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If you could have one camera for video, and one alone


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Guest 560a4aedcb80685284629074497fdc75

Arri's are far too big for anything I do (Amira included).

 

I dislike RED as a brand and I don't have any particular love of the image.

 

Sony colours are not to my taste at all (F35 looks lovely but the newer CMOS stuff I find soulless).

 

Blackmagic image I like, but low light is an issue, as is handling (and URSA file sizes are scary).

 

GH4 is great but just a bit too noisy. If it's the only camera you have, low light will be an issue.

 

Nikon - D750 and D810 look decent but I don't think 8bit DSLR's are ever going to be enough for me as a video camera.

 

 

Ridiculously, that leaves Canon ...

 

5DIII ML RAW - if I was only shooting for myself this is probably the one camera I would own. For me the image is rivalled only by Arri and Blackmagic. I just wish it had an EVF and native XX-bit codec.

 

Canon's 'Cinema' line - as over-priced and under-specced as it is - it really is the happy medium between everything for me. Possibly a bit more attention-grabbing in size and form than I would like, but nothing like an Amira or URSA. The C100 Mk1's issues (crap EVF, AVCHD codec and no 50/60p) are addressed with the MkII. The C100 MkII also seems to make the C300 a bit pointless. The C100 is the only 8-bit camera I know of with colours I find really satisfying. I love the image that camera produces. I guess the C300 MkII will be 4K, which doesn't matter much to me because the image is sharp already. If it has a 10-bit option though, that would make it very appealing (though it'll be way out of my budget anyway). 

 

So my choice would be either 5D3 RAW or C100 MkII, depending on application (personal or work). I don't own any Canon cameras or glass right now, but I love the Canon image. Dynamic range is the weak area I suppose, but Zeiss optics + Canon colours is my idea of video heaven. Maybe that's why they get away with charging so much and not innovating. The secret is in the sauce ...

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My now 1-year-old camera of choice is the BM Pocket. It is for a reason. But of course, it's not perfect. So let me, from my point of view, first add some features that would make it perfect. Later I will comment on features of other cameras I don't deem necessary.

 

1. Resolution.

 

1a -The Pocket should have the sensor of the BMCC (at least), which by now provides perfect fullHD in ProRes.

 

1b - What about 4k? Yesterday I accompanied a friend who looks for a new big TV. We visited several shops, most of which had a comparison between HD and UHD (one had an SD-signal also). It is absolutely no question that one should buy a UHD TV if it is to be bigger than 50". Because a 1080 signal (BD) is upscaled so well. However, I think though you don't really need 4k, you should have genuine 1080 at least. 

 

2. Higher frame rates for slomo.

Actually, this is something a firmware update could bring. I haven't been doing the maths exactly, but if the Pocket can write raw @ 30fps to the card without issues, it should be able to write ProResLT @ 80fps (or so). No?

 

3. Low Light?

Yes, I want to be able to film in a subway. I am. I don't like and I don't want 'Night for Day'. It isn't aesthetically satisfying.

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Guest Ebrahim Saadawi

Give me a C100 mk II with internal 10bit 4K image and I don't need to buy any video cameras for the next 10 years.

It's already my perfect camera as is for around the next 2-3 years but that's it, not beyond that, as 4K will be in every home and on every PC monitor and on every YT cat video. You would'nt be able to keep using the mk II in that atmosphere at all, no natter how good it is. It will be like great SD at this point!. So no I am not putting 5K and up in such a short term investment in a professional camera for a commercial business. That was fine when the original C100/300 came out where life was still HD for many many years, but things move fast and Canon marketing team doesn't!

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Non-existent so far. I'd be pretty content with:

- 10-bit colors

- natural colors out of the box, but with high gradability

- an efficient H.265 codec

- possibility for user to customize output bitrate for different needs: 420/422/444, 8-bit/10-bit, perhaps possibility to set bitrates like 50/75/100 Mbps.

- fairly portable camera (like A7S)

- 4k and 1080p

- high framerate mode around 100-120 fps in 1080p, variable framerates from 1-120.

- full frame sensor, performing fine in s35 crop

 

I kinda like the idea of REDRAW compression. You can customize the output format for maximum quality to work with in post, or keep a still very useful image but maximize the compression for storage efficiency. By using H.265 with some ways to tweak the output, I think you could get a format that is compressed yet flexible in post - and that could be tweaked to be less flexible in post but optimized for file size.

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Guest 560a4aedcb80685284629074497fdc75

Give me a C100 mk II with internal 10bit 4K image and I don't need to buy any video cameras for the next 10 years.

It's already my perfect camera as is for around the next 2-3 years but that's it, not beyond that, as 4K will be in every home and on every PC monitor and on every YT cat video. You would'nt be able to keep using the mk II in that atmosphere at all, no natter how good it is. It will be like great SD at this point!. So no I am not putting 5K and up in such a short term investment in a professional camera for a commercial business. That was fine when the original C100/300 came out where life was still HD for many many years, but things move fast and Canon marketing team doesn't!

 

I'll be astounded if even the C300 MkII has internal 10bit. It has to be 4K though ...

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I dislike RED as a brand and I don't have any particular love of the image

 

Ridiculously, that leaves Canon ...

 

5DIII ML RAW - if I was only shooting for myself this is probably the one camera I would own.

What have RED done to earn your disrespect? I think RED generally gives a far more cinematic image than Canon 5d h264, not sure about RAW. But some studios really abuse the image and make it too crisp (ie. the hobbit)

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Guest 560a4aedcb80685284629074497fdc75

What have RED done to earn your disrespect? I think RED generally gives a far more cinematic image than Canon 5d h264, not sure about RAW. But some studios really abuse the image and make it too crisp (ie. the hobbit)

 

I don't disrespect them. Well actually I do - threatening bloggers like Bloom and Reid with lawsuits left-right-and-centre for daring to voice a few negative opinions about their cameras is no way to earn respect from the public. But above I was just talking about my personal preference. I'm just not into anything about RED: I don't like the way their cameras look, I don't like their branding or media image, I don't like the Cult of Red, and though there's nothing "wrong" with the image from the Epic I've never been particularly taken with anything I've seen.

 

I certainly wasn't talking about/comparing anything to the 5D3's h264 image at all, anywhere. I happen to quite like it for certain subjects, but I was talking specifically and exclusively about ML RAW above. 

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Arri's are far too big for anything I do (Amira included).

 

I dislike RED as a brand and I don't have any particular love of the image.

 

Sony colours are not to my taste at all (F35 looks lovely but the newer CMOS stuff I find soulless).

 

Blackmagic image I like, but low light is an issue, as is handling (and URSA file sizes are scary).

 

GH4 is great but just a bit too noisy. If it's the only camera you have, low light will be an issue.

 

Nikon - D750 and D810 look decent but I don't think 8bit DSLR's are ever going to be enough for me as a video camera.

 

What is your thought on the Speed Booster on the GH4? Low light hasn't been an issue for me ever since I got it.

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Guest 560a4aedcb80685284629074497fdc75

What is your thought on the Speed Booster on the GH4? Low light hasn't been an issue for me ever since I got it.

 

Yeah I considered adding the GH4 to my list. I think with a Speed Booster - perhaps the BMCC version for more light and S35 crop - and a Ninja Star to get 10-bit colour (4K down sampled to HD) it would be enough for me. I also wish there were more tests online of the GH4 (down sampled 4K) with in-camera noise reduction turned on. I hate using Neat Video as part of my post workflow, and the GH4 image is more than sharp enough for me already.

 

I wish I had the money and time to justify buying a 5D3 just to shoot RAW for my own personal use, but the GH4 is so much more practical and useable. In fact, the C100 MkII is so expensive for what it is, and for personal stuff it's bigger than I prefer, so the GH4 is a good compromise between the two. In good light, GH4 footage can be made to look remarkably close to the C100 (see 1st video below). It's just the colours that aren't as stunning as from the C100 (I'm a certified colour junkie). I think with a Ninja the GH4 colours can look great though (see 2nd video below) ...

 

Vs. C100:

 

10-bit (Ninja) vs. h264:

 

For me the difference in colour between the C100 and GH4 (in the 1st video) is very significant. The GH4 looks flat, muddy and dead in colour terms compared to the C100. But looking at the colours in the 10-bit vs 8-bit GH4 video, it looks like a Ninja could fix that ...

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