2017 TRAVEL VLOGGING GEAR | Camera + Equipment

Beautiful.

You're beautiful.

You're beautiful.

You'll never ever face.

Beautiful.

Feel beautiful.

Beautiful.

You'll never, ever fail.

It's another beautiful day in La Paloma. We pretty much are gonna do what we did yesterday, and there's only so much you can show at the beach, and it'd still be interesting. So instead, we're gonna take today to to answer one of our most asked questions, which is about our gear.

So I tried to start this morning's vlog off strong with, like, some really good drone shots. Just didn't quite work out. First, I rode my bike to the other side of town and then realized I had not put the memory card in the drone. So I rode back, rode back again. Then I flew it out of focus for a little while, and then finally, just like, what ended the entire morning, I was trying to do the cool feature where it, like, tracks you while you move. And I was riding my bike, and then mid going down the road with the drone tracking me, my bike chain fell off and I almost crashed my bike. So that's when I quit flying the drone this morning. So sorry for the mediocre footage.

We're still getting used to the drone.

All right, so let's jump into it.

What should we do first?

What is here that we used last year?

The 60, the computer, this, this, this, this, this.

Should we just film the whole thing on this camera?

Yeah. So we want year's gear, and this year's we started traveling in 2016, and our setup was totally different. And over Christmas break this past December, we upgraded a lot of our stuff. So we want to kind of tell you why we upgraded some things and why we kept some other things. But first we should talk about our mic, because I want to put it on the camera for the rest of the video.

This is the mic that we're using. It is the Rode videomicro. The greatest thing about this mic is that all you have to do is plug it into the camera. It doesn't require any other batteries. So. Nice with the wind muff. It's like less than $100. I don't know. We used a point and shoot that didn't have a mic all of last year. So whether this is as good as some of the higher end mics, I really don't know. But our quality of our audio has gotten way better from the point and shoot, obviously. Yeah.

And the wind muff is like, magical. I'm gonna put it on.

Okay.

Hopefully that sounds better.

So the question we get asked most often is what vlogging camera did you use? And that's changed in the last month. We originally started with the Canon G7X. It was like an extension of my arm for an entire year. That and the Joby focus tripod that we used. It's like their big metal tripod. It's currently what's holding the camera that we're filming this on, so we can't show it to you. But that tripod with our Canon G7X is what we filmed 95% of our vlogs with during 2016. It's a fantastic setup. We can't say enough good things about it. We don't have the G7X with us now because I broke it.

It's the sore subject. It's currently in the us but we plan to get it back as soon as we can just to have a backup camera. Just for the convenience of the size and everything. It's a great camera, but this one's better.

So this is the Sony A6500 with the E mount 18 to 105 lens. Some of our favorite features of this camera include the slo mo. And then since we were upgrading from the G7X, this has a mic input, so our audio sounds way better this year. Anything else?

The autofocus is really good.

It has like, I think maybe the fastest auto focus of any camera on the market when it's shooting video. And this is the first a 6000 version of a camera that comes with in body stabilization. So the shots look a lot less shaky.

The only thing we don't like about it is the screen doesn't flip up for like, selfie mode. It does come out.

So it does that. You can't like flip it out or.

Up or anything, but other than that, it's great. And that's really not that big of a deal because the auto focus is so good. We don't really have to worry about it.

The worst part is how bright this screen is. Like when you get out in the sun, you can barely see what you're shooting. That's probably my biggest.

Yeah, no, it doesn't have brightness. So that's probably my biggest complaint with this camera. Speaking of stable shots, this is one of my favorite new toys. It is the Zhiyun. Is that how you say it?

I don't know.

I think it's called. It's the Zhiyun Crane. And essentially it is an electronic gimbal that keeps all of our shots really smooth.

So smooth it is like magic.

I feel like I Should set it up and let everybody see it. Just a second. Also with the crane, I bought this quick release clip on Amazon. It was like 30 bucks or something. But because you have to balance the gimbal every time you put it together, having this saves us like five minutes. Every time we want to put the.

Camera together, there it is.

So this is what it looks like when it's put together. This plus our microphone is what we're shooting 95% of our vlogs on now. And. And it just keeps like all of your shots pretty much.

And you can make it pan no matter.

Yeah. It's got a little joystick back here so we can go up and down.

Super cool.

Keeps all the shots really smooth. Definitely brings a new level of quality to the vlog. I will admit it is heavy. It's taking.

I can't really use it.

A lot to get used to. Especially, oh, this is how we're doing the selfie thing right now. We get to talk for a little while and then my arm gets so tired.

So if he starts to sweat mid conversation, that's why. So in this camera we use a SanDisk Extreme Pro 64 gigabyte memory card.

We actually have three of those. They've all worked out extremely well for us. The only thing I can say is if you're shooting a lot of video, I think they make 128 gig memory card. And you might want to go ahead and upgrade to that because we have gotten in the situation a few times where if we forget to dump the memory card the night before, it fills up on us the next day.

We've never filled it up in one day though. So this is plenty for one day of vlogging. And we film a lot.

As long as you're good about dumping your card.

Yeah. So every single day I take this card and I dump it onto this hard drive. It is the best. It is WD elements 2 terabyte and get it on Amazon. I'll never use a different one. I've used a couple different ones in the past and they gave me lots of trouble. But that one is awesome. And I load the videos into Premiere Pro on my MacBook.

It's the 13 inch MacBook Pro, just like the standard version. It doesn't come with any upgrades. It works. Takes a while to export the videos every night. So, like, if you're going to be doing a ton of video like we are, maybe you should consider upgrading some of the. I don't understand that. Or working. So the computer, it works fine. What's next?

GoPro.

So this is another big upgrade for us this year. This is the GoPro Hero 5.

It does great.

We had the session all of last year. I was not happy with the quality of the videos. For some reason, water droplets stuck to the lens. And so like they'd ruin half your shots if you were around water.

And they didn't make housing for it. So we couldn't go scuba diving with it because it only was waterproof down to 30ft. This one has a house. We've only used it a couple times, but we love it.

The screen on the GoPro Hero 5 is a game changer for GoPro.

It really is.

So if we're going to be shooting with the GoPro, we're almost always using, I think it's called the GoPro 3 way or something like a knockoff version of GoPro we got on Amazon for 20 bucks. Works extremely well, allows us to selfie. And when you're just shooting normal shots, you can collapse it back down. It helps to shoot a lot smoother and your fingers don't get in frame. Being able to like actually have a handle to hold on to. It also came with a little tripod that unscrews out of the bottom right here, which is pretty cool until I lost it in the ocean. But if you're gonna get a GoPro, I'd highly recommend getting something along these lines. Also, we brought a head strap. I wear that when I'm doing things like riding a horse and playing polo. I can't use my hands.

This is one of our favorite pieces of technology.

Is this technology? I don't know. So simple but like, I can't imagine what we'd do with that.

Life changing you. Any converter works. You put the converter in the wall and then this is a US plug. You plug it in and then you have four outlets.

It's essentially just a mini power strip. But like we have to charge all of the stuff all the time and otherwise we'd have to carry like eight converters. And then.

It also folds up like this. So when it goes in your suitcase, it's only that big. And.

Before we get to the drone, just a couple little other accessories. We're carrying a 10000mAh solar charger power bank. Honestly have no earthly idea if the actual like solar charger part of this works, but we don't use it often.

But it's come in handy a few times.

We know we're gonna have like a really long day of filming. It's good to be able to throw this in the bag. And then we can charge our batteries.

They plug straight into here, and then that makes sure we don't run out of battery during the day. This is the last thing. If you're going to be vlogging, you're going to need more than just the one battery that comes with the camera. We've operated with three extra batteries. We did the same thing or two extra batteries. And then the one that came with the camera, we did the same thing for the G7X. We have three here. The camera battery on this is actually much better than the G7X, because we haven't even burned through two batteries in an entire day, but we have three just in case.

Oh, and there's one more big piece. The camera that we're filming on now is the Canon 6D, and I mostly use it for photos. We don't video with it often because it's a beast. But it came in Handy when our G7X broke last year, and we didn't have a vlogging camera. So it works for vlogging, but it's really good for pictures.

It weighs, like, 10,000 pounds. The auto focus isn't that great. It's a beautiful camera, but it's not perfect for vlogging.

I'll show you how big it is.

I feel like you just can't even appreciate how heavy it is right there.

Yeah. 60. This is the Gorillapod that we vlogged on all of last year.

Nate's muscles grew a little bit when we vlogged with that camera.

Okay. The last and probably most exciting piece of equipment that we're using this year is our Dji Mavic. It's like, for a travel vlogger or just somebody who's gonna be traveling with a drone. A light. You can't beat it. It folds up to be so tiny.

Insane.

It's literally like the size of a water bottle. And then you get the really small controller to go with it.

Put your phone right here. And it's so easy to fly. Like, I can't fly anything that's, like, Game Boy or video game related. Like, I just go brain dead. I don't know how to do it. And I didn't even crash it first time I flew it.

So it's just so great because you can just like, throw it down in a backpack and you don't, like, turn yourself into a target when you're out and about and you have, like, what everybody knows is a big drone bag on your back. You just throw this down in a regular backpack. It's amazing. Oh, yeah, one more thing. The drone uses a micro SD card, which is so easy to lose. This little bitty thing right here, we went with the same sand disk extreme pro 64 gig. And then in order to put the stuff on your computer, we got a converter that it just slides into.

Oh, should we show them the little blue thing? Yeah.

Yeah, why not?

This thing definitely isn't a necessity, but we did crack one of our SD cards, so we got a little more serious about taking care of them. And essentially all it is is a little rugged case that can hold four SD cards.

So SD cards are so easy to lose. So I'm really glad that we throw.

That down in my backpack. Even comes with a little clip so you can clip backpack. Aww.

Speaking of backpacks. So all of this stuff fits in this backpack. Nate has the same one, but his is black, mine is blue. We got them on Amazon.

And.

I hated the camera bag that I carried around last year. I complained every single day that I had to use it. The padding was terrible. It was organized terribly, and I searched for days for the perfect travel electronics bag. And so far, I think this is it. We've only been traveling with it for the last few weeks, two weeks or so, and I really don't have any complaints.

Has a big pocket up here where you can put all your junk.

Yeah, junk is here. Laptop sleeve is here, and there's a bunch of little zippers. It has this front zipper that goes all the way down so you can fit a lot of stuff right here.

Sorry. The best part, the most important part.

For us, the camera section is in the back, so you don't have to worry about people, like, stealing your stuff because it's up against you. This unzips, and then this is the drawstring. So you open this up, and it has all your little camera compartments where you can put lenses and stuff and the camera. Put the stuff in here. Batteries, chargers, and you can rearrange all.

These if you want. The crazy thing about how small the drone is is it literally takes up one third of this compartment, like the drone, plus, like a ton of other electronics all in one bag.

This, I haven't actually done this yet, but you can remove the camera section if you want. So I kind of picture us doing that. Like, if I want to take this, like, on a day hike or something, and I don't want to bring all our gear, I just take. Take this out, leave it in our room. Put anything else in here, like water bottles, whatever you need. It's perfect.

So this is all of the gear that we use to make our daily vlogs. If you want to see a complete list of everything we've talked about in more detail, you can download a PDF linked in the description below.

We're going to also link every single one of these products in the description down below so you can quickly click on them and check them out on Amazon. If you found this video helpful and you're gonna purchase any of the products that you've seen in this video, please use our Amazon links. That's the little links that'll be down below because we do get a small commission and those commissions will help to keep us on the road.

Thanks for watching.

We're going to the beach.