The Hybrid Camera Approach: A Freelance Photographer's Setup and Preferences

As a freelance photographer, I've found myself constantly switching between shooting video and stills for various projects. This has led me to develop a hybrid approach to camera selection, where I have multiple options that can adapt to different needs.

One of my go-to cameras is the Canon 5D Mark III, which I use for most of my freelance work. This camera is an older model, but it still performs well and provides excellent video capabilities in 1080p. However, its stills performance is also impressive, making it a versatile tool for both genres. I've found that it's particularly useful when working on projects with a mix of video and stills requirements.

Another camera I've been using for freelance work is the Sony A5100. This camera is specialized for certain types of shots, such as tracking motion or dynamic scenes, where its 5-axis image stabilization proves to be extremely useful. To achieve this stabilization, I use the Merlin Steadicam, a small mechanical stabilizer that allows me to capture smooth footage with ease.

My freelance work often involves creating behind-the-scenes content for PR purposes, which requires stills photography. The Canon 5D Mark III has been reliable in capturing these shots, and its ability to switch seamlessly between video and stills makes it an ideal choice for this type of work.

In addition to the Canon 5D Mark III, I've also used the Sony A5100 on freelance projects that require more specialized equipment. This camera's small size and lightweight design make it easy to carry around, and its excellent image quality ensures that the results are high-end.

One of my favorite compact cameras is the Sony RX100 Mark IV. While not cheap, this camera is a powerhouse in terms of stills photography. Its 24-200mm lens offers impressive reach and flexibility, making it an ideal choice for landscape, portrait, or street photography.

When working on freelance projects with specific video requirements, I often use the Panasonic G7 or GX85 micro four-thirds cameras. These cameras have excellent image quality and are well-suited for stills photography as well. One unique feature of these cameras is their in-lens stabilization, which combines 5-axis image stabilization with optical image stabilization. This results in a highly stable footage that's perfect for video projects.

However, while the Panasonic cameras offer impressive stills capabilities, I was slightly underwhelmed by their 4K video performance. Compared to other cameras on the market, such as the Sony A7S III or the Panasonic Lumix GH5, they don't quite live up to expectations in this regard.

The Panasonic GX85 is a notable exception, though, with its combined image stabilization and optical image stabilization capabilities. This camera offers exceptional results for both video and stills photography, making it an excellent choice for freelance projects that require both genres.

As I continue working on my freelance projects, I'll be keeping these cameras in mind when selecting the right equipment for each task. While they may not offer the same level of performance as more expensive options, their versatility and capabilities make them well-suited for a variety of applications.

In conclusion, my hybrid approach to camera selection allows me to adapt to different project requirements with ease. By having multiple cameras that can handle both video and stills photography, I'm able to work efficiently and effectively on freelance projects. Whether it's the Canon 5D Mark III, Sony A5100, or Panasonic GX85, each of these cameras has its strengths and weaknesses, but together they provide a solid foundation for my freelance work.

Ultimately, as a freelancer, I need to be prepared to handle a wide range of camera requirements. By having the right equipment at my disposal, I can deliver high-quality results that meet the needs of my clients. Whether it's video or stills photography, these cameras have proven themselves to be reliable and capable tools in my workflow.

I'll continue to monitor my camera options and update my setup as needed to ensure that I'm always equipped with the best equipment for each project. By doing so, I can provide top-notch results for my clients and maintain a competitive edge in an increasingly crowded freelance market.

If you have any questions or feedback about my camera setup or preferences, please feel free to let me know. As a photographer, I'm always eager to share knowledge and insights with fellow creatives. Whether it's through reviews, tutorials, or simply discussing the latest gear, I'm here to help and provide guidance whenever possible.

In the meantime, be sure to like, comment, and subscribe to my channel for more content on photography, gear, and creative techniques. With new videos and articles coming regularly, you'll always be up-to-date on the latest developments in the world of photography.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso yesterday I did a video that was a little bit of a rant on some of the complaints I have with Sony's current lineup and the overheating problem that I'm having on a certain line of cameras and complete will ask me after that video are you using those exclusively and for certain things so I thought it might be kind of cool to do a video today to talk about what I've been using really in the last couple months many of you know from older videos that I love to shoot film quite a bit and unfortunately this year because I've been so busy on other projects that have demanded that I shoot on digital cameras I haven't been able to do as much of that as I would like and that's something that hopefully by the fall be able to get back around to because it's something I really miss about the tactile nosov being able to shoot film but so basically - this will make it make more sense but I have basically three big projects that have been going on for a while I have this show that I produce quite often and I have the artists series which is technically part of this show but it's a very different production workflow that I use on that and then I have a freelance project that I've been working on for the last couple months as well and so I kind of use different setups for all three of those projects for the show I've talked a lot about that lately lately it's been the sony a 5100 that i'm recording with right now which is fine but it does have an overheating issue now I don't mind working with that here for this show because it's just me there's no crew there's no I'm not working with artists or anything like that so if it overheats it's not the end of the world I like that this is really small and light and I can just move it in out of the way because I've got other stuff that I set up sometimes and so it works really well for that I have a Canon a TD that I've switched out and I'm kind of using the Sony right now but the Canon a TD does not overheat anyway all that to say personal cameras that I travel around with I use the Sony rx100 Mark 4 which I've talked about quite a bit on the show and the other camera that I use a lot of as well is the canon g7x and i use this mainly for vlog footage and so when I've done the behind the scenes stuff when I've travelled doing the artist Theory stuff this year pretty much all that has been shot on this camera the reason I like this camera for vlog footage mainly I don't shoot stills on here I only shoot video videos not quite as good-looking as the Sony rx100 mark for it obviously does not do 4k but it works really well and it has the best image stabilization of the stuff that I own in fact the image stabilization is outstanding on here so I will typically put this on the Joby Gorillapod the microphones are good in here I've got these two little wind screens that are basically just kind of stuck on there there's a company called Rycote that makes this as the wind jammer it eliminates wind noise if you're outside it has an articulating screen that pulls out comes around the front and I absolutely love this thing and I used it for all of the vlog footage in Mexico earlier this year in Los Angeles also New York and it's just kind of a little tank and it's been really excellent for all that mainly the image stabilization is really key on that because sometimes have I done vlog footage in the past on the rx100 mark for if you don't have it locked down to a tripod it jitters and it's got is built into it's just not as good as the canon g7x so anyway that's what I've been using for that now for the artist series stuff I've actually been renting cameras for those I do not own them and I've been renting to Sony a7r 2s and so I do a two camera setup when I shoot those the sony a7r is a wonderful camera they are amazing they do not overheat like the other stuff I was talking about the other day I've had no problems with that at all they the only workaround that you have to deal with with those as they do have the 30 minute recording limit so if once you get to 29 minutes and whatever seconds it's going to power itself down or stop shooting and that is rather annoying but that's the only problem I have with those so typically the reason I'm using those for the Artist Series is I wanted to shoot 4k that was really important to me and I know that might seem like overkill like do the artists serious videos really need to be in 4k and that was a personal decision decision for me and it really came down to the fact that you know I'm doing these short films on living photographers and I want those to have as much durability and longevity in them as possible and I know inevitably 4k will be old hat but I want them to last as far as possible so I've just that's just been a little personal hang-up on mine so it's really important that I shoot those in 4k and so that's why I rent two of those the reason I'm renting them is they're very expensive its $3,000 each for each body and so it's much cheaper and it's actually affordable for me to rent them a week time and just get them for when I travel and do the artist series the reason I use those over an actual dedicated video camera there's two reasons one they need to be able to fit in a small bag because I really don't have a crew on these things it's just me and sometimes I have an assistant and that's it and so they have to be small and then the second reason is is like everything else I go back and forth between shooting video and stills I am one of those hybrid guys and so typically after the shoot I will pull them off the tripod and are one of them and I'll start using that to do just behind the scenes images and the reason I'm doing that is for PR stuff and then once we have all the artist series videos done for this year I'm going to put together section on the website and I'll have behind the scenes stuff on there so I've needed to move back and forth between doing video and stills very easily and so those allow me to do that and then finally my freelance job believe it or not that one I went back to an older camera which is getting a little old now but I've been using my old Canon 5d Mark 3 which does the job it's 1080 video camera but I can do stills on this it works really well it's really solid and because that project has been video and stills this has been an excellent just go to to get it done i have used the sony a 5100 on that job as well and i've used that for a very specialized thing and so there's a lot of shots that we wanted to do some tracking motion types of things and so the a 5100 i've been mounting on to this which is made by a company called merlin actually sorry this is made by Tiffin it's the merlin Steadicam and the merlin Steadicam is just a standalone mechanical Steadicam it's just a counterweight and I don't have it set up right now but I put the camera that I'm using to film on top of this and it's a small setup and once you get some practice on this you can do some really nice tracking shots and use motion with with the video you're doing the overheating issue hasn't been a big deal on here because a lot of the shots are really short kind of time out figure what it is them a shoot I shoot it and then the camera goes off and some things reset so there's a down time between shots and none of the shots really like the camera is really not running for any more than a minute or two so it's been pretty easy to deal with on those lines so that's kind of the setup I've been using for the stuff that I've been working on couple months is it ideal no I would rather own the Sony's that I'm renting for the artist series but that's just not financially feasible and so I am stuck on the smaller end of camera but the point shoots I love the rx100 mark 4 is just an amazing camera it is not cheap but it is fantastic and what it doesn't do I pick up with the Joni g7x and so that's kind of my rig for that and then finally I've got a couple other cameras here that I've been working with lately and these I do not own they are on loan from B&H and they have been nice enough to loan me these two cameras to review and these are the Panasonic cameras that I'm working with the micro four-thirds this is the g7 and this is the GX 85 both of them are Panasonic both Micro Four Thirds cameras and I will do reviews on these but I'm still kind of getting a feel for what I like about them I'm not is blown away by the 4k video as I thought I would be it's okay it's not better than the Sony's in fact it's really not on the same level and I'll talk more about that in a review however as a stills camera I am very interested in these they are performing very well one thing that's really cool about this one the GX 85 is that it combines embody stable stabilization with in lens stabilization so you end up kind of with this five axis image stabilization and it works great for both video and stills when I review these I will do separate reviews for the video component and then what they can do is still cameras but that's kind of what I'm working with here so anyway I would like to know what you guys think if you have any questions on the g7 or the GX 85 let me know because I'm going to be putting those reviews together and I would like to know what you would like to see me cover on these any questions you might have and that is pretty much the rig as it stands right now anyway we'll hopefully be making some changes at some point but I don't know when that would be anyway if you enjoyed this video presume to like it share it subscribe to the art of photography so you'll always be up to date on all the latest and greatest videos that I do and until the next one I'll see you then laterso yesterday I did a video that was a little bit of a rant on some of the complaints I have with Sony's current lineup and the overheating problem that I'm having on a certain line of cameras and complete will ask me after that video are you using those exclusively and for certain things so I thought it might be kind of cool to do a video today to talk about what I've been using really in the last couple months many of you know from older videos that I love to shoot film quite a bit and unfortunately this year because I've been so busy on other projects that have demanded that I shoot on digital cameras I haven't been able to do as much of that as I would like and that's something that hopefully by the fall be able to get back around to because it's something I really miss about the tactile nosov being able to shoot film but so basically - this will make it make more sense but I have basically three big projects that have been going on for a while I have this show that I produce quite often and I have the artists series which is technically part of this show but it's a very different production workflow that I use on that and then I have a freelance project that I've been working on for the last couple months as well and so I kind of use different setups for all three of those projects for the show I've talked a lot about that lately lately it's been the sony a 5100 that i'm recording with right now which is fine but it does have an overheating issue now I don't mind working with that here for this show because it's just me there's no crew there's no I'm not working with artists or anything like that so if it overheats it's not the end of the world I like that this is really small and light and I can just move it in out of the way because I've got other stuff that I set up sometimes and so it works really well for that I have a Canon a TD that I've switched out and I'm kind of using the Sony right now but the Canon a TD does not overheat anyway all that to say personal cameras that I travel around with I use the Sony rx100 Mark 4 which I've talked about quite a bit on the show and the other camera that I use a lot of as well is the canon g7x and i use this mainly for vlog footage and so when I've done the behind the scenes stuff when I've travelled doing the artist Theory stuff this year pretty much all that has been shot on this camera the reason I like this camera for vlog footage mainly I don't shoot stills on here I only shoot video videos not quite as good-looking as the Sony rx100 mark for it obviously does not do 4k but it works really well and it has the best image stabilization of the stuff that I own in fact the image stabilization is outstanding on here so I will typically put this on the Joby Gorillapod the microphones are good in here I've got these two little wind screens that are basically just kind of stuck on there there's a company called Rycote that makes this as the wind jammer it eliminates wind noise if you're outside it has an articulating screen that pulls out comes around the front and I absolutely love this thing and I used it for all of the vlog footage in Mexico earlier this year in Los Angeles also New York and it's just kind of a little tank and it's been really excellent for all that mainly the image stabilization is really key on that because sometimes have I done vlog footage in the past on the rx100 mark for if you don't have it locked down to a tripod it jitters and it's got is built into it's just not as good as the canon g7x so anyway that's what I've been using for that now for the artist series stuff I've actually been renting cameras for those I do not own them and I've been renting to Sony a7r 2s and so I do a two camera setup when I shoot those the sony a7r is a wonderful camera they are amazing they do not overheat like the other stuff I was talking about the other day I've had no problems with that at all they the only workaround that you have to deal with with those as they do have the 30 minute recording limit so if once you get to 29 minutes and whatever seconds it's going to power itself down or stop shooting and that is rather annoying but that's the only problem I have with those so typically the reason I'm using those for the Artist Series is I wanted to shoot 4k that was really important to me and I know that might seem like overkill like do the artists serious videos really need to be in 4k and that was a personal decision decision for me and it really came down to the fact that you know I'm doing these short films on living photographers and I want those to have as much durability and longevity in them as possible and I know inevitably 4k will be old hat but I want them to last as far as possible so I've just that's just been a little personal hang-up on mine so it's really important that I shoot those in 4k and so that's why I rent two of those the reason I'm renting them is they're very expensive its $3,000 each for each body and so it's much cheaper and it's actually affordable for me to rent them a week time and just get them for when I travel and do the artist series the reason I use those over an actual dedicated video camera there's two reasons one they need to be able to fit in a small bag because I really don't have a crew on these things it's just me and sometimes I have an assistant and that's it and so they have to be small and then the second reason is is like everything else I go back and forth between shooting video and stills I am one of those hybrid guys and so typically after the shoot I will pull them off the tripod and are one of them and I'll start using that to do just behind the scenes images and the reason I'm doing that is for PR stuff and then once we have all the artist series videos done for this year I'm going to put together section on the website and I'll have behind the scenes stuff on there so I've needed to move back and forth between doing video and stills very easily and so those allow me to do that and then finally my freelance job believe it or not that one I went back to an older camera which is getting a little old now but I've been using my old Canon 5d Mark 3 which does the job it's 1080 video camera but I can do stills on this it works really well it's really solid and because that project has been video and stills this has been an excellent just go to to get it done i have used the sony a 5100 on that job as well and i've used that for a very specialized thing and so there's a lot of shots that we wanted to do some tracking motion types of things and so the a 5100 i've been mounting on to this which is made by a company called merlin actually sorry this is made by Tiffin it's the merlin Steadicam and the merlin Steadicam is just a standalone mechanical Steadicam it's just a counterweight and I don't have it set up right now but I put the camera that I'm using to film on top of this and it's a small setup and once you get some practice on this you can do some really nice tracking shots and use motion with with the video you're doing the overheating issue hasn't been a big deal on here because a lot of the shots are really short kind of time out figure what it is them a shoot I shoot it and then the camera goes off and some things reset so there's a down time between shots and none of the shots really like the camera is really not running for any more than a minute or two so it's been pretty easy to deal with on those lines so that's kind of the setup I've been using for the stuff that I've been working on couple months is it ideal no I would rather own the Sony's that I'm renting for the artist series but that's just not financially feasible and so I am stuck on the smaller end of camera but the point shoots I love the rx100 mark 4 is just an amazing camera it is not cheap but it is fantastic and what it doesn't do I pick up with the Joni g7x and so that's kind of my rig for that and then finally I've got a couple other cameras here that I've been working with lately and these I do not own they are on loan from B&H and they have been nice enough to loan me these two cameras to review and these are the Panasonic cameras that I'm working with the micro four-thirds this is the g7 and this is the GX 85 both of them are Panasonic both Micro Four Thirds cameras and I will do reviews on these but I'm still kind of getting a feel for what I like about them I'm not is blown away by the 4k video as I thought I would be it's okay it's not better than the Sony's in fact it's really not on the same level and I'll talk more about that in a review however as a stills camera I am very interested in these they are performing very well one thing that's really cool about this one the GX 85 is that it combines embody stable stabilization with in lens stabilization so you end up kind of with this five axis image stabilization and it works great for both video and stills when I review these I will do separate reviews for the video component and then what they can do is still cameras but that's kind of what I'm working with here so anyway I would like to know what you guys think if you have any questions on the g7 or the GX 85 let me know because I'm going to be putting those reviews together and I would like to know what you would like to see me cover on these any questions you might have and that is pretty much the rig as it stands right now anyway we'll hopefully be making some changes at some point but I don't know when that would be anyway if you enjoyed this video presume to like it share it subscribe to the art of photography so you'll always be up to date on all the latest and greatest videos that I do and until the next one I'll see you then later\n"