What camera? 5DIII or a 3chip?

[matteusclement]

My budget is about $3500+tax tops.

I was eyeballing a used Canon HX A1 for $2000 but then the Mark3 came out and seeing the test footage, it's pretty amazing and I already have a series of lenses.

What I like about the DSLR workflow is that as soon as I come home, I can drag and drop files and I am good to go. None of this real time stuff.
BUT I do like the back up of TAPE even though I have a RAID1 set up.

I have been making mainly short videos.
I edit on both PC and Mac, both in Premiere.

Here are a few pieces of work to help weigh in on the choice:
https://vimeo.com/37150777

https://vimeo.com/31452057

https://vimeo.com/22330605

Not going to lie, I am referenced to Canon since they have never failed me despite my abuse.

 

[salacious]

My budget is about $3500+tax tops.

I was eyeballing a used Canon HX A1 for $2000 but then the Mark3 came out and seeing the test footage, it's pretty amazing and I already have a series of lenses.

What I like about the DSLR workflow is that as soon as I come home, I can drag and drop files and I am good to go. None of this real time stuff.
BUT I do like the back up of TAPE even though I have a RAID1 set up.

I have been making mainly short videos.
I edit on both PC and Mac, both in Premiere.

Here are a few pieces of work to help weigh in on the choice:
https://vimeo.com/37150777

https://vimeo.com/31452057

https://vimeo.com/22330605

Not going to lie, I am referenced to Canon since they have never failed me despite my abuse.

get a mark 2...

 

[cgbier]

While I prefer real cameras (XF100 would fit your budget), I'd suggest the Mark II. The new one is pretty underwhelming IMHO.

 

[jnash]

While I prefer real cameras (XF100 would fit your budget), I'd suggest the Mark II. The new one is pretty underwhelming IMHO.

Dude I agree with the two guys above, I sold my T2i prior to the 5D Mark III coming out hoping for it to blow AWAY the 5d Mark II, however for the HUGE price difference (easily over $1,000) on the video side its not MUCH difference at all. My choice will be the 5DII and using the rest of the money im saving for jibs, cranes, or a nice manfroto tripod with a fluid head.

 

[LethalWolfe]

What are you shooting with now and What does your current gear not do that you hope new gear will do?

As an aside, RAID1 gives you redundancy, not a backup. RAID1 won't protect you from accidentally deleting something, a file going corrupt or a power surge that fries your rig.


Lethal

 

[WRP]

April 16th is another announcement from Canon at NAB. Claims of the mythical 4k DSLR announcements are in the air. Whatever you do... wait a few more weeks.

But I echo the statements above about the 5d2 if it is going to be video if the framerates work for you. If you got a bunch of L glass or fast primes it may be right up your alley. You can get them for $1600 used and spend more on glass.

And on LW's point. I am rocking RAID5 but am considering RAID6 as my friend just incurred a second drive fail on rebuild of his RAID5.

 

[sunnyj]

i would go with the af-100

 

[pigbat]

I was seriously considering the xf100 but decided to spend $800 on a 60D just to test the waters. If I didn't like it, I knew I could sell it at a $100 loss. After working with a SLR for 6 months, I have no regrets. I'm upgrading and currently torn between the 5d2 and the 5d3. The 3 has a few features I really like (HD out while recording, 60 fps for slow motion, etc), I just can't decide if it's worth the extra $1000.

 

[Menel]

What are you shooting with now and What does your current gear not do that you hope new gear will do?

As an aside, RAID1 gives you redundancy, not a backup. RAID1 won't protect you from accidentally deleting something, a file going corrupt or a power surge that fries your rig.


Lethal

Or a virus corrupting data
Or a thief
Or your home burning down/flooding

RAID1 is near worthless.

Carbonite/Mozy, private hosting with ThePlanet or other colo.

 

[matteusclement]

i would go with the af-100

why is that? it seems like a weird one....

 

[kylepro88]

Honestly I would go with the 5D MKIII although that depends on your needs. I've used the XHA1 HEAVILY and I just sold it today actually. I shot my first feature on it as well so I really enjoy that camera. However, the XF100 camera is a much better camera in a lot of ways for not that much more money.

The 5D MKIII despite reports is actually a good step up from the 5D MKII so I don't suggest you go for the MKII. People wanted a more resolute image, and what they got was everything else minus that. The image is still softer, it's still not very resolute, but the moire/aliasing is gone, headphone jack, much better codec and bitrate's, amazing improvement in ISO performance (almost double), 1080p to your output monitor on record not 480p like the old MKII which made focus a nightmare, and it's just a better all around stills camera with features improved on that end. I've played with and seen some RAW 5DMKIII footage and I can assure you, it's far cleaner then the MKII, the image issues are non-existant, and even though it's not really more resolute on paper, to my eye since the moire and such is gone...it does LOOK like a more resolute image. Also, comparing the XHA1 image to the 5D...the 5D wins. It's probably less resolute, but only mildly and FAR cleaner.

You can get a used MKII for $1700-2000 right now and new for $2200, but for $3500 you can get the MKIII body and have a much better camera IMO. With that is the need for lenses, but are you looking for that or an ENG camera because if you don't mind an ENG camera then why consider a DSLR at all? Why not go for the XF100 a proper video camera or something comparable?

Either way if it came down to Canon DSLR's, the MKIII is my pick at this point despite price. MKII just has too many image issues and the 480p monitor output drives me bonkers. Maybe if you don't mind the image issues you can save money and go for a Canon 7D if you don't mind a non full-frame camera, or the 60D which is a favorite for many and doesn't have the 480p monitor issues...and it's not full-frame, but has a swing out LCD people like.

Decisions...decisions...

 

[matteusclement]

What are you shooting with now and What does your current gear not do that you hope new gear will do?

As an aside, RAID1 gives you redundancy, not a backup. RAID1 won't protect you from accidentally deleting something, a file going corrupt or a power surge that fries your rig.


Lethal

Hey Lethal,
You just finished smashing (reviewing) my last piece of work... LOL.
That gives you an idea of what I am doing. The commercials I posted here are another example.

So two things:
1. RAID1
I know it's not the fail safe of awesomeness, but I am not making features yet AND most of the commercial stuff could be reshot if some lightniing storm happened. Also, I work from a RAID 0 that has the footage that I work with in Premiere. So if the RAID0 get $%^&*&^% then I can go back to the RAID1. I will be looking to online storage in the future.

2. What am I looking for?
Sexy pro looking footage. What do I mean by that?
I shoot with a t2i and a canon hv30. It's okay, but it's not great.
So some of the moire that I never knew about until someone pointed it out is now killing me.
Then there's the low light. The mark3 seems to be KILLING the low light situations.

3. the catch.
I shoot for a job and I shoot for a hobbie. So having the I.S. in the camera is nice, but not a must.

here is a sample of work where I really like the image quality. it looks like a mark2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MPLQvO6hLJ0#!

Maybe I just need better glass?
I am using a canon 50mm 1.8 & a sigma 30mm 1.4

but now that I think about it, if none of my past clients have really complained about the quality, then getting a few things like a Gopro2, glidecam, nice tripod and a nice lens or two could go a long way to increasing the production value....

DAMN! what to do!?

 

[cgbier]

I.S.? XF100 handheld on a motorbike:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGf3lgCtY-w

I haven't shot much in low light yet (living in the tropics, I have more often the problem with too much light), however, I get pretty clean footage from 9-12dB gain. Everything above works with Neat Video to an extend. You'll have to push the colors a bit with higher gain.

 

[sunnyj]

why is that? it seems like a weird one....

i would go with the af-100 because its the best "bang for the buck" interchangeable lens camera. it has a large sensor (micro4/3) for all your shallow depth of field needs, xlr, zebra, waveform, peaking, uncompressed sdi/hdmi out, viewfinder and a few other things. dslr's are great, but they a stills camera first and video second. if you need a servo lens and don't need shallow depth of field the canon hx a1 should be fine.

 

[puckhead193]

I looked at the retirment comminity video. To me the footage seems fine. The colors seems to pop. If your clients aren't complaining about quality then it's fine. Of course a pro will nit pick (that's our jobs) but average joe isn't going to pixel peep and if it looks good they won't complain.

Stop pixel peeping. Your limited to your gear and if your not going to drop serious cash on equipment it's going to happen. I stopped comparing my footage at work from the the broadcast cameras we use in the field to my Sony NX5.

The video you provided was great much better then what I was expecting. if I was over 59 I'd consider living there. The shots you used were creative and everything had a purpose.

 

[thekev]

And on LW's point. I am rocking RAID5 but am considering RAID6 as my friend just incurred a second drive fail on rebuild of his RAID5.

You'd need backups either way. All RAID controllers and boxes are not created equally. With RAID5 you obviously pick up some fault tolerance, but that's partially dependent on a non flakey controller, so it doesn't remove the need to do hardware research and maintain backups, especially in case of corruption which was mentioned. I'm not sure how many controllers support RAID6 without spending very large sums of money.

So two things:
1. RAID1
I know it's not the fail safe of awesomeness, but I am not making features yet AND most of the commercial stuff could be reshot if some lightniing storm happened. Also, I work from a RAID 0 that has the footage that I work with in Premiere. So if the RAID0 get $%^&*&^% then I can go back to the RAID1. I will be looking to online storage in the future.

Well at least you have backups in order. UPS + a quality surge protector should protect you from the lightning storm situation. Online storage is quite expensive and slow (sadly). I wish it was feasible for me as a secondary backup.

Also you guys wouldn't believe how many times I've had to explain why RAID is not a substitute for backups.

Stop pixel peeping. Your limited to your gear and if your not going to drop serious cash on equipment it's going to happen. I stopped comparing my footage at work from the the broadcast cameras we use in the field to my Sony NX5.

The video you provided was great much better then what I was expecting. if I was over 59 I'd consider living there. The shots you used were creative and everything had a purpose.

I agree with you here. It's pointless nitpicking against something that is out of your budget range. Still photographers do this too. Quite a few of them rent digital MF when shooting advertising/higher budget jobs, then use a dslr the rest of the time.

 

[Pikemann Urge]

Well there is no way I would allow the use of a 5DII on any production, low budget or otherwise. In effect it is not an HD camera, even though technically it is supposed to be. The effective fill area of the sensor (when in video mode) is dreadful.

The new Canons are far superior. The Nikon D800 apparently has RAW HD output via HDMI. But I don't shoot video so I can't speak from experience.

 

[infowarfare]

Well there is no way I would allow the use of a 5DII on any production, low budget or otherwise. In effect it is not an HD camera, even though technically it is supposed to be. The effective fill area of the sensor (when in video mode) is dreadful.

Really? The 5Dii was used to shoot an entire episode of the hit American Primetime TV show "House", was used for the new "Act Of Valor" feature film, the new opening title sequence for "Saturday Night Live", the new "Hawaii Five-O" TV show... etc.

Just wondering what makes you so much better than these actual, professional productions? Just curious...

 

[thekev]

Really? The 5Dii was used to shoot an entire episode of the hit American Primetime TV show "House", was used for the new "Act Of Valor" feature film, the new opening title sequence for "Saturday Night Live", the new "Hawaii Five-O" TV show... etc.

Just wondering what makes you so much better than these actual, professional productions? Just curious...

That's pretty incredible. Aside from cost what made them so popular? I mean shows like that do have the budget to use what they want for the most part. I know very little on the topic, which is why my only other response in the thread was in RAID and a still photography reference.

 

[Pikemann Urge]

Really? The 5Dii was used to shoot an entire episode of the hit American Primetime TV show "House", was used for the new "Act Of Valor" feature film, the new opening title sequence for "Saturday Night Live", the new "Hawaii Five-O" TV show... etc.

I'm aware of that (my statement is in that context so I should have mentioned it - mea culpa). My point is that I would not have approved such a move. The 5DII clearly is not a professional grade movie camera (it isn't even 2K quality).

Just wondering what makes you so much better than these actual, professional productions? Just curious...

I would simply refer you to the professionals who would not use such a camera for their productions, even if it saved them money. Or are you better than they?

 

[LethalWolfe]

I'm aware of that (my statement is in that context so I should have mentioned it - mea culpa). My point is that I would not have approved such a move. The 5DII clearly is not a professional grade movie camera (it isn't even 2K quality).

Yet it's been used in professional grade situations. Oh, the paradox. 28 Days Later was shot mostly in SD (Canon XL1s). Eastwood used Sony Z1U's for some POV shots in Flags of Our Fathers. Avatar (somewhat of a hit), Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button... all less that 2k quality.

There is a difference between professional grade gear and professional results. If you get the results you want in the time frame you want on the budget you want does it matter if it was shot on a $3000 camera or a $300,000 camera?

Shooting with DSLRs isn't my first choice, but to steal a line from another forum, they produce a better looking image than they deserve to.


Lethal

 

[matteusclement]

Yet it's been used in professional grade situations. Oh, the paradox. 28 Days Later was shot mostly in SD (Canon XL1s). Eastwood used Sony Z1U's for some POV shots in Flags of Our Fathers. Avatar (somewhat of a hit), Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button... all less that 2k quality.

There is a difference between professional grade gear and professional results. If you get the results you want in the time frame you want on the budget you want does it matter if it was shot on a $3000 camera or a $300,000 camera?

Shooting with DSLRs isn't my first choice, but to steal a line from another forum, they produce a better looking image than they deserve to.


Lethal

BAM!!! They don't call him lethal for nothin'....

I'm going to really look into this situation now. I feel that the t2i is serving my needs well, but I would really like to take that next step to a cleaner image and deeper depth of field. I will keep my eyes peeled for a used Mark2 in my photog friends circle and see if the price bites me.

I would like to be able to use my suction cup mount more, but am afraid with my t2i hanging off a car. Buying a GoPRo with the extra $$$ is just one place I could expand to do cooler stuff. Add a nice tripod and flycam... I could do some cool stuff with that.

Thanks for everyones help.

 

[Pikemann Urge]

28 Days Later was shot mostly in SD (Canon XL1s). Eastwood used Sony Z1U's for some POV shots in Flags of Our Fathers. Avatar (somewhat of a hit), Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button...

Those are professional cameras. At least three of the cameras you are talking about are 3-chip. And SD does not necessarily equal sub-standard image quality.

You almost proved my point for me. Almost.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Those are professional cameras. At least three of the cameras you are talking about are 3-chip. And SD does not necessarily equal sub-standard image quality.

You almost proved my point for me. Almost.

So the 5D is bad because it is not 'even 2k' yet the XL-1s, a 4x3 cam that can't even do 480p, doesn't necessarily equal sub-standard image quality? I'll be the first to agree that resolution isn't everything but, yeesh, in 2012 I don't know why I'd chose the XL. Sure, you won't have to worry as much as moire and not at all about jello cam, but blowing a 4x3 SD frame up to HD... oh that's not gonna be pretty. That's not gonna be pretty at all.

Do remember that the guys springing for XL-1s back in the day were getting made fun of for buying a toy camera by the 'real' professionals who where using full sized BetaSP and DigiBeta cameras? DV was for the hacks... until it wasn't. I wouldn't even call the XL-1s pro. Prosumer yes, but not pro grade gear. Pro gear, at the time, was usually considered to be a camera with 2/3" senors, SDI, balanced audio, glass that cost way more than the XL-1s itself, etc.,.

Why the hang up on 3 chip vs 1 chip? This isn't '02 where we are talking about 1/4" 1 CCD camera vs a 1/3" 3 CCD camera. CMOS v CCD, it's not exactly and apple's to apple's comparison. Arri Alexa? 1 chip. Every RED camera, 1 chip. Sony F23? Canon CS300? Pansonic AF100? Sony EX-3? 1 chip, 1 chip, 1 chip and... 1 chip.

If you need a last minute pick-up shot for an HD production and your options are an XL-1s and a 5D MarkII are you really telling me that you'd use the XL-1s? If you do, at least remember to provide the camera for ingest 'causes Canons of that era were notorious for having timing issues that prevented their tapes from being played back properly in other DV cameras/decks.

And for the record I'm not out to prove anything. It's just weird to me that someone would flat out refuse to use a certain tool even if a situation arose where that tool was the best one for the job. Hell, I remember when FCP users had to use iMovie to capture & transcode footage from their Z1U's because iMovie supported HDV before FCP did. Imagine that, a pro doing what it takes, even if it means using a decidedly non-pro tool, to get the job done.


Lethal

 

[Pikemann Urge]

So the 5D is bad because it is not 'even 2k' yet the XL-1s, a 4x3 cam that can't even do 480p, doesn't necessarily equal sub-standard image quality?

I believe they would have used the PAL version. But I don't know. However, I'm not saying that I approve of either camera. But at least they weren't using a consumer level machine - which is what the 5DII is. That was in 2002, anyways. The iPod was barely a year old...

I'll be the first to agree that resolution isn't everything but, yeesh, in 2012 I don't know why I'd chose the XL.

I wouldn't either. But I'd consider it if it was dirt cheap and the production was web-only. Maybe.

Why the hang up on 3 chip vs 1 chip? This isn't '02

I'm with you on that one. We have better choices now. The 5DII is not one of them - according to my criteria. D7000, 7D, D800, 5DIII, 1DX, D4? Yeah, okay. Passable. The D800 looks promising - it has HDMI output, uncompressed.

Arri Alexa? 1 chip. Every RED camera, 1 chip. Sony F23? Canon CS300? Pansonic AF100? Sony EX-3? 1 chip, 1 chip, 1 chip and... 1 chip.

The 4K and 5K cameras certainly don't need 3 chips, although that would be nice. The others have more modern sensors and I'd also agree that they don't need to have 3 chips either. But like I said - most of the cameras you mentioned were 3-chip units and they were deliberately chosen because of their image quality.

Hell, if you want to shoot a film on an iPhone, that's great. I just wouldn't approve it if I were the producer. I appreciate compromises - but using Pareto's law (the 80/20 principle), not the lowest common denominator or the latest fad.

If you need a last minute pick-up shot for an HD production and your options are an XL-1s and a 5D MarkII are you really telling me that you'd use the XL-1s?

Certainly not. But if a consumer level DSLR is apparently just as effective as a pro grade camera, why not an XL-1, which is less than half the cost (and that's the inflated eBay asking prices)?

And for the record I'm not out to prove anything.

That's cool.

It's just weird to me that someone would flat out refuse to use a certain tool even if a situation arose where that tool was the best one for the job.

If you mean "It's the only one I can afford" then, well, it's either that or no film at all. If, that is, the camera is the most expensive part of the production.

Hell, I remember when FCP users had to use iMovie to capture & transcode footage from their Z1U's because iMovie supported HDV before FCP did

I'd do the same. It's no different to using a Macintosh from 1986 to write a best-selling novel.