When it comes to videography gear, there’s a lot of equipment I use for my shoots.
But some of these pieces of gear are so important, it would be difficult to complete a job without them.
That’s why I want to share with you my top 3 pieces of equipment that I use on pretty much every video shoot and event.
#1: V-mount Batteries
I’ll always remember this one moment from an event…
I was filming a wedding toast, and the toast was going on and on, it was like around 20 minutes long.
And I was nervously looking at my battery life on my camera. It was flashing at me and was about to turn off soon.
I did manage to make it through that toast without my camera dying on me, but I think the important lesson here is that we can never know how long something might last
Especially in videography when it comes to weddings, interviews, or any type of shoot. If it goes longer than expected, we must be prepared.
And instead of relying on the standard batteries that come with most DSLR cameras, I heavily rely on V-mount batteries these days.
These can provide substantially more power for my camera, so I don’t have to constantly change out batteries every 30 minutes.
I highly recommend these if you shoot video at lot!
#2: 32-Bit Float Audio Recorder
Speaking about planning for the unexpected, let’s talk about audio for a second.
I film a lot of live events where I pull the audio signal from a mixer or speaker. And a lot of times audio levels change throughout the event.
That’s why I highly recommend having a 32-bit float audio recorder. What this allows you to do is adjust the audio in post-production without worrying about how loud the audio is.
Let’s say if the audio gets louder at an event, you don’t have to worry about clipping because you can easily pull down the audio gain in post-production.
Or if someone is speaking very low, you can increase it quite a bit without introducing noise.
I personally have the Zoom F3 audio recorder and I love it so far. It’s been one of the best upgrades to my videography equipment thus far.
#3: Compact Portable Camera
Sometimes it’s just nice to have a camera that is very compact and portable.
I like to have an extra camera like this as a 2nd angle on a video shoot or maybe as a backup safety shot for an event.
I personally have a few different cameras in this department. One of my favorites is the DJI Osmo Pocket 3. I use this a lot for live events as a wide shot that I setup in the back of the room.
I also have the Insta360 X5 which can be very handy for capturing everything surrounding it. Sometimes you don’t know where the action might occur at a live event, so setting this up ensures that you are capturing everything in the surrounding area.
Lastly, I have a GoPro Hero 13. This isn’t bad but it isn’t my favorite. I typically use this as an Osmo Pocket 3 alternative for when I’m outside and it’s raining. It is fully waterproof, so it’s my go to camera for rough environments.
It never hurts to have something like this with you on set or in your back pocket!
If you’d like to see all my gear, I did make a video where I review each piece of my equipment. I’ll link it below if you’d like to check it out!
Let me know what pieces of equipment you can’t live without. Leave your comments below this post. Thanks for reading!