The Plural Of "Equipment" Is Still "Equipment"

Now that I have your attention, I would like to let you in on my video gear (not gears, unless you are talking about the one that is controlled by the clutch of your car) I use for my shoots.

I usually work with two DSLR bodies. My primary unit is the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (please click on the link for the full specs of this monster). The Mark II's full frame sensor produces the most beautiful image quality for both stills and video. The latest firmware update of this camera allows shooting videos at 24p / 1920x1080 pixels. This frame rate is responsible for making videos look more film-like, but I will cover this in a later post.

The backup unit I use is the Canon EOS 7D. This camera uses a 1.6 crop sensor (which I will also discuss in a later post), but is also capable of shooting at 24p. The only advantage I think this camera has over the 5D Mark II is that it can also shoot at 60p (which is excellent for achieving slow motion clips that are silky smooth).

The beauty of shooting videos with a DSLR is the fact that you can change lenses to achieve different "looks". I work with four different lenses depending on what is needed in the scene. These are the EF 17-40mm / ƒ4, the EF 50mm / ƒ1.4, the EF 85 mm / ƒ1.8, and the EF 70-200mm / ƒ4 (non IS). Remember that when shooting videos, you do not need an IS (image stabilizer) lens.

So that is the basic equipment I use for shooting my films. Is it enough to to produce professional looking videos? Click here to see the answer.