Brian Brown

Andrew, you should get your hands on a Canon EF 50mm/f1L They quit making it, but it's of the same vintage as your 85mm/1.2L Mk I. Ken Rockwell recently reviewed it, and it looks fantastic. http://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/lenses/50mm-f1.htm I think it would blow these two lenses away.

For archiving tapeless footage, I use BD-R discs AND external HDDs. Single-layer BD-Rs hold 25GB and cost around $2/each. I keep hoping that double-layer 50GB discs will come down in price, as now they are around $10/each. I believe that some backup software can span multiple optical discs, but I don't presently use it. I always verify media written to BD-Rs, and have a bad burn about one in 50 or so.   I don't trust that HDDs will give long-term archival storage, that's why I back-up everything to both optical and HDD. It's "saved my bacon" once when I had to resurrect an old project from optical disc that I couldn't get off of a failed external hard drive.   If I chose to ONLY rely on HDD, I would back files up to at least two different HDDs and keep the HDDs in separate places (to insure against fire, flood, theft, etc.)

For my needs (doco/ coporate/ industrial films), alias/ moire' reduction was the primary motivator for me to step-up from the 7D to the 5D Mark III. I can always sharpen soft video, but was never very successful at removing the rainbows moire patterns and love that I no longer have to with the 5D3. I'm disappointed that much-newer 70D doesn't have the same reduction improvements. The autofocus looks really killer, but I've learned to focus full-frame (with the Zacuto Z-Finder Pro whilst running-and-gunning or with SmallHD DP6 field monitor when on a tripod) , so I doubt I would need that capability on a smaller sensor cam. Boo to Canon that they didn't improve alias/ moire'!

Agreed, great point, Zach. I had forgotten about the 6D. Same with the D600 as a more affordable full-frame body in the Nikon line (compared to the D800).

To aid in DOF, you can also purchase or rent tilt-shift lenses. They give all sorts of other creative looks, as well as practical ones like deep focus. Assuming you haven't bought into a lens system yet, you could also consider Nikon's D800, the full-frame competitor to the 5D3. Either model is a lot more $ than the GH3, of course, and lenses that cover full-frame are typically more expensive for equivalent field-of-view than their crop counterparts.

"Apathy and protectionism" aside, let's not forget that a raw workflow does NOT appeal to vast swaths of the professional marketplace because of its demands on post-production and storage (during the edit, and archiving afterwards). Having a small file, edit-friendly codec come right out of the camera, ready to dump and edit, saves time and money. Not everyone can strive for the additional IQ gains, because they have to quickly turn the edit around into a sell-able product. That's the boat I'm in. I have to make money with my gear, production and post. And sometimes "good enough" simply has to be good enough. So, I'm shooting three hours of talking heads tomorrow with my 5D mk III. How would I ever pull that off with raw (on my camera or one of BM's)? And who really cares, because it's talking heads. How good do they have to look? ENG, corporates, and industrial shooters are all in the same boat I'm in... a huge chunk of the professional marketplace. Good enough shooters. I truly believe that if any of the majors saw dollar signs in any camera like BM is making or proposing, they would have a usable, working model for sale yesterday, would work better, and would have fewer growing pains and supply issues. That said, I'm very glad that there are some disruptive players like BM and the Digital Bolex in the game, I really am. But until the tech becomes something well-designed, bulletproof, easy-to-use, and quick to edit, I think the big players will stay out, protecting their turf by selling billions of $ worth of cameras and lenses while the sector matures. Why would they do anything else? The temerity of telling any massive camera company that someone knows their business better than they know their business is mind-blowing. To be specific to one certain 800 pound gorilla: so, when has Canon ever been a get-there-first company? Nothing they've ever produced in the last 20 years has been bleeding or even cutting-edge. But something is clicking for them with this whole Cinema business. I'm certain they were surprised as any of their major-player peers that... "hmmm, people wanna shoot video with these still cameras?!" Translate that into Japanese, of course. And they're scratching their heads all the way to the bank ever since. But my guess is they're not missing-out on much yet.

I'm going to have to take a contrarian view, here. I believe that Mr. Petty would be much better-off if he focused on his own cameras' quality control, firmware, and supply issues and less on bad-mouthing the big players in the camera and lens markets. It makes perfectly logical sense to me that those manufacturers turned-down his camera ideas precisely because they didn't think that they could make money manufacturing them. And I think that they were RIGHT. As passionate as a lot of us here may be with these high-dynamic range, raw workflow bodies that BM is making, the lion's share of professional cinematographers will gravitate towards RED, Alexa, and the EOS Cinema line of cameras. Those cameras are low-volume, high-margin products. The stills-centric, DSLR market is conversely high-volume and low-margin. BM (and similar) “bootstrap†digital cinema cameras are arguably low-margin and low-volume... which won't ever attract the major players. Meanwhile Mr. Petty can sit on his high horse and complain about these money-grubbing big boys that scoffed him and his ideas. But at the end of the day, he still needs to employ HIS tiny workforce of 350 people, by choosing at least SOME products that can make money... such as his excellent high-volume, low-margin post-production equipment that put BlackMagic on the map. While I admire altruism and passion, unless Mr. Petty has deep pockets like Jim Jannard, he needs to focus on business. And making that evil money... by giving people the products they want, at the price that they're willing to pay, and at the quantities that can support BM's bottom line. I'm sorry to be a stick-in-the-mud, but that's how I see it.

I don't spend a lot of time 'pixel-peeping' and 'measure-bating' from one camera make to another. I've made piles of money shooting Canon full-frame video, and it does many things well... namely, headshot interviews, which is where I make most of my money. It's not well-suited for landscapes and deep DOF shots, as Andrew tells us time and time again. Lucky for me, I don't make any money shooting that stuff. There's other makes of cameras for that, though. As to which is 'money better spent' or 'too expensive', just know that less than a half-decade ago, filmmakers would DREAM to have the quality of video at a sub five-figure price point that people trash and deride today as 'over-priced' or 'greedy'. I say, go out and shoot with WHATEVER make of gear you have and work on your craft, lighting, and storytelling. Transcend your gear and its limitations.

Amen, this is my favorite EF prime. Sharp wide-open, contrasty, and insane bokeh. In addition to portraits and indoor sports, this lens excels as a headshot interview lens on my 5D3. It cuts well with my 2nd favorite EF prime, the bargain 85mm/f1.8.