Equipment

Planet Sound

Recording Equipment

Zoom F4 - This is my main recording device and I love it! It's got x4 built in XLR/Jack inputs, but I've also attached an addition x2 XLR/Jack, giving me x6 individual channels to record with. On top of this, I also run with a 66watt battery pack in my sound bag, giving me over 12 hours of recording time with a single phantom powered microphone. 

Tascam DR40 - This is a nice, small and easily pocketable recorder with built in stereo microphones, making it ideal for recording ambient environment sounds when walking about.

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 - For any recordings that need more channels than what my portable recorders can provide, I use my Scarlett recording interface straight into my DAW on my laptop. It gives me x8 microphone preamps direct to my laptop, as well as x8 more inputs over Fibre Optic and x2 more over SPDIF. 

Microphones

Rode NTG3 Shotgun - Really nice and easy to use on a boom. It also sounds nice too!

sE Electronics sE8 x2 - I've used these a fair bit for interior film shots. They're also nice and easy to hide! These are also a matched pair, so I've used them a few times on a stereo bar in AB and XY setups.

Rode NT2a - I've mainly used this microphone on audio book recording workshops with kids. It's a nice voice over microphone, with the added bonus of the suspension mount having the pop shield built in.

Audio Technica Pro37 - I use this one as a quick alternative to the sE8 pair. Another easy to hide microphone.

Sennheiser e945 - As a lot of my background comes from live music, I've used this microphone a lot on stage. The Hypercardioid polar pattern makes it fantastic for cutting out unwanted noise from loud bands! 

Sennheiser e845 - I originally bought this microphone used as a cheap backup to my e945, but it stands up as a nice microphone in its own right too.

Sennheiser e906 - I bought this after performing at a concert were the venue mic'ed our amps up with these microphones, and I just had to have one! While it's meant for use on instruments, in a pinch I've used it a few times on the kids recording workshops when in need of more microphones and it's still performed quite well!

Shure SM57 - Probably not a microphone that needs much talking about! This was the first professional microphone I bought, after many unsuccessful runs with cheap Poundland microphones and wondering why I could never get a decent sound! I've used this on countless live events, as well as studio recordings. 

Wireless Transmitters

Sennheiser EW300 g2 - Sennheisers audio and build quality is hard to ignore. I'm currently running this system with a lav mic transmitter and one of my stage IEM receiver packs. These operate within the  863.100 MHz to 864.900 MHz license free UHF band. 

Line 6 G50 - As much as I like the Sennheiser system, its biggest draw back can be the use of the license free band can sometimes lead to some interference from other users. To get around this I have this digital system as a backup, which operates in the 2.4GHz Wifi band. 

Audio Software

Digital Audio Workstations 

Avid Pro Tools - For any sort of film or audio intensive work, I'll always go for Pro Tools first. 

Ableton Live - I've used Live a lot in live music performances, were I've setup Live to control all effect switching and programming DMX lighting. While i'll mainly use it for MIDI based stuff, it has worked well for me with a lot of audio manipulation as well.  

Steinberg Cubase - I like Cubase as a good intermediary between Ableton Live for MIDI and Pro Tools for hard core audio.

iZotope RX Standard - While RX Standard is limited to 2 audio channels per session, its audio restoration tools are just... other worldly. Remove annoying noises from already recorded clips, remove noise, even reduce room reverb! This software is actually witchcraft! 

Apple Logic Pro X - Unlike everything else listed, I actually don't directly own a copy of it myself. I do however use it a lot in the studio at Voice-Plus Academy of Arts. While I always lean more towards other DAWs for more advance work, I like how quick and easy it is to get up, running and recording without much project setup time.  

Plugins - The fun stuff!

Native Instruments Komplete 11 Ultimate - A maaaaaassive plugin pack, containing anything from synths, effects and instrument libraries. 

Waves Plugins - Abbey Road Vinyl, C6 Multiband Compressor, Center, DeBreath, Doubler, H-Comp, H-Delay, H-Reverb, IR1 Convolution Reverb, L2 Ultramaximizer, PRS SuperModels, Reel ADT, Sibilance, SSL E-Channel, SuperTap, Renaissance Axx, Renaissance Channel, Renaissance DeEsser, Vitamin Sonic Enhancer, Waves Tune, WLM Plus Loudness Meter. 

iZotope -  Ozone Imager, RX8 Standard. 

Softube - Drawmer S73, Saturation Knob, TSAR-1R Reverb, Tube Delay

The Visual World

Cameras

Canon 90D - This is my main camera for video and photography. I've used it on quite a few professional shoots now and it performs really well! I've installed a colour mod to it to give a bit more post-production colour correction flexibility. My 2021 showreel video was all shot with this camera. Photography wise, having 32.5Megapixels to play with can be such a big help in post of things need adjusting composition wise.  

Canon 600D - My first DSLR! It's shutter count is beyond 100,000 photos now but it's still going! I mainly use this camera for timelapse photography now and as a photography backup to the 90D

GoPro Hero 4 Black - I think everyone needs to have a GoPro somewhere in their kit! Clamp it to the front of a car, onto a guitar, even onto your shoulder. It just gets on with it, regardless of how many times it gets smacked around!

DJI Phantom 4 Professional 4k - Drones have become such a big part of film production now, it would be rude to not have one! I've done a lot of "Sky Photospheres" with this drone and posted them to Google Street View... even though they're technically in the sky! One of these photospheres has had over a million views! All these photospheres can be viewed on my Google Maps profile here

Lenses

Canon 28 - 135mm f3.5 x2 - This has been my main lens for awhile for both video and photography. I actually own x2 of these lenses now! Good for wide angle and upclose photography and video. Having f3.5 can be a big help in darker environments. 

Canon 10-18mm f4.5 - I use this lens as a boardline fisheye lens. Has seen some video usage but its main use has been when capturing photospheres.

Canon 50mm f1.8 - Having a lens that can go to f1.8 is such a big advantage in live music photographer, where you're always going to be fighting the dark environment! I've used it in a few videos as well for the nice shallow depth of field.  

Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro - The first thing that always comes to mind with this lens was when I was filming some extreme upclose macro shots of my eye for one of my bands live backdrop videos. This has been such a fun lens to play with stuff really close up.

Tamron 70 - 300mm f4 - I've mainly used this one for plane photography when at Liverpool or Manchester Airports, but it's nice for getting close shots of nature as well.

Canon 18-55mm f3.5 - While this was just the kit lens included with my 600D, it's still seen a lot of usage in my timelapse photography were I've just left the camera somewhere for a few days. 

Lighting 

Neewer 660 LED Bicolour Panels x2 - The thing I really like about these lights is the bluetooth app control via my phone. Being able to control the brightness and colour temperature of each panel individually. Having the ability to battery power them is a massive bonus as well when "Out in the wild."

Handheld 120 LED Lamp - This is just a small unbranded battery powered lamp, but I light how small and light it is for sticking on a stand and positioning above a scene. I must admit, I've used this light A LOT for night walks as well...

850Watt Redhead Tungsten Lights x3 - These were my first filming and photography lights. Tungsten lighting always has such a nice colour to it on camera, but they can work as good room heaters too!

Stairville 240 RGB LED Bar x4 - I've mainly used these for live performances. While we're performing on stage, our in ear monitors will be playing a metronome to each of us from my laptop. This means everything we play is in time to Ableton, giving me the ability to play preprogramed DMX lighting commands to the lights in time to what we're playing! 

NEC Short Throw Projector - I've used this projector a lot on stage to project images and videos behind us while performing. Because its a short throw projector, it makes it ideal for putting somewhere on stage but still getting a big image behind! I've also used it a few times for presentations to parents at Voice-Plus Academy of Arts. 

Video and Image Software

Blackmagic Davinci Resolve Studio - I had been working with the free version for awhile as it just did everything I needed of it, but I decided to take the plunge and buy the full studio version. The colour corrective tools are just so easy to use, but having an NLE and visual effects package built all into one program makes it an incredibly powerful software package. 

Skylum Luminar - I like to think those annoying adverts on Youtube don't work on me. But when I saw Luminar advertised I just had to try it. I quickly ended up buying it and, 9 times out of 10, always use it on my photos in post. 

Adobe Photoshop - I've been using photoshop for as long as I can remember, to the point I replaced the teacher for teaching our class how to use it in high school! I use it for anything from general photography post, image manipulation and graphic design. 

Blender - Blender has quickly become a high quality industry recognised 3D modelling and rendering package. Back when I was doing Computer Games Technology at university there wasn't much choice outside of Autodesk Maya/3DSMax/Softimage for 3D animation, costing a few thousand each for the full program. The fact Blender is completely free and keeps up with the likes of Maya speaks for itself.

Hugin - I thought Hugin was worth a mention as well. When it comes to photosphere photography, you have to capture a good 26 or more photos of each angle of the photosphere. Once you have all these photos, you have to stitch them together by comparing the edges of each photo together and looking areas of similarity. While Hugin can do a good job of these on its own most of the time, sometimes it does require manual work to stitch these photos together, but the software gives you a full toolset to do this with. And its free!

Cables

Many.