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Camera Choice: Cycle Touring Documentary?


Tulpa
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Dear Eoshd members,

I've been a long time lurker and it's clear that there are some with an exceptional wealth of experience here.

I used to be quite up to speed with the latest camera tech but completely fell off a cliff about 3 years ago. I'm not so sure a lot has happened since then, but I would be curious to have your insights on what would make a solid camera choice for an upcoming project that I'm moving towards.

The project involves cycling around the world for several years under all kinds of conditions and producing a cinematic documentary about it.

I know that many use things like GoPro, Insta 360 etc with decent results. But I'm wondering what you folks would use to obtain your results if you were to embark on such an adventure and why?

I'd be grateful for any insights or observations any of you may have!

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If it's being mounted to the bike, then yes, any of the current crop of decent action cameras would be a good choice, especially assuming that some parts of the tour would be in the rain or dusty areas, etc.  Even better yet if they can pair directly with the manufacturer's wireless microphone system (DJI and Insta360 both do this).  This can also be augmented with any halfway decent modern phone.

Otherwise, if you wouldn't want to go the action camera+phone route, I'd find the smallest and lightest camera on the market with decent weatherproofing and go with that, making sure that all of the lenses are similarly weather-sealed.  There are lots of used options, especially that are M43 mount, that would be good fits for small and light and can give better results than an action camera.  Better than 1080p is nice, but as far as I know, any festival will still accept it as a resolution.  More than 4K is realistically unnecessary unless you plan to crop/reframe in post.

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5 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

If it's being mounted to the bike, then yes, any of the current crop of decent action cameras would be a good choice, especially assuming that some parts of the tour would be in the rain or dusty areas, etc.  Even better yet if they can pair directly with the manufacturer's wireless microphone system (DJI and Insta360 both do this).  This can also be augmented with any halfway decent modern phone.

Otherwise, if you wouldn't want to go the action camera+phone route, I'd find the smallest and lightest camera on the market with decent weatherproofing and go with that, making sure that all of the lenses are similarly weather-sealed.  There are lots of used options, especially that are M43 mount, that would be good fits for small and light and can give better results than an action camera.  Better than 1080p is nice, but as far as I know, any festival will still accept it as a resolution.  More than 4K is realistically unnecessary unless you plan to crop/reframe in post.

Thank you for this eatstoomuchjam.
And if you you could have your pick of camera and lens, do you know what that would be? 10bit and 4k as a minimum with good low light capabilities?
I'm not only considering shooting from the bicycle, but collecting stories from the situations with people along the way.
Any thoughts?

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I'd be apt to leave that to the micro 4/3 enthusiasts like @kye and @John Matthews

My guess, and please do take this with a huge grain of salt, as I haven't owned a real micro 4/3 camera in years, is that the camera body suggestion will look something like a GX85 or OM-3/OM-5 II for small/light/sealed, but I don't follow m43 enough to know off the top of my head which have 10 bit.  If the Panasonic 14/2.5 or 20/1.7 are weather sealed, they could be alright.  Otherwise, the humble Panasonic 14-42mm kit lens is not bad.  The Olympus equivalent might be alright too.  You'd probably want one of the primes for low light.

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@Tulpa

Maybe John is best placed to talk about camera bodies, but here's a few thoughts:

  • you absolutely want weather proofing, and should read the manual to see what this can cope with (and what it cannot)
  • IBIS is great but the mechanisms are fragile and I'd imagine that if there are any constant vibrations from cycling you could easily break them (e.g. will there be hours and hours of off-road or riding on rough roads?)
  • consider what you'll be doing for audio - if you want an audio input then you'll need the G or GH line of cameras, not the GX line which lacks audio inputs
  • docos are about getting the shot, not having a setup that looks incredible but isn't flexible or fast enough to use in the field.  for this I recommend simple setups and zoom lenses.  if you go MFT the 12-35mm F2.8 is a great lens because it's got some flexibility and also enough low-light for most situations.  

You need to think about the whole ecosystem involved.  
You will have the camera, lenses, filters, batteries and chargers, media, potentially separate microphones (and therefore all their battery and charging needs), etc.  You might want a cage and maybe external monitors. You'll need camera mounts, definitely for mounting things to the bikes, but also a tripod is probably a must-have too.  If you're shooting interviews you might want some small lights, which come with their own battery and charging requirements too.
Then there's media management.  How will you offload cards, and where will you store the data?  Will you be able to backup to the cloud as you go?  Can you buy drives along the way and mail them home as you go?  Having three copies of something is great but if they're all in your bag when it gets stolen then the footage is still lost.

This ecosystem is something you need to assemble and then use a few times to work out the kinks and get everything optimised.

The reason I say all that is that by the end of that process you might decide that you don't have space or the weight capacity for the camera after you pack a wireless mic and a laptop and some hard drives.

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4 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

I'd be apt to leave that to the micro 4/3 enthusiasts like @kye and @John Matthews

My guess, and please do take this with a huge grain of salt, as I haven't owned a real micro 4/3 camera in years, is that the camera body suggestion will look something like a GX85 or OM-3/OM-5 II for small/light/sealed, but I don't follow m43 enough to know off the top of my head which have 10 bit.  If the Panasonic 14/2.5 or 20/1.7 are weather sealed, they could be alright.  Otherwise, the humble Panasonic 14-42mm kit lens is not bad.  The Olympus equivalent might be alright too.  You'd probably want one of the primes for low light.

10-bit and weather sealing. There's the rub.

Panasonic: GH5, GH5 ii, GH5S, G9, G9ii, GH6, GH7

Olympus: OM-1, OM-1ii, OM-3

Anything smaller, you'll need to forgo 10-bit.

For lenses, there are many options from flagship zooms (all are great, new and old) to small primes. However with the latter, there aren't necessarily that many that are weather-sealed.

Panasonic: All the new versions of the Leica-branded primes, minus the Leica 15mm f/1.7

Olympus: All the Pro versions and the new versions of the 17mm and 25mm f/1.8.

For run and gun in 2025 (AF in video), I'd choose the G9ii (lighter) or the GH7.

For lenses, I'd go with two- one all-purpose, do everything lens like the 14-150 (Olympus), 14-140 (Panasonic), or 12-100 (Olympus, heavy!). After, I'd go for the Leica 25mm prime (new version) if weather-sealing is necessary; if not, the old version of the Leica 15mm f/1.7, Olympus 17mm f/1.8 or Panasonic 25mm f/1.7.

If 10-bit isn't the issue, I'd go for the smallest camera with the best output. I'd go go a GX85 and an audio recorder, the E-M5 iii, OM5, OM5ii (all of these have decent audio and AF).

It's sad that Panasonic cannot offer us anything under 500g with 10-bit, decent audio, and decent IBIS in MFT. For that, they can only offer the S9 in FF with NO pancake lenses- a CRAZY situation that is costing them dearly every single day!

 

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@Tulpa sound like a cool project. Haven't done anything like it but have brought a bunch of different cameras on training rides filming my wife (a mountainbike pro) for the last decade. 

I would strongly consider a combination of an action cam and a mirrorless. The Osmo Action paired with their mic mini is a brilliant combo. The camera alone can be used in a bunch of conditions without risk (rain etc.)

I have no experience with M 4/3 but used to bring a Samsung NX500 in my back pocket. It was brilliant at that. Has now been replaced with a Fuji X-M5. Same size. 

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Great info from John and definitely agree on the zoom + fast prime combo.

 I have the 14-140mm and love it.  I was tossing up between it and the 12-60mm F2.8-4.0 because I wasn't sure how often I'd use the 60-140mm part of the lens, but since getting it I was really surprised at how often it really comes in handy.  Essentially, it means you can shoot whatever you can see, which really helps when you're trying to give a sense of a place.

It's slower than the 12-60mm but neither is a low-light lens and the DOF differences aren't relevant in a doco situation.

Here's a video I did showing the stabilisation, but it should show you the versatility of the lens.

I shoot travel videos and have found that AF zooms best allow you to document the places and experience you're in, as they support the approach I've developed to shooting:

  • Shoot a good variety of shots so you have lots of options in the edit
  • Shoot the wide so you have an establishing shot, shoot the people, shoot the buildings, shoot the motion, shoot the colour
  • Shoot the space (especially if it's large), shoot the details, look down at the ground and look up at the buildings / trees and the sky
  • Think about what makes this place special and shoot that
  • Think about what makes this place feel the way it does and shoot that

In general, the faster you can shoot the more you will capture and the more authentic it will be because it will be more spontaneous and more based around your initial impressions rather than shooting slowly and having too much time to think about it.  Plus, sometimes things happen very quickly and often they're the most important things to capture.

I'd also second @tbonnes idea of combining the action cam and mirrorless.

The action cam can be mounted on the bike ready to grab footage at a moments notice and doesn't need to be put away even in torrential rain or a dust storm.  Then, once you've stopped you can pull out the mirrorless and get some shots.  If you're a masochist then you can even go ahead, setup the mirrorless and hit record, go back again and ride through the frame, then go back and retrieve the camera.  It seems like a great way to shoot a film and a spectacular way to remove as much pleasure from the experience as possible.

This raises the other option - a drone.  It's the fastest way to get shots of you without having to ride the same section of road three times.  The laws for flying drones seem to have stabilised in a lot of places allowing drones under a certain weight, but it's something that would require an incredible amount of research beforehand to make sure it wouldn't get confiscated or get you into hot water just for having it.

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