Compact and Mobile Video and Audio Recording Solution

If you want to record both audio and video on the road, but you don't have the bandwidth or the budget to bring a big crew, I would suggest the following pieces of technology to make your life easy.  Audio will be excellent and the video will be captured with ISO tracks at 1080p for excellent post production capabilities. 

Audio

Zoom H6 Essential

This is a brand new 4-track recorder that Zoom just announced. In fact, it is so new that you can only get it on Zoom's website and it won't ship for a few weeks.  But it appears to be an update to the original Zoom H6, which has been a podcaster favorite for a while.  The reason for the H6 vs the P4 is that the later can only record a sample rate of 44.1kHZ whereas the H6 does 48kHZ.  The 48 better matches up with video and will allow the audio to sync more cleanly. 

With this H6 you can get a number of different microphones, but since we're talking portability and what I imagine will not always be ideal recording situations, I would suggest grabbing Sennheiser e835 handheld microphones.  You can get a 3-pack for about $250 or single mics for just $99 a piece.  These are durable, portable, and do a great job of rejecting background noise when you are in non-ideal recording environments. 

Mic stands for this setup can be a bit tricky.  You'll want to get as close to the mics as you can but you don't want to add a ton of extra weight that is usually associated with good mic stands.  in this scenario i would look at something like these gooseneck mic stands that will bring the mic close to the subject but should not weigh too much.  

A good stereo out cable can go from the H6 to one of the Mevo's so that there is backup audio as well as a sync track already built into the video file for the editor work off.  

Video

For video capture where portability is of the utmost importance as well as simplicity, I really like these Logitech Mevo's.  You get a 3-pack of 1080p webcams that are capable of recording iso tracks to built in SD Cards.  You can easily control them with an iPhone or iPad.  

Now you'll want to set these up very close to your subjects, less than 3 feet, because as soon as you zoom on these (digitally or in post-production), things can get grainy.  But if you can grab a few low-profile tripods like these with telescopic capabilities that can take it from 13" if you are placing them on a desk, all the way to 59" if you have to set them up on the floor.  

Accessories

Those are some basic ideas for capturing high-quality audio and video as portably as possible.  In these setups, power is always going to be an issue though.  I would consider getting a power extender like this that can plug into the wall and will give you 3x USB-A and 3x USB-C ports.  Should be more than enough to power the cameras and the H6 during the entire recording. 

You'll also need a handful of SD and Micro-SD memory cards to use in these devices.  Zoom says you can use 4GB–32GB microSDHC cards or 64GB–1TB microSDXC cards and Mevo has a full list here. 

Lastly, you'll probably want at least one pair of headphones just to make sure that you are recording audio correctly from one of the sources.  

Zoom H6 Essential (record up to 4 mics)

Sennheiser e835

Gooseneck mic stands (1x per mic)

stereo out cable

Logitech Mevo's

Tripods for Cameras (1x per each camera)

Power Extender