Hey everyone! I can tell by reading there is a lot of experience here. If you have the time to list what equipment you would buy if you had $10,000 to start a Videography business, what would you buy for equipment.

I am willing to spend a extra thousand or two if it makes good sense to do so.

So far I have decided on:
- 2 PD150's
- an Apple G4 NLE (already bought it so don't deduct from the 10K)

I will be directing a crew of 3 Videographers (including myself). Weddings, Anniversaries, Birthday's, and moving to corporate productions and so on. Third camera will rented until I decide to buy another camera. Third camera will probably be a GL2 or XL1S. (Canon offers a good Zoom on the GL and the XL1S is extremely flexible. Can you blame me?)

Share what you will and I thank you for the effort.

Mark

Spend good money on GOOD Audio equipment.
What's good you ask! Good question. Depends on what you're doing. I have my own thoughts as does everyone else here so I'll just name some names; Sennheiser, Azden,AT, Shure it's a long list.
Perhaps Wide Angle Lens attachments, telephoto lens attachments. Again, different mfgs.
Lets light it up, on camera, studio or off camera lighting and accessories.
The list can be very long, it really depends on where the majority of your business is going to be coming from. Lots of weddings and some corporate work or the other way around. I personnally do a lot of weddings and social events, therefore when I do a corporate job, something set up and I have control over things going on, my needs are different and I might borrow or rent what I don't have.
Everyone on this forum has different ideas whats needed but we will all agree on a couple of things, I think, AUDIO and Audio,. After that, again it depends on the majority type of work you're doing.
Sorry I couldn't help more but I think alot is up to you first to decide what direction you'll be going in. Oh yeah, did I mention audio? :]
Don B.

Big batteries. Tripods, good ones. Good sound equipment.

I spent $15,000, and didn't even come close to having what I wanted. $300 for a tripod that dipped under the XL1s, $800 for a weak light set, $1,000 for a great hard disk audio recorder that really could have used a battery backup. It really is hard to plan on what you need, because you'll always run into a situation where you need something you don't have.

Make sure you will have power in any scenario, sturdy lights, a steady and smooth tripod, a variety of mics, and a dependible way to record your audio. Then you'll also want a variety of connectors, adapters, and cables. That will take care of the first part of the job.

Next, you should have a good VTR, to save wear and tear on your cams. A good camera for still pics, video monitor, a scanner, and a good graphics program or three.

On the other end of the edit you'll want a good S-Video VCR, high quality tapes, lables, jackets, etc. DVD is another story all together, but something to consider.

The money doesn't seem to stretch far enough.