Location recording kit

octatonic

From the FIN thread and for @earwighoney and anyone else interested in location recording.

Here is what I use for location recording.

AUDIO:

Recorder: 
Ideally you need two, something handheld and and something more fully featured.
I always have both with me.

I have a Zoom H5 as my handheld and a Sound Devices MixPre 6 II.
The latter takes Sony LB batteries (like cameras and lighting), generates and chases timecode.
It can also act as an audio interface.
Don't buy the cheaper MixPre 3, the 6 is only £100 more.

Microphones:
You need at least 2 shotgun mics, 2 laveliers (ideally wireless) and one (ideally 2) camera mounted mic.
Rode are extremely good value here.
The NTG4+ is an excellent shotgun mic.
I have a couple of those and several SDC's (Josephson C42MP's), a few dynamics (RE20, SM7's.)
If I had unlimited budget I'd have a DPA 4017 shotgun but they are £1400+.
I have a few Rode Lavelier II's and WIreless Go products.

You need some form of wind protection for the shotgun mics.
I use Rode Blimps with Dead Wombats:



I have a couple of Rode Video Mic Pro+ on camera mics too.

Boom Pole: 

I dislike the Rode version because it doesn't have an internal cable. 
You can thread one through if you take off the housing but the XLR dangles out the bottom.
They should make a V2 with an internal cable.

Buy this instead: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078RHL3D1
It is half the price of the Rode.
You can spent a lot on a boom pole, but this is fine.

Neewer are great- I have loads of their camera accessories.
More on that later.

Boom Stands:
I have a number of K&M boom microphone stands and a pair of Latchlake Mic King boom stands.
The latter are huge and heavy but more stable than anything else.

For cases I use Neewer soft cases for stands and Amazon do these Pelican knock off hard cases which are great for anything fragile (recorders, mics, cameras, lenses).
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00S86TLQM

You need lots of cables and connectors- XLR to minijack is super useful.
Learn how to make your own.
I have raw cable, plugs and a soldering iron/solder/heatshrink (and a lighter) to make quick repairs.

You need a few clamp types , for instance, one to attach the H5 to a boom pole.
You need a bunch of batteries and chargers, try to buy gear that uses the same battery type if possible.

You need loads of SD cards- make sure you know the maximum capacity of your device.
For instance the H5 won't accept cards larger than 32GB.
You don't want to be on set, with the wrong capacity card for your device.

That is basically the audio stuff you need.

octatonic

VIDEO:

I won't go into everything but you need at least 1 but ideally 2 cameras.
I like Micro 4/3rd, which is going to be polarising but I like the balance of price and performance.
I don't do much in low light, if I was then I'd be using Canon (R5, R6 II).

We have Lumix GH6 and G85 cameras here.
It is better to have the same sensor type and brand if possible.
I like the Lumix and in particular the GH6 because of the amazing in body stabilisation.

You need appropriate lenses for your cameras.
I shoot most of the time with a Lumix 12-35mm f2.8 and the rest of the time with a Lumix 20mm f1.7.
My next lense will be a Leica12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 ASPH though.
(You double the focal length to get FF equivalent, 12-35 MFT = 24-70mm in FF)

Lights- you need at least 2 to do 3 point lighting with natural light.
It is better to have 3 in case you don't have enough backlight.
For video it is better to use continuous light.

Godox SL150 II (the II is important) is the best value whilst being powerful enough and low enough in noise (they have fans).
The earlier version was too noisy.
We have Godox softboxes to go on the lights.
I have a couple of cheap panel lights too for emergencies.

We have Neewer lighting stands, video tripod (photo tripods aren't ideal), teleprompter and electronic slider.

Some links to those:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0711LMYK9
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09VL46P6R
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09DT4PLDY
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0BC968J1M

There are loads of adapters, cages, clamps, cables.
Smallrig are great for camera cages and adapters.

earwighoney

Thanks @octatonic I've been on this forum for a while and I'm always impressed and amazed at your ability to diversify. 

Thanks for taking the time to write up your kit.  A mate of mine does video work and I used to occasionally give him a hand to clean up audio files. 

It's great to know a bit more about the gear which is used.

Thanks again.

octatonic

earwighoney said:

Thanks @octatonic I've been on this forum for a while and I'm always impressed and amazed at your ability to diversify. 

Thanks for taking the time to write up your kit.  A mate of mine does video work and I used to occasionally give him a hand to clean up audio files. 

It's great to know a bit more about the gear which is used.

Thanks again.

Thank you.

I got into this because my wife worked for pharma companies in corp comms (now we own our own agency) and was employing companies for shoots and knew what they were getting paid. The corp video market is hugely busy and quite well paid. You also get treated like an adult. With music, people often expect the world and want to pay if not exactly nothing, then quite close to it.

I started similarly actually- helping people cleaning up audio, because your average video person often thinks of audio as an afterthought, or at least further down the ladder of importance.

A lot of studio folk already have 80% of the gear needed to do audio recordist/boom op work.
My extra audio spend was really just the Sound Devices recorder, boom pole, blimp/dead wombat and the lav mics.

Stuckfast

Top tip if you need an easily portable rig: Manfrotto lighting stands are super lightweight, and you can easily get a spigot that converts them to a 3/8 thread for attaching either mic clips or boom arms.