My travel YouTube setup
When you’re first getting into videography or photography, what gear to buy seems like an almost impossible question to answer. It’s very easy to get sucked into obsessing over tech specs, and duped into thinking that gear is what matters most.
The issue is that you dont have the knowledge or the shooting experience to know what you want from camera, so you’re likely to waste a bunch of money buying stuff you dont need.
I was definitely not immune to these traps, and I wasted countless hours figuring out what works for me and my type of shooting. In the hope of saving other people time, here’s what I use and why.
Context
One thing that get’s completely ignored in most gear reviews is the context. What is the person actually shooting? Are they traveling or in a studio? Do they have lighting equipment with them? All of this context heavily shapes what gear works for you.
My contexts is that I’m primarily filming kitesurfing. That means I’m outdoors, most often in broad daylight, but sometimes in storms. That means my gear is often exposed to salt water and rain.
I’m also doing this as a hobby, so the budget I’m willing to dedicate to this type of work has to be pretty thoughtful. I’m not making enough money from this hobby to cover my gear.
Camera - Panasonic GH5
As I mentioned in a previous post, I still love the Panasonic GH5. I mostly shoot in daylight and the stabilization, frame rate options, and ergonomics of the camera are all great. One of the biggest draw of all is the size of the super zoom lenses. You can get 400-600mm equivalents and they can easily fit in small bag.
The Smallrig USB-c battery has been a great addition to the line up because it lets me charge my camera battery without carrying the bulky charger with me.
Lenses
- 12-60mm - this is my “do everything lens”. Works wide and long with the zoom tele option in the GH5. I take this if I can only have one.
- Long Zoom - this is probably the most important lens I have. If I’m shooting something really far away, this system is stable enough to be handheld , still very light , and has great reach with the Tele zoom
- 17mm - I only bring this if I want nice blurred background for talking head footage. I mostly use this in my home studio for talking head shots.
Action camera
I primarily shoot with a GoPro 12. I’ve found that for shooting good footage of kitesurfing, you want the widest possible field of view, and the best stabilization. The GoPro 12 does this well with the regular lens, but it’s even better with the max lens mod. This is the camera I’d recommend to most people for starting. One thing to be aware of is that max lens mod is curved and I’ve found curved lenses seem to attract more water drops which can ruin your shots.
360 cameras are also incredibly helpful for getting 3rd person shot without needing a camera person to film you. The fact that 360 cameras can hide a selfie stick really sells that perspective, so I think it's an indepensible tool for a solo film maker. I would buy one of these as a second camera to a regular action camera, since they still generate much lower resolution and lower framerate footage.
I also use this GoPro remote so that I can put the gopro in my kitesurfing lines and film myself. The remote lets me remotely start and stop recording.
Tripod
I’ve been through a lot of tripods, and hated almost all of them. The screw locks on the legs always break, and the latches are a pain. The real break through for me was finding a tripod where you just twist the leg and pull out… it’s simple, it’s more consistent, and its a lot faster than fiddling with twist locks or latches.
This tripod in particular is also much more compact, its 14.6 inches long and 3 inches wide. So it easily fits in any bag I’m carrying. I got the unbranded version from OBO which I found super cheap on eBay for $80. You can find a branded version at BandH from Oben for $140 on sale.
Mic
Like every piece of gear on this list ,mics have been their own adventure. I’ve tried at least 3 wireless mics and 4-5 different shotgun mics to find the system that works for me.
On the wireless mic front, the DJI mic won me over. It’s been super reliable, and the volume adjustments helped me get audio that wasn’t peaking in my GH5. With my previous rode mic its lowest setting was still a little too hot. The only fatal flaw is the DJI mic is the cold shoe on the receiver. It clips in fine to my camera, but it falls out easily in most cold shoes.
For shotgun mics, I tried rode, diety, and ultimately settled on Sennheiser. The single most important factor for me ended up being the shock mounts and how big they are. On my rode and diety mics, I would break the shock mounts constantly putting the microphones in my backpack. The Sennheiser form factor is rigid, and the shock mount is built into the blimp, so there’s no flimsy plastic shock mount that you can accidentally break if you’re;e not being careful when you put your camera away with the mic still attached. This blimp also has the added benefit of providing some wind dampening effect, without needing a dead cat, which is great since I’m always in windy locations filming kitesurfing.
Monitor
When I want to be able to better see what I see in camera, I just use my iPad. I always have it with me, and I like not having to carry a piece of specialized gear like a shogun monitor.
I pair the iPad with the Accsoon wireless and a cheap Remote trigger. The Accsoon was reasonably cheap, and has been reliable. The range is good, and the refresh rate has been good enough for my uses.
Drone
I’ve had the Mavic, 2 Air’s, and I’ve deliberated a bunch on whether I could use the mini, but ultimately I’ve stuck with the Air 2s. The main factor pushing me to the Air is that I’m trying to film kitesurfing, which requires flying in higher winds.
I do find it frustrating that the new controllers are almost as big as the drones themselves. I also lament the loss of the functionality in the first Air that let you fly the drone using your phone only (no remote0).
Hanatora Battery USB Charger with... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09XGKK1CB?ref=ppxpopmobapshare
Hard Drive
For years I used Sandisk SSDs, and I just kept adding more as my b-roll library grew.
Eventually all the issues I kept reading about with Sandisks forced me to switch to NVMEs and an enclosure that could fit 4 drives in them.
I also use carbon copy cloner for it to backup my active editing drive to a single usb-c SSD.
SD Card Holder
Figuring out how to store and organize SD cards took way longer than it ever should have. I started out with a Pelican case…
What I learned was that my system
Camera Bag
I never liked dedicated camera bags. I always felt that I wanted the best backpack possible, and limiting myself to camera bags only felt too restrictive. As a result I focused on finding bags that i love for their exteriors,and then putting camera inserts inside them.
I have the peak design Large Camera cube V1. Thats what I use when I need to bring just about all of my gear at once. Otherwise I use an inflatable WNDRD camera cube.