Central America. I must admit, by now I am really in love with this piece of the world. Love began in Mexico, and after Panama I only long for more. We have now been home for over a month from a wonderful trip and have just published our travel video!
Putting 4 weeks of Panama into a 4.5-minute video proved to be quite a task. But I didn’t want to make it too long; it should remain fun for everyone to watch. In this video I take you to the island groups of Bocas del Toro and San Blas (Guna Yala), the jungle of Gamboa and Boquete, the beautiful underwater world at Santa Catalina and the islet of Coiba, and of course the metropolis of Panama City.
This is our Panama aftermovie
This is it. Our travel video of Panama. Hope it inspires you!
For the best viewing experience, manually set the quality to 4K and turn on your sound 🙂
Have fun watching!
Dozens of gigabytes didn’t make it to this video, but fortunately there are still a lot of videos planned. For example, we are definitely going to do another must-do in Panama City video and destination videos of Gamboa and Boquete, among others.
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What equipment did we use to film this travel video?
I sometimes get asked what equipment we shoot with, so I’ll go into a little more detail here. We took a lot of material with us this trip, much more than usual!
System camera & lenses
Most of the footage in the travel video was taken with the fullframe Sony A7 IV system camera. I had three different lenses with me, also called Tamron’s “holy trinity.
I used the wide-angle Tamron 17-28 mm F/2.8 lens the least while traveling, only on a few timelapses. I had brought the wide-angle lens primarily to photograph the starry sky, but that didn’t end up happening (unfortunately). Next time I think I will leave this lens at home.
I took the Tamron 70-180 mm F/2.8 with me on my first trip. I had only ever tested this lens at a wedding, to film the ceremony from a tripod. But how glad I was to have picked this one up! Being able to convert the Sony A7 IV to crop factor, I had a 270mm range, which was really welcome for shooting wildlife. It was quite difficult to shoot out of hand though, the lens does not have built-in stabilization. That made me a little less creative. But in the end, I think the images turned out pretty okay! I think this lens will come with me on trips more often! Should you go to Panama and have a longer lens: do it, the longer the better!
The Tamron 28-75 mm F/2.8 is my go to lens when traveling and I used it the most. To San Blas, I took only one lens and it was this one. It’s just a super nice all-rounder that’s also not too heavy to lug around.
I also brought a tripod and gorilla pod, but barely used them. I prefer to film and photograph out of hand anyway, I notice every time. Only with the timelapses were they useful. Next time I think I’ll leave my tripod at home, and maybe just bring the Gorillapod.
Drone
We also had our DJI Mini 4 Pro drone with us. We had actually only tested this one once as well. But what a great device it is! The obstacle detection makes flying a lot nicer, a feature our Mini 2 did not have. Unfortunately, there was often a fair amount of wind so we didn’t let the drone take off very much.
360° camera
Then there is our 360° camera, the Insta360 One X2 with invisible selfie stick. Due to a mistake in the settings that we unfortunately did not realize, all the footage was filmed in far too low quality. Bummer, but nothing to be done about it! The 360° camera does give a cool variation in the images, as with the ATV (quad) which then serves as a fake drone.
Smartphone & accessories
And then finally, the iPhone 13 Pro. Next to the Sony the most used camera in this travel video. Because super convenient, you always have it with you and it weighs nothing extra 😉 Although I did have the DJI Osmo Mobile 6 with me as a stabilizer. In retrospect, I just used those a little too little! I find that my iPhone is a bit heavy for the device and that makes stabilization difficult, so I often didn’t use it.
Which camera we used underwater? The iPhone with this underwater case that we can really recommend! For only €25 you can transform your smartphone into a proper underwater camera!
That was it! Still have questions? Let us know in the comments!
