Hi and thanks for stopping by.

My Youtube films are something I (John) really enjoy making these days, that’s not always been the case though, the first 18 months to 2 years I really struggled with being comfortable in front of the camera. My gear and style has also evolved over the years too, so what you see now is a list of gear and a style that’s taken many, many hours of learning and working out what works best.

I took the plunge to invest quite a lot of money in my YouTube gear, bear in mind the ad payment I get from youtube is roughly £0.50 per 2000 video views. I now use Sony ZV-1 for almost all of the video recording, we do also use our iPhones too for short clips. I use an Insta360 One x2 360 camera for group video, van tours and to get some shot for unique perspectives like a fake drone shot. I use a DJI Osmo Action with a windscreen mount to get forward driving shots and another DJI Osmo Action on a suction mount for getting driving shots outside the van.

Speaking of drones, I have a DJI Mavic Air 2 and I find it the perfect aerial camera to complement my other cameras.  The Mavic Air 2 is extremely portable, so it comes everywhere with me, produces really crisp and clear video and great photos.  For that extra look and feel to your video, where appropriate to fly and where it’s also appropriate for the video content, you can’t beat a drone shot. Well maybe you can get close with 360 cameras, though you can certainly get some amazing shots with a 360 camera in the right place.

I use Epidemic Sounds for the music in the videos I create, to join up and get a free trial SIMPLY CLICK HERE NOW

My Gear List: (the links below are to Amazon, via my affiliate links – you get the best product price on Amazon and they pay me a small referral fee after your purchase)

I also use my iPhone 12 Pro MAX for some video & images.  That’s the gear mostly covered, I do have some extra gear like basic tripods, tripod heads etc. but they’re very generic items.

Now for the magic to be made, the Filmmaking side of things. Of course, I’m still learning how to make it all come together, not only because I kept changing cameras and don’t know some as well as I could do with right now, but I’m also learning how to get the shot, make it look amazing out of the camera and also to tell a story through what I’m shooting. If this was easy then everyone would be doing it, oh wait – they are, which is why I keep pushing myself on the editing side.  The editing side is another area where I’ve just made a huge leap and a massive investment, I moved to Mac for editing and to FCPX. I got a 2020 Apple Macbook Pro M1 13′ 16GB ram and 512GB SSD for editing on the go. I feel more at ease with FCPX (Final Cut Pro 10) and feel my films are looking better already, at the time of writing this, in March 2019, I’ve made over 50 films using all this gear, and feedback from the viewers is also showing they appreciate the effort.

I’m slowly putting together a video series on what gear I use for my travel videos, how I shoot them, how I edit and what software I use, what settings I upload to YouTube and how I manage my YouTube account.

You can watch the series here…

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDMettFqioHN0Ee2TUcmdjjL-4SZbVdnK

So where is John & Mandy on Tour going and also, more to the point, why am I seemingly now producing more films about travel as I do about gadgets and tech? That’s a good question, and it’s down to you, the viewer, because I made a couple of films about the campervan I bought and the response was amazing, so I made a few more about camping and our travels in the campervan, and you loved them, so much so that my subscriber numbers started to rise more than double. As they say in life “Do what you love” and so I did, I made films about travelling and also made reviews about tech and gadgets too, which I also still love to do.

In late 2018 I setup John & Mandy, a YouTube channel dedicated to Travel & Campervans. I now commit myself to producing 2 videos a week, one that channel, in order to keep our viewers happy and I’ll try to still keep producing tech reviews but also to entertain the viewers who like our travel vlogs.

I use the a Sony ZV-1 for vlogging and we use it for talking to camera when we’re on the go in the campervan & for dash cam footage we use the DJI Osmo Action. For 360 I use the Insta360 One X2 solely now as I find it easier to edit with and the panning effects you get with a 360 camera are really smooth. We use our iPhones (12 & 11 Max Pro) as B cameras and travel point & shoot for photos, We used these exclusively for our USA trip for video & stills and they performs really well for a phone camera. I also film with a drone whenever I can, weather and safety permitting, so the DJI Mavic Air 2 gives me great compact portable size with a very stable video camera with 2.7k 50 FPS it gets clear shots that I can slow down too, almost all of my videos include drone footage if it’s over a canyon in the USA or a seaside shot in Wales, the drone is one of the best ways to add an extra dimension to your video story as it gives you a way to show not only where you are but why you are there.

Here are some videos I’ve made that I’m really proud of and showcases my gear, style and editing>

Take care, John, Mandy & Cooper