Ben Prater

The Rebels are great cameras. A good upgrade could be a G6 or if he wants a camera more suited for production work, a GH3. (Headphone jack and 60fps are juicy.)

Most digital film shot today is on the Alexa. The Alexa is not shooting 4k, it shoots sub-2k. ML on 5D3 is freaking amazing. Properly upscale your 5D3 to 4k and I promise you -- nobody will ever be able to tell you were shooting HD or 4k. No, the 5D3 is not obsolete. I suspect it'll be an important camera body for budget filmmakers for years to come.

Things you'll want to add to your kit: Lots of media (sd cards) Lots of batteries A shoulder rig (my favorite piece of kit for documentary shooting) Monopod Fast glass (Sigma 18-30!!) EVF/Z-finder (so you can shoot outside) Camera mounted shotgun mic (Rode Videomic?) Lavalier mic (if you want to do seated interviews) ND filter (for when you shoot outside) Check out this page for more info: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/indepth/video/hands-reviews/shooting-video-panasonic-gh3

If you don't go with the Sigma 18-30mm, you should probably be looking at the Panasonic 12-35mm. A little more expensive, but a little wider and an active mount that pairs perfectly with the GH3. The Nikon-mounted Sigma will force you to twirls knobs more than the Panny.

This would be my recommendation, too. You can't go wrong with the GH3 -- it's a 'get-it-done' production camera. Going with Nikon-mount will give you some flexibility in the future, if you decide to jump to BMPCC, etc. since you can manually dial the aperture.

The 70d has an amazing auto-focus. Because of this, I would put it above all cameras in the sub $1000 category.

The GoPro has a seriously nice sensor -- and now with this option, you can now put the lenses you want in front of it. I suspect some creative folks will do something interesting stuff with this: http://www.kopterworx.com/vmchk/New-products-in-2014/GoPro-Hero-3-Black+-with-Ribcage-pre-installed-tested

You might want to check out Sensor Swab: http://goo.gl/ir5Hl Here's a video on how to use it:

Here's the problem with shooting outside -- there is a ton of dynamic range in play between bright sun and shadows in the mountains. Most video cameras give themselves away because the highlights are blown out. The only camera with the kind of dynamic range in your budget is the BMPCC. (Keep in mind that you may want to add a variable ND to whatever package you get.) Because you are running around in a car, you can easily power and dump data from the camera. I don't think I'd worry about stabilization -- you need to have this mounted and locked down on your tripod and because you'll likely be shooting wide. (If you need a narrative camera to show people IN the car, get a cheap GoPro and handhold it -- or mount it on your car's pillars.) Recommendations: BMPCC or GH3, get a Sigma 18-30 f/1.8 and get an appropriate Speedbooster. This will allow you the maximum dynamic range, wide angle and great low-light capabilities. Get a external recorder, like the Atmos Ninja -- to plug into the HDMI so you don't need to catch cards during an epic tornado. Good luck and post updates as you progress, I'd love to see what you come up with!

Just saw this pop up at Vimeo, and thought you guys would enjoy it. Make sure to go over to Vimeo if you want the HD version. Andrew is right, the GM1 is impressive in the footage it is cranking out:

Great looking images!

The 5D3 is the king of stills. You'll have access to great lenses like Canon's 100mm macro, which will help in close focus on the food. However, the GH3 is about 1/3 the price. If you are shooting for the web and not for print, get a white lightbox to put your food inside and grab a GH3 -- I think you'll be really happy with the results.

The C100/C300 shoot 8-bit and create lovely images. I wouldn't use that as a baseline to how good or bad a setup is!

Great article Andrew! I generally agree -- if I'm an advertiser with money, rent me an Alexa. However, more than a couple times, I've seen commercial productions using Alexa as an A-cam and the BMCC as the B-cam. The game is still early for Blackmagic. If they really up the ante and bring some cool stuff to the game, a la a BMPC 4k with 300fps, we'll see a lot of people bringing their BM systems into higher-end productions, even as a B- or C-cam. On the other hand, the fact that BM hasn't patched some obvious flaws in the camera's software gives me some pause about their level of 'geeky'. If I were on the engineering team, I think I could figure out how to program the deleting of files in a day or two. Audio meters? C'mon.

Awesome dude!

No one doubts that the C-series from Canon creates amazing images. They all do. The C100 is a perfect workhorse camera and many cinematographers are using it as such. The big limitation of the C100 is the codec -- it's 8-bit and its limited to a 24Mbps data rate. (Doesn't even meet broadcast spec.) It's a fairly minor limitation, given the images it pumps out. The raw image coming from the 5D3 gives you a lot of additional latitude in post-production. 5D3 raw isn't for daily commercial work. The C100 is. The C100 has all the bells/whistles designed for a working videographer. If I were making a narrative film, I'd shoot on 5D3 raw. If I were shooting a documentary, I wouldn't want anything except the C100 in my hands. If I'm shooting a daily video online show, I'm all over the C100. If I'm shooting an experimental film, I'd want the 5D3 raw. For the style of working that you are doing -- you'll want a C100 in your shop.

Great article Andrew. Exciting news for folks who love Blackmagic cameras.

70d is definitely a new sensor. I've watched a bunch of 70d video -- and I generally like the video images it is producing. Pair that with the amazing auto-focus -- and I think you have a camera that an average person can use to create some really great video.

GH3. GH3. GH3. GH3. GH3. GH3. GH3. Otherwise, go with the 70d because of it's rockin' autofocus. The BMPCC is a filmmaker's camera, not a documentary camera. The GH3 gives you 60fps. It also gives you something critical -- a headphone jack. You'll have all kinds of latitude in grading. Cuts well with your 5D2. Also, you need to get a wider lens for your kit. Consider the new Sigma 18-35.

I'm with you on this Axel. I've watched a bunch of raw -- and generally, the BMPCC doesn't shine the way that the BMCC or 5D3 does with raw. (Both systems rock the raw.) BMPCC Raw is only marginally better than shooting ProRes. Don't get this camera for its raw -- unless you are shooting green-screen or shooting for a feature film. Yes, the dynamic range is great on this camera, good for documentary shooters who can't control the environment. The biggest compelling reason to get a BMPCC is that it poops out ProRes. You can drag it onto your timeline and get to work. No other camera at $1k does this. However, if you need a $1,000 camera that can spits out solid video and can run with the bad boys, I think the GH3 is still one of the best offering available. It captures better video than the H.264 5D3.

I'm looking forward to seeing some footage from this little beast!

"Cinemartin say in their tests a ProRes 4:4:4 video of 590MB was converted to H.265 HEVC with CINEC 2.7 to an output video of 4.9MB with little or no noticeable differences in image quality." That's pretty a phenomenal rate of compression. 600MB to a 5MB file? Wow. Sounds like a game changer in all kinds of places. I didn't think 4k or 8k could happen soon, because of limited bandwidth. 8k world, here we come. Even poor farmers with marginal internet access are going to be able to access a world of HQ video. It's good to be in the world of video.

If they stopped development tomorrow, the ML RAW hack will stand as one of the greatest free "upgrades" any hardware has ever received. The image is phenomenal, rivaling top-end digital cinema systems. Even when the 5d4 comes out and Canon defeats ML in hardware, people are going to keep using 5d3s.    Any improvement going forward is going to yield limited visual improvements. However, as CF cards get faster, it might be possible that we see the hack allow for overcranking/slow-motion at 1080p. 60fps would be a good start.

  That has been my argument each time I try to really grapple with the benefits on this type of lens.   Look at the quality of current sensors, including the lowly, tiny 2Mb sensor on the BMPCC that producing amazing images. When we have sensors with 9,000 horizontal pixels, we simply aren't going to reap any additional benefits in terms of image IQ. Why not use the extra sensor for cropping ... or for motion cancellation ... or for stereo imaging ... or for ...     I'm not arguing the artistic merit of 16:9. I'm simply stating that in a few years, a few billion people are going to have 16:9 ratio movie-screens in their pockets. I'm trying to understand the implications of this for us as filmmakers.

If you are looking for bang-for-the-buck when it comes to an imaging system that does stills, look at the GH3. It's slightly higher than your budget (around $1000, check around). But the IQ for video beats the non-RAW Canon 5D3. The GH3 puts out some really, really good video. As a runner-up, I really dig the new Canon 70d's focusing system. If you are new to video, the 70d will help much in getting critical focus for your shots. Bonus with the GH3: You get a headphone jack, no other camera in this price range offers this. It means that you can record directly/monitor audio directly without an external recorder. Another bonus on the GH3: 60p overcrank. Slow-mo yumminess. MFT vs EF mount. Both mount types are popular and will be around for the next decade. In EF, you'll find more options, including older glass that you can buy off Craigs or Ebay. Lenses are usually larger and heavier. In MFT, you get a more compact lens for the smaller sensor size. Less variety, but because of the sensor position, you can often mount C-mount lenses (and others!) on a MFT-system with few issues. I tend to enjoy shooting documentary-style, run-n-gun -- so lighter systems like MFT appeal to me (GH3 or BMPCC). However, EF usually means a bigger sensor, so if you love bokeh (and I do!), you may want to go 60d or 70d, which has a large APS-C sized sensor. You can't go wrong with a GH3. I currently recommend it to others more than any camera.