Hi everybody,
welcome to another episode
of Exploring Photography
right here on AdoramaTV,
brought to you by Adorama,
it's the camera store that has everything for
photographers and vloggers and
adventure travel people like
Kevin McCuiston, who
is joining me here,
actually I'm sort of
joining you...
We have a friend in common,
Kevin is the founder videographer writer
editor producer of Lifestyle Overland, so
can you just tell us what the heck that is?
Lifestyle Overland is the story of
myself, my wife, and my six-year-old
daughter and our travels through North America.
We've been from the Gulf Coast to the
Arctic coast and back again, and that
we're sharing all our pictures.
So I have to admit in the past year...
two years or so, through a mutual friend of ours
this is how we met, Keith... I have become
addicted to overland travel videos,
and Kevin is one of the best out there at
creating these videos, and you shoot
stills.. is that correct?
I shoot stills, 4k, 1080, Ishoot at all.
You shoot everything.... drone footage?
Drone footage, slow-mo footage, lots of
Slow mo...
Audio voiceovers? Yes.
You edit your own stuff?
Edit everything... you upload your stuff
from the road?
I try, okay this is insane,
the amount of stuff that you do, and so I
know that you've gotten a lot of
questions about how the heck you do it.
What do you use?
And that's really what we want to talk
about in this video today.
So if you're a vlogger, I wouldn't
say you're a vlogger...
you're more of a filmmaker I would say.
I lean towards National Geographic, and
less...
Yeah absolutely you don't see a lot of
you with the GoPro walking around but you've got some epic footage from places
like north of Sedona up in Alaska you've got slo-mo footage you've got
drone footage things that years ago I think would have been on national
television National Geographic but you do it all
yourself so can you tell us some of the strategies and the gear that kind of
stuff well so basically I'm not a professional videographer photographer I
would be embarrassed if I tried to discuss some of it's just mind-blowing
the science behind all of this and so I've really been learning as I go so I
went with the Panasonic gh4 fives these are really user friendly but then
it allows me to also expand my capabilities as I get more and more
proficient with okay the capabilities the campus you
have to exactly the same exactly and the reason for this was there's a there's a
saying two is one one is none when you're traveling in deep remote
locations so I didn't want to get into Alaska or the Northwest Territories of
Canada have a camera issue and then oh the shoots just long so having two of
these is uh it's been good for backup but the big advantages have you two
separate lenses where I can set up one drive-by with the vehicle safe let's
stop like that right because a lot of people are not there so maybe you can
first explain what the heck is over landing okay because this is where a
audience of photographers sir we don't know what that is first tell us what
that is and then tell us what the heck a
drive-by is okay so over landing is basically vehicle dependent travel the
challenge is to outfit your rig with all of the necessary equipment to go into
remote locations sometimes very rough roads to be able to extract yourself
carefully yourself and bring it all back home and so it's like the Oregon Trail
but now exactly exactly so that's kind of the challenge and then we have to go
see a lot of places that people don't see because it's not a paved road you
know we get to see the behind the scenes of nature and so it's really an
enjoyable adventure ok so let's get back and I also want to talk about season 1
but we'll get to it okay because there's some epic footage that I hope all of you
will watch so you've got two identical gh fives but not two identical lenses
tell me about the lenses you're using and why okay so this first lens right
here is a 7:14 and I typically use that for my quote-unquote vlog or talking
head it's also great inside the vehicle so we can mount this on the dash we can
flip it forward to watch the scenery or we can flip it back to talk to
camera and explain what we're doing and how do you mount this thing in your
vehicle so every one of these cameras has a Manfrotto quick-connect plate all
my tripods have an exact match to that and they even make a face plate I was
able to mount to the dash of the 4runner so it's it's really handy that
everything interchanges that is fantastic and so you mentioned doing a
drive-by before it's how you call it yes what the heck is that for people who
don't know so basically you set up your shot maybe there's some epic background
or maybe there's a really nasty piece of the trail where you only get some good
articulation that the vehicle coming through the rocks and so I'll go and
I'll set up maybe a really low shot using the Joby tripod let's go and
possibly driving away shot with one of the taller tripods and so it really
allows me since we're shooting at all ourselves it allows us to get a lot of
content with less effort than it would with a single camera and how important
is it so I've also done a lot of travel and one of the biggest problems for me
is setting up the drive button setting up a tripod on the side of the road in a
place you're in less populated areas then I brought in my friend thinking
someone's gonna steal it but turning it on driving to wherever driving past the
camera turning back around coming back grabbing it putting it back so how long
does it take you to actually do that it's actually not as bad as you think
the good news is my wife Sarah hates the cameras and so she actually drives the
rig 95% of the time even through some of the nasty trails and stuff that we
tackle that allows me to run ahead on the trail or to run back and grab
cameras so it's been a really good team for her to have that capability to allow
me to focus on the content fantastic in this other lens here this is a 12 to 60
right and this is used for what so that's gonna be all my b-roll so any
slow-motion shots that you see landscape shots things like that are
going to come from that lens I also noticed so you've got a rode videomic on
both of these but this guy here is the inexpensive sort of quick down and dirty
just since the road it's the pro version right why do you have two different
microphones that wasn't intentional this is a recent addition to the kit usually
I would only run the mic on the camera for talking head or I just want to talk
about where we were located what a beautiful camping area what what
a beautiful place I am I'm stoked this is awesome
but I added this to the kit with the intentions of using the GoPro 7 moving
forward because I was impressed with the stabilization still in the process of
learning how I wanna use that I have noticed that in a lot of your videos you
have buttery smooth slow-motion you've got really smooth handheld shot so I
don't see a gimbal here so how are you stabilizing your footage the gh 5 it's
it's quite incredible to be honest with you so it has lens stabilization a
sensor stabilization and it also has electronic stabilization so that's one
of the main reasons I went with this camera
even though sony has better low-light capabilities and possibly even a better
picture quality in my opinion this works well for what we do because we're
bouncing around in a car maybe I'm running alongside the trail this is the
Maverick Pro not the - it's the first edition is that correctly that's correct
and what are you doing with this game so a lot of times we'll use this for just
incredible landscape again the vehicle will be in motion my wife Sarah will be
driving and then I'll utilize the controller with the large tablet so I
can ensure that I'm getting the right exposure and capturing the frame
the way that I wanted so how do you record your audio because you've got
voiceovers you've got onboard microphones but I noticed you have to
zoom or these h1 h1 Sam these are fantastic I've used these for years but
why - in case I want to sit down an interview someone and sometimes if we're
in a vehicle there's a lot of road noise and I like to bring that into a more
personal level level so it's easier to edit and post so we'll mic up both
people in the passenger and driver seats going down the road all of this footage
are you shooting 4k Kennedy it depends on the situation I like to shoot all of
my wildlife stuff in 4k and then I'll even throw on this till telephoto lens
here this is a 100 to 300 and really have captured some beautiful moments
with grizzly bears musk ox caribou some really beautiful beautiful animals of
North America ah you know my sort of frame of mind is to take the lightest
tripod you can when you're traveling these feel like the heaviest tripod
possibly why why do you have such heavy tripod uh primarily just for a wind the
lighter the tripod the easier it is for the whole thing to blow over and we
travel in some fairly extreme weather from time to time so having that way it
gives me a sense of security whenever I'm setting up a shot okay so it's just
and these guys can get a low high and they're just sort of industrial-strength
and because they're not the super lightweight they're not incredibly
expensive that's right these are very informal and we could talk for another
hour or two about all this stuff because it really fascinates me we don't have
that much time in this episode right but you've got a YouTube channel and an
Instagram channel where you upload behind-the-scenes footage as you're
traveling all of that stuff so people can actually contact you directly mmm
see the stuff and get some cool merch so again where are you people find out so
you can find us on YouTube just search lifestyle over land or on
Instagram Facebook as well our supporters if you're looking for
behind-the-scenes footage or maybe even GPS coordinates if you want to go out
and take your own adventure you can find us on patreon at patreon.com slash
lifestyle overland and yeah that's all of those links are in the description of
this video and I just have to warn everybody if you start watching these
videos it's gonna be a binge wash so get some coffee
get ready because it's really epic I absolutely love it
thank you so much Kevin for joining us and don't forget to subscribe to Adorama
TV because it's absolutely free we upload videos almost every single day
bye amazing contributors and also turn on the bells so you get notifications
and you don't miss a single thing thanks again for joining us and I will see you
again next time