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Calculate the predicted rental charges on 3 years of FS7 or C300 Mark II shooting then deduct it from the predicted depreciation value of the cameras in that same time period. I predict the C300 II would lose $6000, the FS7 $4000. If the rental costs exceed that in 3 years then it makes more sense to buy them. Not to mention, buying allows them to be used for your own personal creative work! Lenses hold their value well. A7S a good choice too. But in his situation I'd probably get the FS7, a Mac Pro, a 4K display & spend the rest on Canon lenses and LED lights.

Screw gear Tell your friend to take a trip around the world with that money.

Very interesting documentary about the evolution of documentary cameras and the early versions of run and gun. Refreshing to see what kind of cameras they considered as "very light and portable"

You can put all kinds of glass on an NX1 with adapters.

Being able to change the aperture in live view would be nice but not a deal breaker. ​I don't mind the extra crop in 1080p60. Any added reach in video is fine by me most of the time (especially when I'm shooting skylines from a distance). ​Sounds good but I still dunno if I should better spend that extra $200-400 on glass.

​H.265 drag and drop into Edit Ready, you're done. ProRes / H.264 for your editing software. Stills are very good, 13 stop dynamic range and as good in low light as the D7200.

I think the samsung NX1 is much more interesting because landscapes,etc... benefit a lot from the 4K.

One more suggestion. Canon is doing a 2 year 0% financing (I just took advantage of this). If he was looking to get a C300 or C100 he could put down half up front, and spend the rest on other gear. Pay off the remainder as jobs come in the next couple of years.

I definitely agree with your assessment not to invest in a camera body right now. Maybe a GH4, A7s or NX1 (or a pair of any) for those projects that don't require a $5,000+ cam. Cameras are easy to rent and easy to work into the budget. A grip truck much less so. Lenses are a great investment, but the lens you need can vary wildly from project to project. I would recommend getting three great primes at focal lengths he commonly uses and just continue to rent when projects call for something different. OR, he could go with something like a 24-70 and a 70-200. Those lenses have you covered for the corporate stuff and you can rent more specific, cinematic lenses for projects that call for them. An Arri (or Mole) lighting kit + good grip equipment will last literally decades. Getting a good LED kit for smaller setups is also a good idea, but the tech is advancing so rapidly at the moment that I probably wouldn't advise spending too much there. I personally love the Westcott Ice light, and they just came out with a new version. Paired with some Lite Panels, you've got a great interview setup going. In fact, he already has the Kinos, so one or two more lights gets him to a good place. Another interesting option might be to look into an HMI, like a Joker. They're so flexible- you can put them in a chimera, a fresnel, a leek, whatever. The also put out insane amounts of light and don't run too hot. Expensive, but very rentable if he has a good network of fellow filmmakers out there. What does he do for sound? This is a good opportunity to invest in some great equipment on that front. $5,000-$7,000 or so on three wireless wavs, a boom + mic, field mixer + recorder, and now he can get hired to do location sound, which puts him into a whole new world of opportunity. Or he can hire crew to do sound for him without having to pay equipment rental costs. That might be too much for your friend, especially if he doesn't do much sound-critical work. If the most he ever does is 1-person interviews, I'd still recommend spending at least $2-$3k on audio equipment. It's the most overlooked aspect of filmmaking and can make the most difference. A good kit will allow him to expand. He's definitely going to need to upgrade him computer + storage setup, but I won't bother getting into that.

He finds a great deal on a complete zeiss super speeds mkii set, sells his lesser cameras and buys a nx1.

First of all, let's see what happens with the excellent Twixtor slomos if you have motion blur (influenced by exposure time, the longer, the more blur) in the image, here. You can only slow down to exactly the degree matching the motion blur of a high speed recording with that frame rate, no more. Let's do the maths. A 180° shutter with the Pocket is a perfectly proportional motion blur. 11,25° means 25% motion blur. So you can speed up 4 times (400% duration, 25% speed). If you take 30 fps for 24 fps, you add another 20% (of 400), that means 480% are theoretically possible, equalling ~120 fps. Note, that Twixtor interpolates motion phases as well as appropriate motion blur (and it does so with very little ghosting, like AAE or other apps, left to their own devices). So to be on the safe side, you must not allow any motion blur in the recording. Like with HFR-slomos, this means shorter exposure times. For example, for 11,25° you need sixteen times as much light to expose correctly. The second fact is, that there are movements so fast that you simply can't stop motion blur (at least not with the Pocket, you'd need the equivalent of 1/2000, better 1/5000 shutter), i.e. the dog's ears at 17" here. If there is motion blur (any kind of blur), Twixtor will screw it. Water, on the other hand, is a lesser problem, see 21" in the same clip. Last thought on the subject: you do slomos for a reason, or you don't do them at all. If you know in advance that you need to accentuate a certain gesture with slow motion, you plan that in advance. Film is all about manipulating time, not about real time. So you need Twixtor. Because, even if you do all your shots in 60p, just in case you want to time-remap them later, you need to do it in too small a shutter to allow natural motion blur for 24p. You have to post-process these to add blur. EOSHD member Brandon Li (b.k.a. Rungunshoot) wrote a tutorial about that.

I would buy the FS7, Sigma 18-35 Art lense, Miller Compass tripod.

​Certainly you mean for slomos. Because for someone who is after a clean, 'Hobbit'-like look, the Pocket is clearly the wrong choice. As a workaround for missing 60p, you can use 30p with short exposure times and process the footage with Twixtor. Being a cinema lover since my early childhood, I also love the dirty slomo ('trailer slomo') of repeated frames. Use it very often in my wedding videos. I almost always manipulate real time, but I'm not much bothered by technical imperfections of these obvious effects. Nothing is more boring than a perfect slomo. Then, just imagine, you bought the BMMCC with a BMD VA to get 60p, and BM gives us 60p for the Pocket in a FW upgrade, and be it only for ProRes LT. Not completely impossible, we've seen them answering so many wishes of customers in the past. Okay, but some use the SB always or almost always. And raw theoretically is the better codec, allows much more in post. The filter is still an option for me. On the other hand, I try to save money for the Ursa mini​, probably as a christmas surprise, having gotten used to the BM promises ...

I really would not worry about this at all its right at the edge of the lens and not used in forming an image Its a manufacturing mark where the lens glass in bonded to the metal rim it does not look like fungus as that looks like thin spider like veins your lens is fine and will take great images

Seems a lot of people here are continually trying to better the camera they buy - for some reason thinking that the better the camera they have, the better the footage will be. You should work on bettering yourself - your operating, your lighting skills, your framing, your creative eye. Work on telling better stories through the lens, and then it won't matter what camera you shoot it on

You can find a used D800 for really nice prices these days (I've seen them as low as around 1050 euro). For stills, you won't beat that quality at that price. The video is decent too.

​Yes, but global shutter and 60p add quite a bit. Also paired with a monitor like the SmallHD 502, that setup is tiny.

Remember you said this when the new model comes out.

The description states that Focus is achieved by pushing and pulling. Maybe the Zoom Lens works like the Diopter on the FM.

Caveat: I don't own either. However, I've had to match many cameras before. Trick is to first nail your white balance with a proper grey card (do this religiously, in the full light that your subject's faces will be reflecting) and THEN shoot a colour card (in the same place your grey card was). The LX100, from what I've seen, looks pretty good. Shoot it with settings as close to the final look as you can, and shoot the BMPCC in either RAW if you have the time or ProRes if you don't. You won't go wrong either way, since the LX100 will be "driving" the look as it will be more limited in it's ability to adapt in post. As long as you find a setting in the LX100 that looks close to what you intend to end up with, you'll be great, since the BMPCC can really stretch to match it. However, the LX100 can be made to adapt pretty well to the look you want to begin with. Try playing with the photo settings, and then fine-tune contrast, saturation, etc. to get to where you want. The pros do test shots with both cameras under a variety of settings, then match in post and see what works the best for them. This is highly recommended for anybody trying to get two cameras of different ilk to work together. And don't forget to control your lighting as much as possible. Help the camera out rather than forcing it to deal with high-contrast situations it may not be suitable for.

I edit on a dual-core late 2013 macbook pro laptop. I can edit GH4 .mov H.264 files natively without problem. I can also edit 4k ProRes 422 HQ without a problem. I use a G-Drive 2-drive RAID enclosure, thunderbolt. It wasn't cheap, but not as expensive as the Pegasus. I use it in RAID 1, for drive redundancy, so don't get the benefit of RAID 0 speeds. However, I can also easily edit off a single G-Drive USB3 external, if I'm only doing one stream of GH4 H.264 4k or ProRes converted footage. But, this is all in Final Cut X. Premiere Pro is vastly slower, and a serious pain in the ass to use. It can't be hard drive speed because the data coming off the drive is the same. So I would say your system itself is probably not fast enough. Firewire 800 is easily fast enough for most video streams (800 mbit/sec is faster than the 220 mbit/sec of 1080p ProRes HQ and not quite enough for the 960 mbit/sec of 4k ProRes HQ but since most ProRes HQ doesn't need the max bitrate you'd be likely to handle a single stream on FW800 just fine in the real world), so USB3 or Thunderbolt wouldn't be absolutely necessary (although really nice to have). My point is that you're not likely being held back by your hard disks unless they are USB 2.0 or FW400 and also internally very slow (5400 rpm or something). You're much more likely to be limited by your GPU/CPU with Premiere, and possibly by RAM although I have 16GB and again, no issues at all. If 4K is essential to you, you need a much faster system. Otherwise, I'd strongly recommend transcoding on import to 1080p 422 ProRes standard (not HQ or LT). It's a perfectly good codec, much much easier on your CPU/GPU, and your hard disks are likely plenty fast enough to handle the increased bitrate and take some of the load off your processors.

Andrew, I know you have wrote on the forum that you had send back the NX500 already because its 4k crop is horrible, but seeing that you have just done such a thorough review on the EOS M3 which you have found very lacking video-wise, wouldn't it be fair for the NX500 to have just as thorough a review, given that its video and stills chops are above the M3's at roughly the same price? You just left a lot of folks expecting your 2nd installment on the NX500, me included, and at least for me I didn't realize that you weren't going to until I read your posts on the forum, after opening your main page daily to see if you had finished your review and wondering why it took you so long, so many folks don't yet know that you won't have a thorough review on it. Please Andrew, give the NX500 the benefit of the doubt: it surely has a better 1080p than all other APS-C stills cameras out there, doesn't it?

I have the M1 and absolutely love it... Of course I am poor so this is my main camera for the time being. I found the M1 to be a no budget filmmakers wet dream, especially if run and gun is your style. With that said, it is missing some key things that I wish it had... First and foremost... Focus peaking so I am happy to hear it is integrated into the new model but the problem is... If I upgrade, I am not going to upgrade to M3... Why would I? But Andrew, I would like a little clarification. When you say that it goes to auto exposure mode... Are you saying from still mode? Or is there no manual exposure in any movie mode?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uy5iH56s2is ^about 2 minutes in, dslr video shooter tests what you're saying, and i thought there was still a little vignetting throughout, maybe...

​Besides 12 bit RAW and 10-bit prores with 13 stops of dynamic range, better rolling shutter, and WAY nicer color?

​Would you honestly prefer to shoot 4K with 10 stops over 1080p with 12 stops?

mercer- yes, thanks, Delta was our first narrative short. We had no complaints for audio/sound (other elements- yes; a learning experience for us! ). Glad you got the humor shots! (I shot everything- no stock footage). The short was supposed to be campy and fun; special effects a homage to old-school video games / Star Wars, etc. We'll improve the story (and everything else) on the next one The simplest solution would be a shotgun mounted on camera with a high-quality isolated mount (and far enough away from the lens to mask stabilizer noise, etc., when present), with a decent preamp (either in the mic system (Rode etc.)), or as another piece of hardware (JuicedLink sounds cleanest for the money, SD's MixPre-D sounds much better and has superior limiters: worth over double the cost IMO. The hacked iRig Pre is perhaps the best low cost, ultra small solution: http://www.dslrfilmnoob.com/2012/11/25/irig-pre-hack-cheap-xlr-phantom-power-preamp-dslr/ ). You could also rig a boom to a backpack, etc., to get the mic closer to the subject (really need to get mic pointed down towards the ground to take advantage of noise rejection). Regarding dual sound, IMO it's only worth it for larger productions, with a dedicated sound guy, and only when using Sound Devices or similar quality gear (I have a Zoom H4n and Tascam DR100mkII: not high enough quality vs. internal DSLR with a preamp to warrant extra effort of separate sound. DR680 and newer are good and SD 702 and up are preferred. SD gear has amazing preamps, not only clean, but a very full, natural 'Hollywood' sound. The SD limiters are also very, very good: the extra cost for SD gear is worth it: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/429566-REG/Sound_Devices_702_702_High_Resolution_2_Channel.html . How many 5.0 reviews do you see on ANY piece of gear? Pretty amazing). Steve M.- going wired like that can certainly sound better than wireless (until getting to the Zaxcom or Lectrosonics digital wireless level), though the Sennheiser (and similar priced gear) is more than good enough for indie work (even material planned for streaming paid delivery). Another solution that can be 'free' is to use old cell phones as lav recorders (even your current cellphone). Rode makes a decent lav for the iPhone & Android: http://www.amazon.com/Rode-smartLav-Lavalier-Microphone-Smartphones/dp/B00EO4A7L0 . It is technically possible to have an app be remotely controlled to start recording, meaning a bunch of iPhones/Androids could join an adhoc wifi network and be triggered to record remotely, then send a compressed AAC copy over wifi back to the controller, where mixed audio could be monitored live (if this already exists- very cool)). In post the locally recorded uncompressed WAV files can be used for editing (along with timecode and/or sidecar metadata to make syncing easier). Not monitoring lav recordings live is indeed very risky- many times the mic/cable rub and must be readjusted due to talent movement (cable loop taping and careful placement help, but there are still issues that come up during recording).