Our Filmmaking Gear

CARRY / STORAGE

Zpacks Multipack The best camera bag we’ve tested, and it’s one 2.9oz!! It’s non-bulky, and offers enough protection. We used double sided tape to line the inside with an old amazon padded mailer just in case. We use the chest mount configuration, but it also works great as a satchel. It fits any of the Sony alpha cameras and most non-telephoto lenses.

Zpacks FUPA The name is odd, but its basically a 2.8oz front belt pouch that’s big enough for a Sony a6600 and most lenses. Or. an audio recorder, or just spare lenses. 

Belt Pouches .74oz These are big enough to carry one smaller lens, air blowers, lens pens, etc.

Small Dry Bag .49 oz great lightweight option for waterproofing lenses, a medium sized camera, or any other smaller gear items.

Bigger Dry Bag .71 oz big enough to keep your camera safe in a downpour, with a little room to spare.

FAVORITE DAYTIME RUN AND GUN LENSES FOR THE A7SIII

Wide  Tamron 17-28mm F2.8 19oz

Midrange:  Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 15oz. Lightweight, sharp, great af, and the fast aperture make it great from morning until dusk.  

Telephoto:  Tamron 70-300mm F4.5-6.3 19oz The lightest telephoto of it’s kind.  Sharp, great AF.  We’ve been waiting for a lens like this for a long time.   Wonderful for wildlife, distant waterfalls, distant peaks, and more.

All purpose:  Sony 24-105mm F4 23oz Sharp, with a great focus range.  However the F4 aperture means it’s only good for daylight hours.

The Tamron’s are the lightest full frame zoom lenses out there. They’re sharp, the AF is quick and silent, and they’re cost efficient. Chris’s likes these as they cover all his needs from morning to dusk while in the wild. Our co-director Gordy uses the Sony 24-105, which is a nice compromise if you only want to carry one daytime lens. 

FAVORITE NIGHTIME LENSES FOR THE A7SIII

Sony 35mm 1.8 10oz A great multipurpose cinematic focal length. 

Sony 20mm 1.8 13oz Great for wide landscapes, gimbal use, and Milky Way shots. It’s also a great Vlogging lens if you’re into that.

Sony 55mm 1.8 10oz Excellent sharp mid range lens for everything from portraits to gimbal use, and it’s also great for interviews. The 50cm minimum focus distance can be frustrating, so don’t expect closeup shots with this.

Sony 90mm F2.8 Macro 21oz An amazing macro lens that’s also a great mid range prime. It’s heavy, but we recently decided it’s worth it. Prior to this we used the Sony 50mm F2.8 macro which is smaller and lighter, but kinda meh in terms of quality.

Laowa 15mm F2 18oz This manual focus wide lens is great for Milky Way or landscape shots.  

Lensbaby Twist 60mm F2 7oz This manual focus lens is known for having a dramatic swirly bokeh. We’re using this trippy effect to transition to flashback sequences in our next film.

AUDIO

Rode Video Micro 2oz The best run and gun mic. We’ve tested so many, and this is the best in terms of audio quality and wind resistance. The more expensive on camera mics were either muddy or terrible with wind noise. So save your cash and get this one.

Sanken Cos Lav mic 1oz and Lectrosonics PDR 2.5oz. This lav mic is small and hides well, and the tiny lectrosonics records the audio which you need to sync in post. We use this for backup audio in case of wind noise or some other issue with the primary mic (Rode video micro of Sennheiser 8050)

Sennheiser 8050 This super cardioid mic is amazing for pro sounding dialog. It’s lightweight and small, and great for recording dialog in the wild or in city limits for formal sit down interviews. The tight pickup pattern is great for reducing background noise, but it means you need to be within 2-3 feet of your subject. This windscreen is necessary when using it outdoors.

Sony PCM-D50 This digital audio recorder has super clean preamps and 2 built in adjustable mics. We use it for capturing ambience, water, footsteps, foley, and pretty much everything except dialog since it has no XLR inputs. This is discontinued, but there’s plenty on eBay.

Tascam DR100MKIII 15oz This digital audio recorder is similar to the above, but has XLR inputs. We use this in conjunction with the Sennheiser 8050 for capturing dialog. It does have built in mics, which we used heavily for recording ambience for Highline. However the PCM-D50 is better for that purpose. Now we just use this for dialog.

CAMERA MOVEMENT AND SUPPORT

Zhiyun Weebill-S gimbal 2lbs This gimbal stabilizer lets us capture smooth shots, and is strong enough to handle the A7SIII with larger lenses. It’s not a perfect gimbal….the ergonomics feel a little strange. But it works well and is relatively affordable. 

Smartta SliderMini 2 20 oz Camera sliders are awesome for adding cinematic movement to your shots however they are usually large and heavy. This new slider is super small, smooth and can handle heavy cameras. The only issue is that because it’s small, you really need a small tripod attached to the bottom to keep it from falling over. We use this one.

AOKA Mini Tripod 16oz This is the most stable mini tripod we’ve found, and works on it’s own, or with the above slider.

Silk Monopod 12oz This is the lightest monopod we’ve found. We primarily use it attached to a gimbal for crane / jib style shots. You can get high enough so that it resembles a drone shot.

ACCESSORIES

ProGrade 256 SD card Not cheap, but necessary for the A7sIII. To take advantage of the Sony A7SII’s high quality intraframe codecs, it’s important to use cards like these with UHSII v90 specs.

Sony CFexpress Type A memory card These are horribly expensive, but with incredible read/write speeds. We only use these for slo-mo 120P shots on the A7sIII.

Sony A7Siii Batteries 2.7oz These cheaper after market batteries work well. We typically burn 1-2 a day depending on how much we shoot.

Camera Strap 3oz This model is great because you can quickly detach your camera for gimbal use.

ND filters We highly recommend the MRC Nano ND’s from B+W. Make sure to pick the right filter size for your lens. For most daytime conditions the .9 3 stop filters work well. If it’s really sunny, then the 1.8 6 stop is great. Anything darker than that and the vignetting starts to get weird.

Lightest quick release plates 1.9oz These are still surprisingly solid.