Enviromental portrait combo + video under $ 1900

[tomastancredi]

Stills: I'm looking for a FF 24mm 1.8 at least equivalent look. I'll be working on a refugee camp and that's how I will mainly be portraying.

On video side I need the best HD I can get for doc cimea verite stiyle to be eventually matched with a C100. I need to get as close as possible to something that gives me the most DR and best colours with the lowest disk space. Sharp enough so than I don't to shoot 4k, which usually demands more space, makes battery last less and eventually heats up. I'll be working on the brazilian/venezuelan border. So tough body and overheating is nice (RP, 3) at the same time, since it's an military area, an unobtrusive and low profile options with pancakes are a plus ( 30, M6mkii). I also consider buying an used ricoh grII.

Having this in mind, so far my options are:

x-t30 + 16mm 1.4 = $1,700

X-t3+ 16mm 1.4= $1900

Canon M6MkII + 16mm 1.4 = $1230

Canon EOS RP+ sigma 24mm 1.4 = $ 1670

I'm leaning towards either the RP or m6mkii so far. but not sure. 

What would you pick?

P.S: I would add 32mm 1.4 for M6MKII, and 35mm 1.8 RP. For fujis, since no digital stabilization, I would skip the 35mm 1.4 and buy the 18-55 2.8-f4 + 35mm 1.2 artisans

[IronFilm]

Nikon Z6 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.8 S Lens

[tomastancredi]

5 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Nikon Z6 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.8 S Lens

Amazing, but way above my budget at $ 2.700 with the current discounts.I would than consider the EOS R and the a7III

[kye]

All else being equal, I'd suggest the RP + 24 1.4.

This is because the 24 1.4 can be stopped down a bit to get to 1.8 equivalent, and therefore be slightly sharper at a given DoF.  This would also mean you can match CS much easier to the C100 down the track.

Of course, all else isn't equal, so work out what you care about more and prioritise the setups accordingly...

I'm also assuming that the RP doesn't have a crop, but that might be risky with a Canon?

[tomastancredi]

2 hours ago, kye said:

I'm also assuming that the RP doesn't have a crop, but that might be risky with a Canon?

oh yes, quite risky ? crop is at 1.7. That doesn't bother me as much as the RS. I like as shallow as I can on stills but for video actually prefer having more room when stopped down. Lens selection can be tricky but the 24mm 1.4 becomes perfect at about 40mm. I would need to shoot 4k to match c100 hd. RP's HD seems better than sonys apsc but worst than fujis. Haven't seen anyone trustable shooting serious content so it would be kind of a blind buy for video.  

[IronFilm]

11 hours ago, tomastancredi said:

Amazing, but way above my budget at $ 2.700 with the current discounts.I would than consider the EOS R and the a7III

Nikon Z6 is better than the EOS R or a7 mk3

And if you look around for secondhand deals then you find a Z6 deal at a significant saving. 

[kye]

8 hours ago, tomastancredi said:

oh yes, quite risky ? crop is at 1.7. That doesn't bother me as much as the RS. I like as shallow as I can on stills but for video actually prefer having more room when stopped down. Lens selection can be tricky but the 24mm 1.4 becomes perfect at about 40mm. I would need to shoot 4k to match c100 hd. RP's HD seems better than sonys apsc but worst than fujis. Haven't seen anyone trustable shooting serious content so it would be kind of a blind buy for video.  

I just re-read your posts and it doesn't sound like you're clear on if you're shooting 4K or 1080.  You say you want to match the c100 and want to have small file sizes as possible.  File size is vastly smaller with 1080, and the c100 has good (but not great) 1080 because it downsamples the 1080 from 4K in-camera.  

I think you should consider getting a camera that shoots downsampled 1080, maybe in 10-bit, so that you can grade the image heavily to match it to the C100 CS.  If you're not trying to buy a camera that shoots 4K then a lot of older (but still great) cameras are available and should be cheaper too.

The C100 has excellent 1080 for its ~25Mbps codec, but if you get a 1080 camera that shoots at 10-bit then you should be able to get a much higher bitrate and have much more flexibility in the image too, which will be useful if you have high DR from uncontrolled lighting and you can push and pull highlights and shadows in post easily with the 10-bit.

[tomastancredi]

13 hours ago, kye said:

but if you get a 1080 camera that shoots at 10-bit

only the x-t3 internally, right? And both the x-t30 and m6mkii through external recorder. I played yesterday with some m6mkii files in clog3 and it does have much more room than I expected. Maybe even more than on c100's Clog, but the 4k is softer than c100's HD. So it's out of my list. 

13 hours ago, kye said:

it doesn't sound like you're clear on if you're shooting 4K or 1080.  You say you want to match the c100 and want to have small file sizes as possible.  File size is vastly smaller with 1080, and the c100 has good (but not great) 1080 because it downsamples the 1080 from 4K in-camera.  

Appreciate your thoughts...Indeed.. Ideally I' would shoot in hd, but on my budget I was ready to compromise disk space and mix footage on a hd timeline. I have matched a "hacked" gx85 4k with the c100. Quite ok, not completelly satisfactory, but I had to shoot in 4k for the highbitrates. I am not sure how the x-t3 and x-t30 differ on hd, since both are 200mbs, but the x-t3 can shoot in 10 bit. Maybe as big of a difference as on 4k, where x-t3 goes up to 400mbits. I would not use it for next year, but nice to have for later. 

[thebrothersthre3]

2 hours ago, tomastancredi said:

only the x-t3 internally, right? And both the x-t30 and m6mkii through external recorder. I played yesterday with some m6mkii files in clog3 and it does have much more room than I expected. Maybe even more than on c100's Clog, but the 4k is softer than c100's HD. So it's out of my list. 

Appreciate your thoughts...Indeed.. Ideally I' would shoot in hd, but on my budget I was ready to compromise disk space and mix footage on a hd timeline. I have matched a "hacked" gx85 4k with the c100. Quite ok, not completelly satisfactory, but I had to shoot in 4k for the highbitrates. I am not sure how the x-t3 and x-t30 differ on hd, since both are 200mbs, but the x-t3 can shoot in 10 bit. Maybe as big of a difference as on 4k, where x-t3 goes up to 400mbits. I would not use it for next year, but nice to have for later. 

Yeah I think 10 bit is really visible if you are looking closely at skin, the extra color information really helps for smoother gradients. If you are pushing the grade and skin as well as blue skies seem to show up the quickest with weaker codecs.

You could always soften the C100 a bit though I guess it seems a bit counter productive. 

I think Film convert has some easy plugins for matching Canon to Fuji, last I heard they work pretty well. Comes down to which features you like best. The Fuji XT3 has by far the best image quality of the bunch you selected. The XT30 isn't far behind though I'd spring for an XT3 especially if you get one used.

[Inazuma]

7 hours ago, tomastancredi said:

 but the 4k is softer than c100's HD. 

I wouldnt be so sure about that.. have you seen a side by side comparison? I think even the 1080 would be more comparable than youd think

[kye]

6 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I think Film convert has some easy plugins for matching Canon to Fuji, last I heard they work pretty well.

Not sure exactly what you meant but I'd suggest that the OP match the second camera to the C100 instead of the other way around.  There are two reasons for this, firstly the second camera will likely have a less fragile codec (the C100 has a very low bitrate) and the second is that the C100 is probably closer to the look required anyway as it looks so good to start with.

Of course, pushing the second camera to match Canon CS might require some sophisticated pushing and pulling, depending on how good a match is required, how heavy a grade will go over the whole thing, and how sophisticated grading tools are available.

@tomastancredi what colour grading software are you using?

[thebrothersthre3]

1 hour ago, kye said:

Not sure exactly what you meant but I'd suggest that the OP match the second camera to the C100 instead of the other way around.  There are two reasons for this, firstly the second camera will likely have a less fragile codec (the C100 has a very low bitrate) and the second is that the C100 is probably closer to the look required anyway as it looks so good to start with.

Of course, pushing the second camera to match Canon CS might require some sophisticated pushing and pulling, depending on how good a match is required, how heavy a grade will go over the whole thing, and how sophisticated grading tools are available.

@tomastancredi what colour grading software are you using?

Yeah thats what I meant. Fuji to canon, canon to fuji or whatever needs be 

 

[noone]

Any decision?     For what its worth (not much since I mainly am a stills shooter with just a bit of ungraded video dabbling ) I would go with the FF camera and 24 1.4 simply because if you like shallow DOF for stills, none of the others will come close really.

 

I would just use my new (thanks family!) Sony A7s (my old one is still dead) and ancient Canon FD 24 1.4 L.     Great for stills though harder to match for video (great HD video though) I would think and not weather sealed ( I am happy to take it into a light shower for a short time but only for something important and would get out of it as soon as possible).

Are you going to be able to light things?    If not, another reason to opt for the larger sensor.

[Inazuma]

On 11/27/2019 at 12:54 AM, thebrothersthre3 said:

Yeah thats what I meant. Fuji to canon, canon to fuji or whatever needs be 

 

I've been somewhat doing this for years now already. You can download the jpeg studio test charts from dpreview for different cameras and use the colour matching tool in Premiere or Resolve

[Simon Young]

@tomastancredi I think you should consider the Canon 90D. It’s really robust, doesn’t overheat (Gordon Laing ran 6 4K clips in a row, three hours, without problems, whereas the M6ii could only manage 40 minutes before shutting down) and lots of cheap lenses are available. The battery life is also really solid.

I tried the M6ii and really liked the image out of it, the 4k looks very cinematic and it’s possible to sharpen it nicely, but I didn’t particularly like it from a stills perspective.