Today we all are surrounded by technologies. Not only crazy fans do buy the latest iPhones today and not each copter-owner is a professional cameraman. But how to find your way in all the possible types of techs, stick into the budget and buy a useful thing, not a toy for two days, after all? If you have an answer, write it in comments, please:) And now I will tell what does our assortment of filming equipment consists of. But at first, I should mention, that this number of cameras mights be totally useless for many people, so I will do my best to explain clearly, what and when might you need.
In city shootings
Let’s start with the easiest part. We all love to safe our memories, no matter if a special moment happens in your own city or somewhere far abroad. But you do not always want to carry tons of equipment with you, especially if you won’t necessarily need them all. That’s why we have a minimum range, that we always take with us, when leaving the house.
The first thing we all always have with us is a smartphone. You can not only make Instagram photos with it, but not bad videos as well. The main plus of it is its simplicity. You don’t need to know many settings – just a second and you’re ready to shoot. Of course, there’re also some minuses, like a high possibility of too dark or too light video, unfocused photos or shaking. But the better your phone is, the better result you will get. In this blog we also post iPhone videos sometimes. Recetly I’ve showed a video, that was totally made with iPhone 6S Plus.
If smartphone is not enough anymore, than it’s time to switch to a real camera:) Of course, choosing the best version is always up to you and your needs. We currently have two Canon cameras – a professional EOS 5D Mark ||| and a more simple EOS 70D. When we opt for the best quality or I shoot alone, I always choose the first one due to the larger variety of settings. And if Ksusha goes somewhere, she takes 70D with her – it’s lighter, easier to use and has a good Wi-Fi connection with a smartphone.
Outdoor shooting
Let’s imagine, you’re going to a picturesque place, where a beautiful nature is all around. Of course, you will want to capture this pure beauty. In that case you will also need a quadrocoter. Of course, it doesn’t mean, that we never use it in town, but mostly we “fly” in a nature.
We currently use DJI Phantom 2 Vision Plus. Now there are more evaluated versions, but we kinda satisfied with ours:) There are no right or wrong decisions, when talking about aerial shootings. I love to shoot panoramas, that make you feel how huge the area around is. So I often send copter to a highest point it can fly up to. But sometimes it is better to shoot a closer view, that you can only make from above. Like tree tops or churches.
The main thing is not to forget, that there should be a motion in your video, otherwise it will look like a photo just because all the objects are too small for our eyes. And if you’re taking a picture, don’t forget about the wind – look after your gadget in process.
Adventure travel
Jumping into the water, hot sauna or snowy mountains – cases, when you will need a very special gadgets! Of course, you can just buy a waterresistant cover for your camera. But why not to try one of the action-cameras? In order not to worry about expensive cameras, we always use our GoPro Hero 3+ for the most shootings around water, in heat or cold.
Many people do use action cameras these days. They are affordable in price and are easy to use. You can make photos as well as videos and many of them do have a very good quality (4K and even Slo-Mo), by the way. Moreover, they are really small and can easily fit any purse or pocket. What I especially like about them is how many additional accessories they normally have. You can have different fixages for your head, hands or body, monopodes and even floats. The only minus is probably impossibility to fix the focus, but you can deal with it after some trainings.
Yet another idea to shoot different activities is with the help of a DJI Osmo. It’s a new camera, produced by the company of quadrocopters and stabilisation systems. Osmo is a tiny set of a camera and a handle, that produces a highest quality of stabilisation, while shooting in motion. Of course, this one is a little bigger, than a standart action camera, but has many additional settings instead. We still learn, how to use it, but already shot the first video during our trip to Zavidovo.
A trip for shootings
If you’re of those, who can’t enjoy the journey until making a couple of perfect photos, welcome to our world:) We often plan our trips according to what exactly we want to shoot now. And we always try to take as many photos and videos as possible. For example, during her 24 hours in Munich, Ksusha made 2 photo reports and one video. And after a week long journey to Finland we had around 10 different posts of different types. Aerial shootings, timelapse from Helsinki, hotel photos and even video-guides, that you will yet see soon.
How do we manage to shoot all that? The answer is simple – we always have our cameras with us and do never turn them of! We often divide responsibilities. For example, I make videos and Ksusha takes photos. If there is some free time in a beautiful place, I can use my drone. In Finland, I always used it, while waiting for all our group. If we are about to go to the pool or for some snowboarding, we always grap a GoPro with us, because you never know, what you might miss. And now we also use DJI Osmo for Slo-Mo shots and in motion videos.
Too difficult? It might be. Shooting is a hard process. Even because you always have to carry all those gudgets with you! But the results do only depend on how hard you tried:)
Post production
I want to get back to this point a little later once again. I will tell everyone, who want to try shooting, what to begin with and how to progress. And now let me just share all the equipment we use in trips and at home to store all the materials.
The main gadget is, of course, a laptop. I use MacBook Pro because I really care about it being available in any part of the world. I copy my files to an outside hard disk. I don’t want to speak a lot about different post-production programmes, but will say, that I usually use Adobe Photoshop for photos and Final Cut Pro X for videos. I suppose, I will make a separate post about them later.
You should always remember, that RAW and video files need a lot of space, so always have an additional hard disk nearby, because you can’t make new photos without any free space.
If you’re not that patient to wait until you will have enough time to sit in front of the computer and want your photos and videos here and now, use an iPad or an iPhone for post-production. They also have different Apps with quite a good combination of settings. I recommend iMovie for videos and Snapseed with VSCO for photos.
That is how some options for travel shootings look like. If you’re interested in details, ask your questions in comments. I tried to keep everything simple, but will go into tech details with pleasure.
See you soon!)
