It’s safe to say there are thousands of options when it comes to videography & photography equipment. I’m going to tell you guys exactly what I used when I was starting! Sponsorship and affiliate free, just so you guys know I’m being 100% honest. Do You need them? What are the best Brands? I’ll tell you everything in this blog.

Camera

Now Camera’s are always a heavily debated topic. As much as I’d love to dive into all of the different options, everyone has a camera that works specifically for where they are in their journey, what exactly they plan to prioritise, and what they plan to shoot. Something to keep in mind when it comes to videography, is that your phone can take perfectly fine videos. Yes they won’t quite be as high quality as professional cameras, but they provide you with the opportunity to improve and invest in yourself. Practically all the skills you’d learn shooting on your phone, you could apply to shooting video on a camera.

Here are some things you should consider.

Camera Brands: Now this is something that is definitely extremely relevant, but not as important as you’d think. It’s fair to say that in my experience, most camera users are favouring Sony. Whether there is any major reasoning for that, I’m not sure. I know photographers that swear by Lumix, some by canon, some Fuji, and some rare breeds even swear by Nikon. Now camera brands mainly come down to personal choice and taste. I believe you should stick with the camera brand that sticks out the most to you, or what ever is most accessible to you. In my case I had access to a Canon camera, and just based off the fact that I knew my way around the camera, I decided to stick with it.

Megapixel: This is where the environment you’re going to be shooting, whether you’re shooting photo or video and a bunch of other factors come into play. One way megapixels could be looked at, is your ability to zoom into an image and retain quality, or how much information is stored within your image. A common misconception is that the higher the megapixel, the better. Now whilst that is true a lot of the time on the surface, it goes a lot deeper then that. A lot of automotive videography is shot at night. Now of course, generally the more information in a video the better, right? Wrong, there’s no use having a high megapixel camera when there’s not a lot of information you want to cover, especially in low light situations. Such as shadow areas at night time. What high megapixel cameras actually lead to, is a higher amount of noise. My ideal Megapixel count for shooting at night time would be 12MP. High enough to obtain a high quality video, but not produce a lot of noise. However, if you’re only going to be doing photography around day time. Often the higher the MP the better.

Sensor Type: Full Frame vs Cropped Sensors. Generally as cameras evolve, we’re seeing more and more mirrorless full frame cameras as the technology advances and becomes more attainable. The advantage of full frame sensors is they allow the camera to capture more light within the image, again working on reducing noise in low light situations. An cropped sensor camera will however often be smaller then they’re full frame comparisons. This makes them easier to operate for longer periods of time and easier to transport. A cropped sensor also visually crops photos/videos within the camera. A 35mm cropped sensor often comes close to a 50mm on a full frame camera.

Camera FPS: Camera FPS is generally not too much of a concern when purchasing a camera. Often modern cameras will have the ability to capture a lot of images very quickly, no matter what option you’re looking at. This can become more relevant though if you’re planning on shooting high speed action photos where a higher FPS might be valuable. Otherwise, I wouldn’t worry about it.

When I first started my journey, I was initially shooting on a 25 year old Canon. Whilst definitely not ideal, it provided me with a platform to further all my photography skills. As much as the images might not have been as sharp as a newer camera, it still taught me nearly everything I needed to know about cameras. I’ve now upgraded to a Canon R6 Mark II, as I learned to shoot on a Canon, and the R6 Mark II offered fantastic mix between videography and photography.

Gimbal

There is definitely one brand that dominates the space currently in the gimbal world, and this is DJI. However, it’s definitely not the only brand you should be keeping your eye on. The very first gimbal I ever used in my automotive videography journey was actually a Zhiyun Crane 3 Lab, I’ve actually only just upgraded to the DJI Ronin 4 Pro. I actually originally purchased the Zhiyun Crane 3 Lab for a whopping $50 off of Facebook market place when I first started working on video. If you’re new to videography, I’d suggest that you do the same. Browse what ever market places are available to you, and see if anyone is letting one go second hand and at a good price. A fun fact is I recently actually sold it for $50 myself, so my maths tells me that I got it for free! I’ve always been very happy with the Zhiyun 3’s performance, I never had any dramas with stabilisation. The main reason I actually sold it is that some of the new features the Ronin 4 Pro has available are fantastic. Namely the remote gimbal control, one I plan to take advantage of very soon.

At the time this blog is being written, it is pretty clear to me personally that DJI is ahead of the game when it comes to Gimbals, however that doesn’t necessarily mean that they offer great value. If you want to have the best equipment from the get-go, and you’re certain you’ll stay committed to videography, the DJI Ronin gimbals are a fantastic way to go for a camera set up.

Microphones

Depending on what type of shooting your doing, microphones can range from being necessary, to never being used. I’ve used two microphones throughout my journey. One being a shotgun mic (attaches to top of camera), the Rode Video Go Mic II. The other mic being the DJI wireless Mic, this comes with 2 wireless transmitters and one receiver.

The Rode Video Go Mic II has always been at the top of it’s game for me. I use this regularly, whether to capture audio at events, or to record audio for flybys ect. I’d always comfortably recommend this MIC to anyone. It presents fantastic value at not too high of a price.

The DJI Wireless Mic’s have been an interesting one for me. They worked perfectly for around 9-12 months, but I’ve recently ran into issues that have effected the way that I’ve had to use them. Essentially the receiver has completely stopped working, meaning I have to record audio directly on the transmitters, then connect them to my computer to transfer the audio individually. Rather then connecting the receiver to my phone and recording audio that way. I’ve actually heard of a lot of people running into issues with the DJI Wireless Mic Receiver as well as myself. I would be hesitant to recommend them to fellow videographers. There however aren’t a lot of options and competition out there at the moment. One thing i’d suggest is that if you do grab them, see if you can get some type of extended warranty.

Camera Lens

Since the beginning of my videography journey, I’ve been lucky enough to have had access to a wide variety of prime lenses ranging from 24mm to 135mm. These lenses were however heavily used and over 20 years old. I’ve only recently upgraded to an F2 28mm - 70mm zoom lens. If you’re a beginner, I think there are two major routes that you can choose. One is to learn photography and videography on primes lenses. They would technically force you to learn quicker and to be more precise with your composition. Or you can choose (what I believe the more sensible option is) a zoom lens. Coming from someone that exclusively used prime lenses for a large majority of their journey, zoom lenses allow you to be much more pliable in a wide variety of situations. They allow you to be more efficient and allow you to adapt faster in changing environments. Whilst shooting on prime lenses at car events, there were some scenarios where it was nearly impossible for me to shoot due to changing distances and environments. Prime lenses definitely have their uses though, they often are able to be much faster. What this means is that it has a larger max aperture, such as f1.4. The lower the number of the aperture is, the more light the camera lets in, and a shallower depth of field. This makes them fantastic for portrait photography where you have time to control the distance to the subject, or shooting in low light conditions.

The ideal scenario is to have a mix of both zoom and prime lenses. Which way did you guys learn to shoot?

What Equipment Do I Need?

Camera

Gimbal

Microphones

Camera Lens

Do I Need To Use LUT’s?