Several months before I purchased my Lumix GH2, I eagerly handed over a pile of money for a 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens. Buying a lens before you have a compatible camera is torturous. Opening the box is a cruel tease. I cracked the factory seal, whiffed the intoxicating scent of virgin hardware, freed the gloriously diminutive little lens from its protective wrappings, removed the caps and stared. Moments later I packed it all back together, and stashed it away in my gear locker. Pretty dull stuff when there’s no camera to attach.
The Best Gear List
It’s difficult to decide what piece of equipment to buy, because there’s usually more than one good choice. I created this post to make your decision painless. Below you’ll find a list of equipment that I’ve determined are the very best choices in their categories. The only decision you have to make is if you should get the low-budget or high-budget option.
I will do my best to update this list any time a better option becomes available. Let’s go:
| Photography and Video |
|---|
The Best Hybrid Video and Still Cameras
Low budget – Panasonic GH4
High budget – Sony a7R II
The Best Prime Lenses for Micro Four Thirds for Stills + Video (for use on a tripod)
Low budget – Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 S.S.C. (adapter required)
High budget – Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 Nokton
The Best Lenses for Micro Four Thirds (for use on shoulder-mounts for shooting video)
Low budget – Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 with Power O.I.S.
High budget – Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm f/2.8 with Power O.I.S.
The Best Lenses for Nikon Full Frame DLSRs
Low budget – Nikon 50mm f/1.8D
High budget – Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G ED
The Best Lenses for Canon DLSRs
Low budget – Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II
High budget – Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L
The Best Action Cameras
Low budget – GoPro HERO5 Session
High budget – GoPro HERO5 Black
The Best Compact Cameras
Low budget – Canon G7X
High budget – Sony RX100 V
The Best 3.5mm Mini-Plug Shotgun Mics for Camera
Low budget – Sennheiser MKE 400
High budget – Ambient TinyMic
The Best Variable ND Filter
Low budget – Light Craft Workshop Fader ND
High budget – Singh-Ray Vari-ND (read my hands-on review here)
| Sound |
|---|
The Best Portable Digital Recorders
Low budget – Tascam DR-70D (read my hands-on review here)
High budget – Sound Devices 633
The Best Wireless Lavalier Mic Systems for Video
“Low” budget –Sennheiser G3 ew 112-p
High budget – Lectrosonics UCR411
The Best XLR Shotgun Mics for Camera and Boompole
Low budget – Rode NTG-2 (but I recommend saving up for a Rode NTG-3)
High budget – Sanken CS-3E
The Best Hyper Mics for Booming Interior Dialog
Low budget – Audix SCX1/HC
High budget – Schoeps Colette MK41
The Best Computer Audio Interfaces
Low budget – PreSonus AudioBox USB
High budget – Universal Audio Apollo
The Best Over-the-Ear Headphones
Low budget – Sony MDR7506
High budget – Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro
The Best In-Ear Headphones
Low budget – Thinksound
High budget – Shure SE535
| Computers & Mobile |
|---|
The Best Laptops
“Low” budget – 13″ MacBook Pro Retina (2015)
High budget – 15″ MacBook Pro with Touch Bar
The Best Hard Drives
Low budget – G-Technology G-Drive
“High” budget – Glyph GPT50
The Best Tablets
Low budget – iPad Mini 4 32GB Wi-Fi
High budget – 9.7″ iPad Pro 128GB
The Best Smartphones
Low budget – iPhone SE 64GB
High budget – iPhone 7 256GB …seriously, pay extra for the 256GB. It’s worth it just to avoid the hassle of running out of space, and needing to delete photos, apps, etc.
| Home |
|---|
The Best Coffee Makers
Low budget – AeroPress
“High” budget – Cuisineart EM-100
Okay, so a coffee maker isn’t a piece of creative production gear, but good coffee is vital to the process. Life is far too short to drink crappy coffee.
NOTE: Last updated on December 4th, 2016.
The Short List of Interesting Gear from CES 2013
It takes a fair amount of elbow grease to weed through the deluge of new products at CES 2013, in order to find the few things that are actually useful. Here’s my brief list of standout hardware from the bizarre circus in Las Vegas.
Continue reading “The Short List of Interesting Gear from CES 2013”
The Transformative Quality of Shooting Manual
Just as the holiday season was kicking into overdrive, something really great happened: my iPhone ran out of storage space. No longer could I whip out my phone and take impulsive snapshots. Suddenly, when I needed to take a picture, I needed to grab my real camera.
When I first got the Lumix GH2 in early 2011, I put a lot of effort into digging into its menus, trying to learn as much about the camera as possible. It was the first advanced shooter I’d ever owned, and I was eager to leverage its power to my advantage. In particular, I focused attention on learning how to shoot in Manual mode. Continue reading “The Transformative Quality of Shooting Manual”
Gear of the Year 2012
2012 is done. It’s in the can. It’s a wrap. The martini take is finished. Blah blah blah. Lot’s of new equipment came out this year, as it does every year. Fun fact: the sun rises in the morning, and goes down at night. You’re learning a lot in this post. This is good. Here’s my list of the top gear for 2012.
1) The Sony RX1
First things first: this camera is absurdly expensive. It’s a little tiny camera that costs $2800 US dollars. Insane. That said, this camera is just plain old awesome. Continue reading “Gear of the Year 2012”
Google Squint: The New iOS Gmail App
After hearing near universal praise for Version 2.0 of Google’s Gmail app for iOS, I gave it a try on my iPhone 4. The app proved to be modern and sleek, however, in my opinion, it has a very basic, and very damning flaw. Simply put, the text is far too small and thin. I end up squinting a lot when I try to read emails, and my vision is pretty darn good. Here’s a juxtaposition of the same email, the old iPhone mail app is on the left, the new Gmail app is on the right:
Like the new Google Search app for iPad and iPhone, the new Gmail app seems like an attempt on Google’s part to Android-ize your Apple gadgets. However, by supplying an email app that favors visual flair over readability, you have to question the decision makers at the helm.
A Visual History of Pinch to Zoom
I was curious about the origin of the Pinch-to-Zoom touchscreen gesture, however, I was unable to find a resource that displayed all of the examples of this popular command. I decided to do some research, and share my findings here. What follows likely isn’t the whole story, however, the process of creating this post really helped me better understand the subject.
US Patent Law, The Decisive Winner of Apple v. Samsung
This post is here to direct you to an article that I just wrote about US patent law and the Apple v. Samsung case. You can read it right now at The Verge by clicking this link:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271027/us-patent-law-the-decisive-winner-of-apple-v-samsung
Photo credit: smlp.co.uk / Foter / CC BY
Gasp! How-to Get Rid of All of Your Gear (Noooooo!)
I’ve done the unthinkable. Over the past few weeks I’ve reached down into the deepest depths of my equipment arsenal, and started tossing it all. I’ve been selling gear on eBay like a shifty flea market shyster. I’ve been forcing old drum sets on friends who actually have basements. I’ve even gone as far as giving stuff away in the Craigslist free section. That one is the fastest. Make a post, and sometimes within the hour POOF! It’s gone forever. Continue reading “Gasp! How-to Get Rid of All of Your Gear (Noooooo!)”
My Close Encounters with Adam Yauch
It’s been a really sad afternoon and evening for me. Adam Yauch, one of my longtime heros, died today. As usual, there are a million things that I’m supposed to be doing right now, but I just had to stop everything and grieve. I live in Brookyn, Adam’s hometown, and it feels like everyone should be pointing their stereo speakers out the window and blasting “Pass The Mic,” but no one is (me included). I feel like news stories about Adam should be rolling on every TV station in town, but there’s been little mention of him. It’s just a normal night in Brooklyn. Vibrant. Alive. Overflowing with life.
I know I truly love a band when I imagine that I’m in the band when I listen to their music. This hasn’t happened with very many musicians, but this feeling was probably the most intense with the Beastie Boys. I loved their music so much in the early 1990’s that I essentially dedicated my life to trying to become a Beastie. It was more than a long shot: it was nothing short of an entirely impossible quest. But I had no choice. There was no other reality worth seeking.
Close Encounter #1
Even though I became a true lifelong Beastie fan in the early nineties, my first close encounter with MCA took place 27 years ago. Continue reading “My Close Encounters with Adam Yauch”