Video production equipment we are working with

In our lifetime of stock video production, we have changed and worked with many different pieces of equipment. Our most favorite was and will always be video shooting with Canon 5D Mark III in a combination of Magic Lantern cDNG RAW. But, that was a few years ago since it only supports HD 1080p resolution, we don’t use it anymore for video recording. It was pretty easy to handle and getting the highest quality from the footage. Now it is still a top notch photo camera.

Stock Footage of Person Take Photo Of Cat In Woman Bag

In the early days, we were using Canon HG-10 and later Sony Z1 HDV cameras. They were total crap in the video quality department. Their footage wasn’t even accepted by stock agencies standards. We quickly changed to Canon 550D (or T2i), because it had much better video quality. Not long from that, we invested in Canon 5D Mark III. At first, there weren’t any RAW capabilities yet. We shoot many stock footage and video production projects with it. What we didn’t mention is, that we never had any great lenses to play with it. In the beginning, there were only some old Russian Soligor, Pentacon and a nifty fifty. There are great quality though, but working with fixed lenses without any stabilization is not easy. We invested in professional lenses such as Canon 70-200mm f/2,8L II and Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II. We bought lenses mostly with money we made from stock shooting and some from a daily job.

Stock Footage of Photographer Take Photo With Tele-Lens Portrait Shot 4K

When we worked in a video production company, we had a chance to work also with Sony FS700 in a combination of Odyssey 7Q for highest quality footage. We shoot a lot of slow motion stock footage with it. Same with DJI Phantom 2 for aerial shootings. But that was in 2014, and soon we left the production company because of labor exploitation. Starting on our own, we started investing in new equipment such as Sony A7s in a combination of Atomos Shogun for 4K shooting. It is a good combination, but putting it together every time is a disaster. We also invested into DJI Ronin-M for more dynamic stock footage clips and also DJI Phantom 4 for better quality aerial footage. Buying a Pdmovie follow focus for Ronin was a great choice too. We used all of this newest technology for many hours of video production. And everything works as if it was new.

Stock footage of Following Person Legs In Shorts Riding Longboard Skate On Trail 4K

But we needed something more and choosing the old good Sony FS700 for shooting slow motion was the newest move. We also bought Atomos Shogun Inferno for recording 4K at 120fps. We won’t go beyond this anytime soon because 4K will be future proof for a long time. It is even a better combination that Odyssey was in the past. Easy to work with, great Proress quality and no need for double expensive SSD drives.

Stock footage of Camera Guy Setting Professional Equipment On Film Set

We are also using some basic softbox lights with LED bulbs from Patona or some no-name spiral fluorescent bulbs in case of daylight shooting. Also we have a compact 120cm slider from Konova, Pocket traveler jib and a pile of other small techs. Such as Tascam recorder, few LED panels and another 14mm lens from Samyang (we didn’t mention before). Things get piled up through many years of work. Some of the equipment is used very rarely if there are more specific paid projects

What is your story behind choosing camera equipment? Are you a tech nerd or it doesn’t matter what equipment you use to achieve professional results?