I shot my latest travel video Alone in Kyoto on a budget. I used only 2 device: an iPhone 8 and a gimbal. It has been a pretty cool (and challenging) experience because it was the first time ever for me, going to such a wonderful place with no professional equipment. It was all in my head; I wanted an hires video with some powerful slowmo and guess what? The iPhone was the only one (in my bag, also with the Canon 7D mark1) able to do that. And it worked pretty damn good!

From that experience I’ve divided my rig in video and photography. If I’m travelling, maybe for work, I don’t want to miss a moment, I want to be always ready, but at the same time I may be not able to carry all my equipment with me. From my experience in Kyoto I’ve decided to bought a SONY RX100 Mark V; a compact camera able to shot up to 4K and up to 960fps. It’s way more than I need in term of technical requirements but…you never know.
The thing is that, in my personal opinion you can make a professional video with less than 500$ if you want to invest in a new compact camera with cinematic color profile, or, if you already own a quite recent smartphone, that’s it. Just go for the 1080 res and you have anything you need to start!
I’ll show you some quite low budget devices for a good (and lightweight) cinematic video
- SONY RX100 MARK V https://amzn.to/3lV3bIJ
- iPhone X https://amzn.to/3lRyZhT
- DJI Pocket 2 https://amzn.to/3w1RCUT