❤️ Why we love it
When you’re buying a camera for creating travel videos on YouTube, you’re faced with the challenge of choosing the right mix regarding budget, practicability and video features. If your focus is on low cost, ease-of-use and practicability, some of the best choices are just going with your smartphone or a GoPro camera. Modern camera technology has got so good that especially for releasing videos on YouTube, you don’t need fancy technology to create great videos.
But as any perfectionist out there knows, decisions aren’t always rational and we often strive for better and better tools in the hopes of also making our videos slightly better. So next up in terms of better picture quality and video features you’ve got a wide array of mirrorless cameras to choose from. Cameras with smaller sensors (e.g. APS-C sensors) are great for a smaller budget while also being small and practical themselves. Our go-to camera in this category is the Fujifilm X-S10 (with a successor model probably being released in 2023).
If you’re after even better video quality and video features, the next step up are mid-range mirrorless cameras. In this range you can choose between both smaller sensors and full-frame sensors. Full frame sensors offer some benefits when it comes to image quality, but often also require cameras to be bigger and heavier (which is a big factor to consider when travelling).
At the start of 2023 we decided to upgrade to the Panasonic Lumix S5II, which is a brand new full frame camera that was released at the beginning of the year. With the S5II, Panasonic has finally upgraded its autofocus system, which makes it fast and reliable. The stabilisation on the S5II is incredibly good, which is hugely valuable for us while filming on the road and often while moving a lot. The colours coming out of this camera are amazing and we’ve got all the recording formats we need incl. 60p recording in 4k (although it’s cropped in) and open gate recording in up to 6k, which is great for filming vertical social media content.
Overall, the Lumix S5II is just a beast of a travel vlogging camera. Although it’s bigger than our Fujifilm X-S10 and slightly heavier, it’s still compact enough to carry around while travelling and compared to other cameras on the market it’s available at an unbeatable price for all the amazing video features you get.
🗒️ Things to note
When buying into a new camera ecosystem one major factor to consider is the available lens lineup. Additionally you’ve got to consider that full frame lenses are generally more expensive than lenses for smaller sensors. The number of available lenses also varies a lot from brand to brand. Sony is known for its huge selection of APS-C lenses, including many lenses from third party suppliers. Panasonic or Fuji on the other hand don’t offer this kind of variety. In the end it comes down to which lenses you actually need. And for filming while travelling we aren’t looking to bring many lenses on the road anyway, so Panasonic already offers everything we need.
We use the LUMIX S 20-60mm kit lens for the Panasonic S5II and although it’s not the fastest lens and unfortunately has a variable aperture, it covers all important focal lengths and is a great allrounder.
