Ops Manager Mark Wilson takes a retrospective look at what Camera Setups in hire used to be.
Who else misses the days of simple camera setups and kits like the Sony PMW EX1 and Canon XF305?
Cameras that were built for you to take straight out of the bag and press record. No fuss, just do the job. Then we had the DSLR revolution and we entered into a whole new world of cameras. The ‘body only’ camera where you buy all of your accessories separately dependent on what the user wants.
I approach this question from a kit hire perspective because that has been my world for nearly ten years. My initial answer is yes. Hell yes! I miss the simplicity of an order from a client being camera, tripod, top mic and radio mic. They were the good old days because it was all uniform and simple.
But if I was answering that question from the shooters perspective then my answer would be no I don’t miss it. We live in an exciting world where the possibilities are endless for creating an amazing camera set up, how can you not be excited about the ability to personalise what you shoot with. There are so many different companies creating bolt on accessories and lets not forget about the myriad of lenses to choose from. It really has become a big world.
However, this does cause some issues when hiring kit. Hire companies face an ongoing struggle to have in stock every camera, every lens and every accessory that every individual user wishes to use. Gone are they days of buying the same mic in bulk or the same tripod in bulk, because client 1 may not want to use what client 2 does. This is a struggle that I’m well aware of. I often get requests for the most obscure piece of kit that no one stocks. It then becomes a test to fulfill the clients needs with what is available. Thankfully at Alias, we can usually cover every aspect of what a shooter needs, even if its not the brand or style the client was originally after.
This is the camera world we now live in. Choice. It has it’s positives and it’s negatives. But we’ll keep helping to fulfill clients shooting package needs. We’ll keep offering choice as long as you keep shooting. And if you do miss the simple shooting kits, we still offer Sony PMW EX1 and Canon XF305 for hire. #workhorses
