’ll need some kind of camera rig for your smartphone that also comes with shoes. The iOgrapher Go offers this at around $60 USD. This accessory comes with three shoes.

8. Manfrotto TwistGrip System

Manfrotto’s TwistGrip System does a similar job to the above iOgrapher Go. This system also comes with three shoes. An advantage the TwistGrip System has over the iOgrapher Go is that it is much more portable. Its three connected parts can be detached to take up less space in your bag. This system sells for around $50 USD.

9. Zhiyun Smooth-Q 3-Axis Handheld Gimbal Stabilizer for Smartphones

My favorite smartphone camera accessory that I own is the Zhiyun Smooth-Q gimbal stabilizer. This gimbal is very effective in helping you record smooth video. Using the app that it comes with, you can even preset this gimbal to smoothly pan and rotate from a starting position to an ending position, giving you the opportunity to film beautiful time lapses. You can get this device at around $100 USD.

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Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

How To Live Without the Temptation of YouTube Shorts

How to Disable/Remove YouTube Shorts Permanently?

Shanoon Cox

Nov 07, 2023• Proven solutions

YouTube Shorts is undoubtedly one of the most trending features, just like TikTok, which has also followed it for many years and created a vast user base. Creating such a short duration video is quick, grabs attention, and gets spread like a fire.

But, do you know that inclusion of YouTube shorts replaces the explore option to make proper adjustments for YouTube Shorts under the application. Not only this, many users dislike getting disturbed by such a short duration video while searching for some beneficial, informative, or detailed information.

If any of such cases, attune with you, and you want to know how to disable YouTube Shorts or remove Shorts from the YouTube platform. Then, this is the right place.

In this article, you will learn the process of disabling YouTube Shorts or removing YouTube shorts permanently. Just remain stick with the guidelines, and soon you will become able to do the same with easy steps.

• Method 1: Three dots option
• Method 2: Settings menu of YouTube
• Method 3: Can go with YouTube browser
• Method 4: Factory reset
• Method 5: Link to downgrade the YouTube
• Method 6: Removing all update
• Method 7: Try YouTube Vanced

Easy Ways to Disable/Remove YouTube Shorts

Now, as you have reached this section, you should be curious, what are the steps or methods with the help of which you would be able to disable YouTube Shorts. Don’t worry. Here, we shall cover all the methods of removing shorts from YouTube in detail.

You can choose either of them as per your suitability or the one which best suits you. Some of these methods are pretty easy to follow, or you might need to follow some steps for some. But the main essence is, following any method will show how to remove shorts from YouTube. So, now go with the methods one by one and follow the guidelines to remove shorts from YouTube.

Method 1: Three dots option

One of the primary things you can do with any short videos is to click on the three dots next to each of such videos if you are not particularly willing to see something. Doing so will open the pop-up window, which will give you the option of “Not interested”. Click on this option. That’s it. Next time, such a video will not appear to you while surfing videos on YouTube.

Here, no doubt the method is simple, but this method needs repetitiveness. As, whenever you see Shorts videos, you need to click on three dots to remove that.

Method 2: Settings menu of YouTube

At your YouTube homepage at the top end, you will see the profile icon. If you click on it, that will lead you towards the Settings menu of YouTube.

From there, you need to select “General”, which will show up some options. Here, click on the Shorts option to turn it off.

This way, by simply following and managing settings, you can easily disable YouTube shorts from the platform.

Now, restart your device to apply the removal process of YouTube shorts from there entirely. Thus, the next time you open the application, you will find that there exists no such YouTube shorts video as this option will disable YouTube Shorts.

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Method 3: Can go with YouTube browser

Hey guys, there is one more trick. Whenever you want to access YouTube, instead of going through the application, try to open YouTube website either from your mobile or PC browser window. You would wonder why so and what difference it will make. The fact is that the Shorts tab has not yet been incorporated under the browser version of YouTube.

So friends, try this to avoid seeing YouTube Shorts videos either from phone or desktop. This is not only simple but also device-free. And even if you do not have a YouTube application, you can use this trick to solve your concern.

Method 4: Factory reset

If you disagree with the shorts video and want to get off of it entirely. This trick might help you. For this, visit the YouTube app on your mobile and press on it for some time. Doing so will lead you to the info section under the settings.

When you click on the Uninstall option, the YouTube version will get downgraded to the factory version. This is the version that is a pre-installed version of YouTube that comes with the device.

Also, if you have not updated your YouTube app, then don’t go with that. However, you will receive notifications many times that you should update your application. Just ignore it, especially if you are not willing to add the Shorts video option on your YouTube application.

Method 5: Link to downgrade the YouTube

Friends, for every problem, there exists some solution. And, if you are finding it difficult to factory reset the YouTube, you can download the downgraded version of YouTube. This is the version that does not contain the YouTube Shorts feature. Do like this:

1. Visit the Link and download the downgraded version.
2. Install by allowing unknown resources also.
3. Then, disable the auto-update of the YouTube option also.

Note: While downloading and installing this version, you need to allow installation from unknown sources.

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Method 6: Removing all update

There exists one more simple trick to understand how to turn off YouTube Shorts. That is to remove all update options. How to do that, follow the below-mentioned steps you can do so.

On your smartphone, open the Settings > Apps or Manage Apps option > choose YouTube app> at the top right end, click on three dots there > click on Uninstall Updates. That will replace your YouTube app with that of the older version of YouTube.

Using this method, you can remove shorts easily from YouTube. And, it is not going to take much amount of time. So, go and follow the steps.

Method 7: Try YouTube Vanced

Wait, the list is not over yet. If none of the previous methods work, try YouTube Vanced, the advanced and premium version of YouTube to get rid of YouTube Shorts. Well, not only that, but YouTube Vanced also comes up with multiple services that you can enjoy along with it, such as disabling YouTube Shorts, blocking ads, stories, or any of the sponsored features.

If not sure how to go about it, then let’s have a look over the following steps that will guide you to get YouTube Vanced.

Step 1: Download YouTube Vanced

First, download the YouTube Vanced application from its website.

Step 2: Install and complete the setup process

After that, complete the installation process and follow the on-screen direction rightly to make it work effectively for you.

Note: If you are downloading from the website, not from the app store, then there might appear the warning. So ignore that and go with the downloading and installation process.

Step 3: Open application and visit settings

Once you have launched the application, under the settings, you need to go for the Vanced settings option> there opt for “Ad settings” > at the end of the page, switch on the Shorts shelf.

Doing so will disable the YouTube Shorts option from the Home screen.

Alternatively, remove the YouTube Shorts button also from the screen. Under the “Vanced settings” > Visit Layout settings > Switch on the Comments location option. That will further remove the Shorts button from the bottom end of the Home screen of the YouTube page.

Voila, now you can say that you get rid of those shorts videos by removing shorts from YouTube using YouTube Vanced option.

Thus, following the methods mentioned above gives you multiple ways to turn off shorts on YouTube. I hope that now you will be able to use YouTube without any concern or interference of YouTube Shorts videos.

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Conclusion

YouTube has always been the favorite choice for many users to explain videos under the same platform just a few steps away. Somehow, the YouTube Shorts will not be a good choice for those dedicated users who always explore YouTube for detailed videos or information.

Thus, keeping that issue in mind, this article assisted with both the ways to turn off YouTube shorts or remove YouTube shorts with simple steps.

So, friends, let’s not wait for anymore. Scroll up the article and get a detailed steps-wise guide and get a good grab of the process. So that your concern will get resolved, and soon you will be able to access the platform with the last look.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

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