Micro Center’s Complete Outdoor Content Creator Guide

MicroCenterOfficial · April 2023

Written by @w8deywins, who likes to spend time on the slopes skiing and snowboarding during the winter season and hit the trails with my mountain bike during the spring and summer seasons. He loves to photograph my adventures to capture that moment of nostalgia.

Hello friends, outdoor explorers, and content creators! Whether you’re just starting out or documenting your outdoor adventures or years, I have put together a guide that will ensure that you’re getting everything you need to be a content creator on-the-go, no matter your lifestyle.

To start, my thought process behind this guide is that it has to cover every aspect of the workflow. From preparing your perfect tech bag to going out and filming and even securing your once in a lifetime footage on a backup drive, it’s all here. This article is meant to help you put together the perfect content creation kit that you can bring anywhere. There’s a reason why I called this a complete guide.

To begin: the camera. I’ve seen more and more folks make the switch to a 360° action camera instead of using their phones. The Insta360 ONE X3 360 Degree Digital Video Camera is one of the best in the industry because of its easy-to-use layout, populated with only a few buttons and reactive touch screen. The ONE X3 is the go-to action camera packed with 360 degree, 4K Single-lens mode and several photo/time lapse modes as well. This camera captures every angle of your adventure and you don't even have to worry about which way its facing. Another great feature is the 4-mic array built into the camera, which helps capture every direction of audio. You don't need to buy an add-on mic to get crisp quality! With their amazing and AI-powered intuitive editing app, you can easily create epic and viral content! Best part is, it’s included right out of the box.

But what’s a camera without accessories to make the most of it, like the Insta360 2-in-1 Invisible Selfie Stick & Tripod? This selfie stick extends to almost 4 feet to create that “third person” point-of-view video that’s everywhere online. By far the coolest feature of the Insta360 is that it will “green screen” the selfie stick out of the video and replace it with the environment, so you’ll never have a great shot ruined with a stick in the middle of the frame!

Of course, an extra Insta360 Battery X3 Battery is a must-have for your all-day film journeys or vlogs! I’ve found myself swapping batteries regularly on ski and snowboard trips, and not having a spare would be disastrous. What I love about these batteries is that they're made to withstand even lower temperatures and therefore can last longer without draining. You don’t need to carry around five batteries anymore, just one extra should do the trick!

It doesn’t hurt to be extra safe, however. I have to have a portable charger with me. If you don’t have one you love, I recommend the Anker PowerCore Select 10000 mAh Dual USB-A Portable Charger. As this one has 2 USB ports, you can charge your action camera and phone at the same time while you’re taking a break. It supports fast charging at 12W which should charge up your devices quickly!

You can’t forget about storage. For the past 3 years, I have been personally using Micro Center’s house brand, the Micro Center Performance 256GB microSDXC Card for ALL of my action cameras and they have been FAST! You seriously need to consider a premium SD card like these for your 360° Camera because the files prefer a faster transfer speed when creating and stitching videos together to create the 360° view. You do not want to slow it down by using old and slower memory cards, especially when Micro Center frequently has our house brand on deep sale. I would consider grabbing two of these that way you have an extra in case one fills up.

No matter how many SDs you bring, you’re eventually going to need to offload all those videos. Which is why I strongly recommend backing up your work with a large-capacity Hard Drive Disk. I would just start with a 10TB drive such as the Seagate IronWolf 10TB Hard Drive, where you can literally back up thousands of videos and photos. It’s no joke when you are threatened with corrupted or loss of files, photos, videos, and projects. This almost happened to me in college with a portable drive. Thank goodness I was able to recover my projects and assignments and pass that semester, but without that experience, I wouldn't have learned how to back up my work! This is why I strongly recommend having a backup of your work in general, not just your action camera footage. The Seagate Ironwolf Hard Drives are amazing because they have built-in vibration-dampening pads meant to extend the life of the drive and are blazing fast at 7200rpm for a spinning disk. Don't worry about losing your footage after the adventure is over!

Now, all these camera accessories can start to be a lot to just carry around in your pockets. I personally have always used a camera/photo backpack as my main storage, whether I’m at home or out in the field. It always carried all my equipment, just in case I needed something. And while I might have been over-prepared sometimes, having everything with me has come in handy on multiple occasions. That’s why I recommend picking up the Lenovo Legion 15.6" Recon Gaming Backpack. It’s rugged yet lightweight and has so many compartments to organize my gear which is why I love it as my personal tech bag!

I hope these recommendations will help you achieve your content creation goals and dreams. I always try to be prepared before my adventures begin and I believe these products will help you to be ready for any adventure that life throws at you! If you have any questions about these products, feel free to post in the comments below, or stop by your local Micro Center and a Store Associate that would be happy to help you get exactly what you’re looking for!