Recommended Gear

Recommended Gear for Micro-Budget Video Production

To jump-start your shopping, I’ve created a “wishlist” at B&H (my preferred source for gear) that you can select from directly. Click here to see what I recommend as the microbudget filmmaker’s gear package, all in one place.

Or, scroll through the equipment below to see my comments on each item, and click on any image to see the official B&H info page for that product (opens in a new window).

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Camera Stuff

Canon 5D Mark II (Camera Body) The camera that launched a filmmaking revolution. Still the least expensive full-frame 35mm HD camera available.	Canon 7D (Camera Body) At half the price of the 5D, and 6/10 the sensor size, the 7D is a fantastic alternative to the 5D.
Canon LP-E6 – Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery Pack Shooting HD video drains batteries quickly. Extra battery packs are a necessity for any type of video production, and the LP-E6 are OEM for both the Canon 5D Mark II and 7D Cameras.	Manfrotto by Bogen Imaging 055XPROB Pro Tripod Legs with 501HDV Fluid Video Head An exception to the “as seen on 5DFilmSchool” rule. I actually use a heavier-duty tripod because I sometimes still use full-size video cameras. However, for DSLR shooting, I recommend this tripod kit because it strikes a good balance between price and quality. It has a smooth, light-duty fluid head appropriate for a DSLR. Also, the double-riser (three-segment) legs mean that it will adjust easily to either high-angle or low-angle shots. Tripods with only two segments (like the one I use in the videos) can be awkward to use for low-angle shots or seated interview subjects.
Canon Normal EF 50mm f/1.4 USM Autofocus Lens If you can only buy one lens, it’s hard to go wrong with Canon’s 50mm workhorse. The 1.4 is MUCH less expensive than the 1.2 (like, $1,000 cheaper) and is signicicantly sharper than the 1.8. It can give you beautifully shallow depth of field, and if respected will last a lifetime. A great, all-around value.	Canon Zoom Wide Angle-Telephoto EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Autofocus Lens This is my favorite lens. It’s not cheap, but it’s very fast, is almost as sharp as a prime, and has an extremely useful range (from fairly wide to modest telephoto). If you only buy one zoom lens, buy this one.
SanDisk Extreme CompactFlash Card 16GB (UDMA) Canon recommends using only UDMA-speed CF cards for HD video. Cards larger than 16GB make me nervous for several reasons, not the least of which is that making a client wait while you offload 32GB of footage can be uncomfortable. I recommend getting two (or more) smaller cards, so that you can offload one while you shoot on another.

Lighting

Lowel Tota-Light with Bulb At just over $100, a Tota light gives great bang for the buck. At 750 watts, it also gives you a lot of light from a small package. The Tota has been around for a long time, and there are dozens of accessories, from softboxes to clamps, designed to work with it. Even if you eventually buy fancier instruments, you’ll often find yourself reaching for the trusty Tota.

Lowel Pro-Light with Bulb A great companion to the Tota light, the Pro-Light is a smaller and less intense lamp that makes an ideal backlight, fill light or supplementary background light.

Westcott Illuminator Reflector Kit 6-in-1 – 42″ Square This type of product is one of the best values in lighting. It comes with two collapsible frames, one containing a silk with “Full-Stop Diffusion,” and the other containing a silk with “Two-Stop Diffusion.” You can use those silks as they are, or you can zip them into a tight sleeve that gives you either Silver, Gold, Sunlight (interwoven silver and gold) or Black. If you take care of this, and store it in its bag, it’ll last virtually forever.

Light Stand, Black – 6′ You can never have too many light stands. At $20 each, these Impact stands are a good deal.

Audio

Sony MDR-7506 Professional Monitor Headphone Regardless of what camera, mixer or microphones you’re using, you’ll always need a pair of quality headphones so that you can feel confident about the quality of audio you’re capturing in the field. These Sony headphones have been an industry standard for over a decade, and with good reason. Bonus: they fold up into an included pouch for easy packing.	Zoom H4n Handy Recorder Kit with 8GB SD Card and Remote Control The Zoom recorders – first the H3, and now the H4 – have become the de facto standard for dual-system sound with HDSLRs. Loaded with features, the Zoom recorders strike a great balance between price and recording quality.
Stereo Mini (3.5mm) Male to 2 Stereo Mini (3.5mm) Female Y-Cable – 6″ Plug this little splitter into the headphone jack of your Zoom H4N, and you can monitor audio while sending a high-quality reference track to your camera. Simpler is better!	Stereo Mini Male to Stereo Angled Mini Male Cable – 5′ You’ll need one of these extension cables to send the output of the Zoom to your camera.
Audio-Technica AT897 – Short Condenser Shotgun Microphone Audio-Technica AT897 – Short Condenser Shotgun Microphone Ask two audio operators which microphone you should use, and you’ll get three different opinions. There are countless microphones, each incrementally better suited to one application than another. However, to simplify the “what should I buy” problem, allow me to suggest the venerable AT897. This microphone is well-suited to DSLR filmmaking for several reasons: 1) It has a good, clean sound without excessive bass or treble. 2) As a shotgun microphone, it is very directional – meaning that it is designed to pick up whatever sound it’s pointing at, and largely ignore everything else. 3) It can be powered either by a field mixer/preamp or by a simple AA battery. This is a big advantage for times when you don’t have phantom power available, or if you’re working with a lower-end mixer that generates noisy phantom power. 4) The microphone is physically small enough to mount on top of a DSLR for run-and-gun shoots without getting in the way, or being visible by the lens.	K-Tek KE-89CC Aluminum Boompole with Internal Coiled XLR Cable A good “fishpole” boompole will make your life a lot easier, particularly if you to boom an interview or dialogue by hand, as opposed to putting the boom in a stand. I recommend getting one that has an internal cable, so that you don’t have an audio cable hanging down and getting in the way. The higher-end models are made of carbon fiber, which is great, but if you’re not planning on carrying it around all day, aluminum isn’t that much heavier. Be careful too: some of the cheaper ones don’t extend very far, so you want to look for one (like this) that has at least a good 7′ range.
Sony UWP-V1 Wireless Lavalier ENG Microphone Package While not an immediate priority, a good wireless mic is a huge asset to an audio kit. This brand-new product from Sony is rugged, has great sound, and – my favorite feature – has a diversity receiver, meaning that if the signal on one channel gets weak, the unit will automatically switch to the other one. If you buy more than one of these mic kits, be sure to get ones on different frequencies. On the subject of frequencies, you may have heard that the FCC has banned all RF transmissions in the (approximately) 700 mHZ range. The bad news is that this makes it illegal to use many older microphones. The good news is that the Sony UWP series uses the legal portion of the spectrum around the 600 MHz range.	Pearstone Boom Pole Holder Don’t buy an expensive dedicated mic boom stand. All you need is a little boompole holder that fits into the grip head of a Century stand (C-stand – see below).

Grip

General Brand Gaffer Cloth Tape – Black – 2″ x 60 Yards Sooner or later, you’ll need Gaffer Tape. It’s the production equivalent of duct tape, except it doesn’t leave a sticky residue like duct tape, and it won’t take the paint of (most) walls. Whether you’re taping cables to the floor for safety, taping equipment together for an emergency, or just holding things together, gaffer tape is the only product that will hold securely, and then peel off without leaving a mess behind.

Matthews Hollywood C-Stand Grip Head Kit, Black – 10.5′ (3.2m) You can live without C-Stands for a while, but eventually you’ll want to invest in a couple of them. The ubiquitous C-Stand with grip head can be found on virtually every professional film or photo set for one simple reason: it works. You can use it to securely hold lights, microphones, backgrounds, pieces of foamcore … anything you can imagine, and everything you’ll eventually need to.

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