Cinematography

Video - an excellent way of

1. recording instructions
2. explaining the outcome of a test case
3. clarifying odd behaviour in the application while testing
4. ... and more, I'm sure.

I've grown fond of CamStudio, mostly because it was among the first result when I googled for "screen recording software". Again, it's not about using the best tool, but using the one that suits you best.

Every now and then I get questions along the lines of "we saw this weird thing live where this and this happened ... can we reproduce it in a test environment?". Instead of having the inquisitor perched upon my shoulder while I try to recreate the symptoms, I will say "give me a minute or two and I'll see what I can do". Then I record the window where the weird behaviour is supposed to occur, and try to reproduce it with the bits of information I have. When (sometimes if) I succeed, I save the clip, snip out the relevant bits and send it to the person asking "is this similar to what you were expecting?". It beats a screenshot and two paragraphs of text any day.