My Korea Camera Gear Mini-Review! What Worked & Didn't_ _ Sony a7C a1 a7S3 50GM Sigma 28-70mm

What's going on hybrid shooters, it's Jason Vong. So I brought a lot of camera gear to Korea, mainly a lot of lenses and damn does my back hurt. So I decided to share my opinion on what worked and what didn't in hopes that would shine some extra light on some of these gear, in case you were considering them for yourself. Though keep in mind, these are very condensed points and mostly confined to the uses of traveling. So don't expect any full blown reviews on anything specific. And a lot of photos and footage you'll see from this video are still work in progress. So definitely tune back into the channel periodically to see the final results. So cameras, I brought the A7C, the A7S III and the A1. For the more relaxed photography day, the days I don't wanna bring out so many different cameras because maybe we're not shooting videos, I would use the A7C and pair with the new G lenses. The lighter form factor just makes it easy to carry around. Like I stated in my A7C video, I just liked the idea of having a compact full frame camera, you know, I'm having to bring this type of body right here and it just use something like this, something small like this. So it's really nice. But if we have to shoot videos, I love the A1, I love the A7S III, I love the A1 mainly because of the super 35 mode. I can still do 4K 60 in super 35 mode. So that is really nice. And the low light on the A7S III just can't be beat. So if we're shooting any night stuff, A7S III. Now for an average person, they're probably not gonna bring three cameras, three full frame cameras, but you guys know me, we make the YouTube videos. So for days that we need to get samples and shoot with the new lenses, we will be using the A7C and the A1. Myself as the host, using all these cameras for the photo samples and Vivian or a friend of ours will be shooting video with the A7S III or the A1 if the A7S III has to be, you know, if I had to grab some samples for the A7S III. Okay, so I didn't just bring three cameras, I brought four cameras. This is the RX100 Mark VII. It has a 24 to 200 millimeter zoom. This is a tiny pocket point and shoot camera that turks a punch. Look how long this thing is. Now, when the RX100 Mark VII first came out, it was a super unpopular camera with the internet, but I saw its potential. Again, like I mentioned the 24 to 200 millimeter zoom, but why was it unpopular? A lot of people like to compare it with the RX100 Mark V and RX100 Mark IV. And that's because the lenses that those cameras use was like a 24 to 70 at 1.8 to 2.8. This is a 24 to 200 at 2.8 to 4.5. So a slightly closed up aperture. People saw this as a disadvantage if you need to shoot in low light and coupled with the fact that the internal ND, which was a feature in the RX100 Mark V and the IV is missing on the RX100 Mark VII. But again, I saw the potential of this camera. I just love the fact that I can get a 200 millimeter zoom. A pocket camera like this 200 millimeter zoom is losing out on the internal ND on a small pocket camera like this a big deal with the trade off being a 200 millimeter zoom. Not for me at least. I'm quite sad to say that I bought this camera with the intention of being my travel pocket zoom camera. I think I bought this back in 2019, but never really used it until this trip. And I gotta say, I pull this camera out very often. On my light travel days, I have the A7C paired with maybe a 24 or 50. But if I saw something that I couldn't reach with those lenses, the RX100 came through. Now of course, this is a pocket point and shoot camera. It's a one inch sensor. So it's gonna depend a lot on the lighting situation of course. It's not gonna have the high quality full frame look like some of these cameras. But I'm very happy with a lot of the photos that I took on this camera when I brought it out with me. And it's so light, it doesn't take up that much space. Oh yeah, and the price tag was a huge trade off for a lot of people. But it's worth it to me. So I'm pretty tempted to juggle these lenses every time I hold all three of them. But maybe I shouldn't because I don't know how to juggle. Now the crazy thing about these lenses is that I don't think it's still out yet, at least the time that I'm shooting this video and during the whole time I'm here. So anytime I walk into a Sony store here in Korea, rocking this on my A7C, I think I confused the hell out of the employees there. I don't know if they're staring because they know me or they're staring because I have an unreleased lens. Now I'm not gonna focus too much on these lenses because I made a video on it a few months ago. Wow, I've been here for two months. March was a few months ago, woo. But all I can say is don't knock on these lenses until you've tried them. It's way lighter and smaller than you imagine the friends that we hung out here during this trip when they just, when they saw me whip these out and they actually held it in their hand. They're just like, wow, these are way lighter and smaller than I thought. Again, it's really nice with the A7C. It really reminds me of using an APS-C setup back when I was using the A65, A6400. But now we have compact lenses for a compact full-frame camera. And I've also used it on the A7S III and the A1. And it's nice and light too. But again, I can't stress the form factor enough when you use it with the A7C. So on this trip, I have two different 50s. Both of them are brand new, the 50G and the 50GM. And I probably only used the 50GM my first two weeks here in Korea. And after that, I've always defaulted to this small compact 50 if I need the 50 millimeter look. The 50GM is just so chonky, man. Look at this. Look at the size comparison of this. Don't get me wrong. The 1.2 is super buttery, but for the most part, I didn't have to shoot at such a wide open aperture. So having a small compact one like this is really nice to travel around with, especially on days where I have to shoot a video and I have to carry multiple lenses, multiple cameras, the mic, the tripod, the gimbal. It was just easier to leave this behind and just grab this one instead. But a majority of the opinion on the internet will probably tell you to pick up a 40 or 50 alternative. These are slightly pricey, but for the small percentage of you who are actually considering these compact prime lenses, here's what I'll say. I'd give it a thumbs up. These are really great. They're nice and sharp and they're light. And the video autofocus on these are really, really good. So highly recommend if you're considering these lenses specifically. Next up, I brought the 20 millimeter F1.8G, which I'm using right now to shoot this talking head. This is the widest lens I brought and it's great. Do I wish it was a wider though? No, not really. For vlogging like this, I think it's perfect. And for a lot of the cityscape, landscape, architectural shots out here in Korea, yeah, it was perfect. Luckily, Korea doesn't feel too cramped. A lot of the places that we've been to, there has always been a decent amount of space if I need to back up to get the shot. There were very few rare instances where I wasn't a very tight space or I'm trying to capture this really tall building. That was then I wish it was wider. But for the most part, I think the 20G is perfect for this trip. With that said, I still kind of wish that Sony released the 14G Master a little sooner. That way I could have brought it on this trip and played with it. But thankfully, a majority of the time, I never really needed anything wider than a 20. So, great lens. All right, circling back to the 50G Master. Like I mentioned earlier, I would have much preferred if Sony released the 14G Master sooner, maybe the 14GM over the 50GM. That's just based on my own personal selfish reasons just because I would have been able to found more use for a 14GM than I would for a 50GM. Now, don't get me wrong. This 50GM is amazingly solid. The f1.2 is nice, incredibly sharp. I love all the results that I've been getting with it. But for a particular trip like this or just a travel trip in general, this isn't something that I would bring. Again, it's heavy, it's chonky, it does take up space. And more often than not, I don't find myself shooting at f1.2, especially during a bright sunny day and I have to compensate it with a lot of shutter, which is really nice with the a1 because I can go up to one over, I don't know, what is it, 12,000? But when I put this back on the a7C and I'm just trying to crank my shutter speed all the way to one over 8,000, and I was like, uh-oh, I am still overexposed. One over 8,000 f1.2 at ISO 50, oh my God. So yeah, I was just like, oh, okay, well, better put this back on the a1 shooting a bright sunny day at f1.2. But yeah, again, this lens is really nice. I think people who will find use for this for maybe for portraits or for studio work, for weddings or whatnot, this is one of the few lenses that you need to bring. Oh, absolutely fantastic. But for travel, much rather use a smaller 50. Next up, got the Zeiss Abadas 135 f2.8. This is the lens that I wished I used more. I think it's because I had to focus on the newer lenses on this trip that I sort of just had to leave this behind and I super regret it. The rare times that I did bring this out, I love the results. I love the region, I love the compression of this lens. The unpopular opinion about this lens is that it's crazy expensive for an f2.8. For me though, I paid the full price for this lens. I saved on the tax, but I paid full $2,000 when this lens first came out. They have since lowered the price. I think now it's like 1699 as its default price, but I paid the full 2,000 for it, worth every penny. This is a lens that I still have in my kit to this day. And it's been four years now. Yeah, it's been four years, it's been crazy. But yes, it is relatively the same price or maybe slightly more expensive than its competitors. But for how uber light and ultra light it is in f2.8, just makes it super easy to carry around with. But again, it's because when we have to go out and shoot videos and have to bring the new lenses along, and as well as the other gear, the gimbal, the tripod, and all that stuff that I kind of just have to leave this behind. And in case you were wondering, here's the 50, here's the 135. Although they have the same girthiness to them, the 50 GM is a little bit more heavier. All right, moving on to the Sigma 28-70 f2.8C contemporary lens. And this might've been probably one of my favorite video lens to use on this trip. Now, prior to coming to Korea, I was actually considering a super versatile lens, like maybe the Tamron 20-75, or even the Sony 24-105, because I just wanted a versatile video lens on this trip for all the video shoots that we were gonna do out here. I like to use prime lenses when I'm doing photography, and I like using zoom lenses when I'm doing run-and-gun video work. But the timing was perfect because Sigma just released this lens right before we left, so we shot them an email, which was like, hey, do you think we can possibly borrow this for the trip? So we love using this lens on the A1 because we can use it as is, full frame 20-70, or punch in with super 35 mode and get about a 35-105 equivalent. Anyways, it's super nice to use this lens in super 35 mode and still be able to use 4K 60 frames per second. I think one thing that really surprised me was how good the video autofocus was on this lens. It was smooth and responsive. I never really saw any issues with focusing. And if you've caught the last, I don't know, three or four videos that I've released out here in Korea, they were primarily shot with the Sigma 20-70, unless you watched the Jeonju episode, which was shot on the 20-millimeter G because we had to use the 20-70 for photography reasons. But yeah, the photos are nice and sharp, which you can see from that Jeonju video that I just talked about. I don't have a direct comparison against the Tamron or the G Master 24-70, but I think by now there are plenty on the internet if you wanna check that out if you wanna weigh in which ones you get. But as for me, our user experience here with this lens has been fantastic. All right, next up is the Sony Bluetooth mic, which I am currently using right now to shoot this talking head right here. It's good, but it has some minor quirks. So this mic does have a lot of key features that makes it really appealing. One thing that I really like about this mic is that once you power it on, it just works. The connection is just instantaneous, which I like a lot. And like the ECM-B1M, the shotgun mic right here, it does have a digital signal, so you can just plug it on top of your Sony hot shoe and it would work without a 3.5-millimeter jack, which is nice. But here comes the problem that we ran into when we're using it as a digital signal mic. So it might've been how we were carrying it because we're running and gunning and trying to shoot a video. We're holding the camera on our arm like this, and maybe it pushed the mic off the hot shoe just a bit, so it gets disconnected. So when we were shooting one take, the audio was actually recorded on the onboard camera itself and not from the Bluetooth mic. Thankfully, it just happened once, and it was a take that I didn't plan on using anyway. But ever since then, we have been super mindful. Every time, right before we roll, we would have to make sure that we push the mic into the hot shoe right before the take. You see, the receiver on the Bluetooth loft mic does not have this tightener right here like the shotgun mic does. So I can actually tighten this and I can't take it off the hot shoe, but the receiver on the Bluetooth mic does not have that. And the thing is, there's really no indication on the camera screen itself, letting you know that you have a Bluetooth or a hot shoe accessory attached on top of the camera. So when we were rolling, there was no way that we would have known that the camera or the mic got detached. But if you use this mic with a three and a half millimeter audio cable, there's nothing to really worry about. Personally, I found the setting at negative 20 dB on the mic and about 20-ish on the camera setting with the cable to work really nicely. It really helped mitigate the loud wind that we were experiencing when we were shooting up at a mountain, Mount Inwangsan, when we were doing our lives, when a huge gust of wind just blew by. It was super loud to us when we were at the spot, but the viewers were telling us like, hey, we didn't hear any wind at all. So this mic is really, really good in terms of audio quality. It's getting cold. It's windy. It's wind, okay. Again, apologize for the wind. Whoa. So another key feature about this mic is that not only does it get the audio from the transmitter itself, but also from the receiver. So when we were doing our live, I was standing in front of the camera and Vivian was standing behind the camera. People can't hear her when I was talking in front of the camera. So it does a good job eliminating the noise around you. But let's just say if we want to hear someone behind the camera, maybe an interviewer or just someone behind the camera, we can just turn on mix signal. It's nice to have that option to listen to what the interviewer said to the interviewee. But the potential problem that I see with that is let's just say, hey, maybe your interviewer behind the camera was breathing a bit too loud and it got captured into the audio source. The thing is you can't really separate it. It gets recorded onto one track. It's not like you can record the transmitter on the right channel and the receiver on the left channel. Everything just gets mixed into one. So if you have hiccups on the back end of the mic, then yeah, it just gets recorded. So unless you have a backup audio, that's the potential problem that I see with this. Like I said, this mic, the audio quality is great, but it does have some minor quirks. And the other minor quirk is that it charges via micro USB instead of USB-C. Okay, gimbal. I brought with me the DJI RS 2. I bought it earlier last, no, this year, towards the end of last year. I love it, but I'm planning on selling it. So recently I got a chance to hold the Zhiyun Weibo again and oh my God, I forgot how light that gimbal was. I sold mine last summer and I now kind of regret it because I miss having a smaller gimbal. So I'm just gonna wait until Zhiyun release the next iteration of it. But the RS 2 is great. The motors are really strong. And the reason why I bought it was because I was, I can't, we can change the gimbal setting on the gimbal itself rather than Bluetoothing to our phone and change the settings there. I never really liked having to connect via Bluetooth to a phone to use a camera gear. It just doesn't make any sense to me. It just doesn't, it never, it hardly ever works well. But yeah, I really love that aspect of the Ronin RS 2. But after using on this trip, I just value the smaller form factor of the Weibo. And like this whole entire video, just valuing the smaller form factor on a lot of these lighter and smaller pieces of gear. So yeah, I'll probably sell the RS 2. I don't think I'll regret it, but if I do, I'll let you guys know. Okay, so tripod, Peak Design Travel Tripod. The popular opinion on the internet about this tripod is that it is super not worth it because it is super expensive, but it's really been worth it to me. This has been the only tripod that I've been carrying and traveling with me for anywhere that we need to go. Now, I don't do a lot of fluid head motion. I don't need to do any pan or tilt or anything like that. If I need to do that, I have a gimbal for that. But for the most part, this is stationary. So I would do time-lapses for it or long exposure. And it's been really nice to bring along with me. There's really not much for me to say, but I figured I'd put it out there because people will always ask if this is the tripod that I've still been using, as with many of the gear that I feature on this channel. It's just, are you still using it? So yes, I am still using the Peak Design Everyday Travel Tripod. So there were other pieces of gear that I brought with me that I didn't really mention on this channel just because I think they're kind of on a bit of a less significant end, but I did bring my Westcott Flex 1x1 light with a light stand, my dedicated microphone, a Shure microphone. Sure, yeah, Shure microphone with a MixP3 audio recorder. I brought a monopod, which I never used. But for the light and the mic, there were a few times that I used it for a dedicated project. So it did come in handy, but after getting out of, yeah, pretty much after the second week in Korea, I didn't really have to use it all that much. So do I regret bringing those? No, not really, but it was probably not necessary. So in the last few videos that I've published, I think there were a few comments asking me how do I combat bringing too much gear with me on a trip? So I think a lot of people are asking based on a perspective as a casual vacation goers, not so much as to bring gear for paid work or doing YouTube. And to that, I say, unless you're using this, you've been using this piece of gear every day, don't bring it. I know we're tempted to buy a bunch of new gear to bring with us on a trip just because, oh, it would be great, it would be super handy for this type of situation or that type of situation. Maybe I need a GoPro to shoot all my behind the scenes or an Insta360 for that smooth stabilization, or maybe I'll just get a gimbal for my phone or for my cameras. I wanna get some really nice, smooth, and stable shots. Stop yourself right there. I would advise not buying a bunch of new gear and bringing it with you on a trip because what's likely gonna happen is that it's just gonna be on your backpack. And as you go about your day, you're getting tired, you're walking, you're doing a bunch of walking, you have to stop everywhere. You're just not gonna pull these gear out. You'll just be too tired to. The last thing you wanna do is wear yourself down and not capture anything on all the fancy equipment that you brought and relegate everything to your phone because it has happened to me too. So I would say if you're eyeing a bunch of new gear, just really kind of take the time to reevaluate like advantages and disadvantages for every little thing and for the one thing that has the most advantage, just buy that one thing and just bring a regular camera setup. For me, it's sort of different. There has been a lot of new pieces of gear to play with that I'm super excited for. And because we are here for two months as opposed to a regular person who's traveling for two weeks, it's okay for me to have all these things because I can just cycle through them throughout my whole time here. But there were times where I did bring a little too much with me on one of our little day trips and I kind of just have it all in my backpack. So when there comes a time where I see a shot that I wanna take, I'd be too tired to whip out a camera and that would just result to shooting on my phone instead. So yeah, it can happen and I'm just being real here. I think in a really realistic situation, if you're just not used to using all these gear while you're out on the go, it just wouldn't make sense for you to overdo it and overbring it. So yeah, I would say, again, just get that one piece of gear and bring the stuff that you need, that's all. Or bring the stuff that you've been using for quite some time now is what I meant, yeah. All right, so that's been my Korea camera gear escapade. Let me know in the comments down below any opinions you have. I foresee a lot of comments saying, bro, you need to lift more if you're complaining about all this weight. But I'm telling you guys, man, once you get to my age and you're out traveling, you're just doing this for fun and you realize all the stuff that you've been bringing with you and been weighing you down, maybe then you'll understand. But at the end of the day, because I know what to bring and what not to bring, I've been a lot more efficient as to what to bring with me on day trips or for YouTube productions that I've caught a lot of great stuff while I'm in Korea. I am super happy with all the videos and the photos that we've been able to capture. And I think there'll be more to share because we have some stuff in the back burner right now that we will be releasing in the next few months or so. So guys, thank you so much for watching and we'll see you guys back in the States. Peace. Vivian and I always strive to bring you guys the best and most unique image and video samples whenever we talk about cameras and lenses. And oftentimes we have high production costs to make this all happen. It's sponsors like Squarespace that help funds our production budget so we can keep bringing you guys more high quality samples. So the best way to support us and to help us continue to do what we do is to simply check out how Squarespace can help you. Link down below. Squarespace is an all-in-one platform to create beautiful websites. No coding knowledge whatsoever. Perfect for people like me because I just wanna make YouTube videos for you guys and not have to worry about coding my entire website. Simply just select one of their templates to get started. Every aspect is easily customizable with their drag and drop feature. Whether you're in need of a portfolio, an e-commerce store, or even a simple blog, design it with Squarespace. Use my link down below to test it out and when you're ready to launch your first website or domain, use my code Jason Vong to save 10% off. Guys, thank you so much for watching. I'll see you guys in the next video. Peace.