Upgrade paths in an ever changing world...

[Graeme]

Okay,

With everything changing so quickly and price drops etc, I'm hoping to get a new camera for a webseries idea I have... but for right now I am weighing the options out there and quite frankly I'm not seeing an easy was of doing this without spending +$4000. So I'm working on the upgrade plan (and getting a jar to start stuffing $20 bills into each week to raise the funds). But I wanted to know what other people thought about the options below and if I'm making a good choice towards improving the quality of the films or just spending money for incremental increases that really don't matter. In the mean time I continue to work on my craft (I have 2 projects and helping a friend on a third this month).

Right now my current video focused gear is...
Lumix GH2 (with Nikon Adapter)
GoPro HD
H4N Zoom
Several XLR & Phono Mics
iPhone 4s
and a bunch of Nikon Glass (from Photo Days).
Plus about +$2000 in stuff I'm planning to sell in the near future (old stuff I don't use anymore).

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Right now I'm trying to determine the best upgrade path for the next year or so that will give me greater filmmaking capabilities while not breaking the bank.

Current Capabilities...
Sensor Crop of 2x on 35mm equivalent.
Nikon Pro Glass (FX and DX) from 10.5mm to 400mm
1080p at 24fps, 88Mbps.

Desired Capabilities...
Faster Frame Rates at 1080p*
Larger Sensor or Wider Lens
Nikon Mount
Higher DR
Onboard Audio for XLR
2k+
RAW

* This is the Big Ticket Item, as what I will be shooting in the next year or two which hopefully (working on getting it set-up) will be a webseries about Psychics; which will be action oriented with powers like telekinesis and mind control. But I want to utilize slow-mo for effect and to capture more frames to make adding special effects easier.

Now I know the easiest answer is go Nikon or RED (they have a Nikon mount). But I'm wondering what other options are out there that people can suggest as I'd like not to spend a fortune on cameras (as Its a hobby and I don't make money on it).

I've looked at cameras at Canon, Sony, Black Magic and the lack of a Nikon mount makes these camera less desirable as the cost to replace/swap all my glass is simply too much.

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Some potential options I was considering...

A) Sell GH2 and buy Nikon D800 + Atmos Ninja (~$4000)

B) Sell GoProHD and buy Hero3 (~$500)

C) Make do and save up for pseudo-RED (Barebones Scarlet + Atmos Samurai Recorder for 1080p)

D) Make do and save up for RED (~$12,000 for scarlet, ~$28,000 for Epic as shootable packages)

Your thoughts and recommendations?


*** I should mention my original plan was a 3K scarlet (if you know what that is) but what they announced and called "Scarlet" exceeded my budget at the time and did not have a capabilities I was originally looking for; so I heard good things and got the GH2, which has been by and by and excellent camera move; minus its drawbacks in the spec department.

 

[Alcove Audio]

What do you mean by "Phono" mics? Which mics do you have - make/model, please.



Why do you want on-board audio? Apart from the convenience, of course.

 

[jax_rox]

The Blackmagic also now has a m4/3 mount option so you could also adapt that to accept any lens you want, including Nikon.

As far as slow-mo goes, the only/best option for < the price of a Phantom, Weiss, Epic etc. is a Sony FS700, which can also be adapted for most lenses, but it is also a lot more expensive than say a GH2 or a Blackmagic.

In terms of wider lenses - how wide do you need? The GH2's cropped sensor isn't cropped all that much more than APS-C, which is the standard S35 sensor size. The kit GH2 lens goes as wide as 14mm, which is about equivalent to an 18mm on a S35 sensor, which is pretty damn wide - how much wider do you need? The wider you go the more distortion you'll get.

For higher dynamic range than a GH2, you're looking at Blackmagic at a cheap level, and up from that maybe a Red or an F3 with S-Log.. Even FS700 doesn't have much more DR than a GH2..

Why you would want 2k+ and raw capabilities for a webseries baffles me. Why you would want to waste money on a Red for a webseries also baffles me.

Considering the majority of films projected at a cinema are projected in 2k, I'm not sure why you really need it for a webseries, or otherwise. As far raw capabilities go - again, why? Log is just as good (if you were to shoot log on a BMCC, or Sony F3), and even then the gain for a webseries is negligible.

And as far as on-board XLR inputs, IMO, it's cheaper and better to buy a location recorder with balanced XLRs - they're actually designed for recording audio, whereas a camera is designed for recording video and hey, let's also tack on some XLR inputs. The mic pres are usually horrible.

 

[Graeme]

@Alcove

Currently I have a Rode NTG-2, Selflix 600 OHM Condensir Mic, and a wireless Rider WM-308.

The middle on connects to a 1/4" photo plug.

XLR inputs on camera - I currently have an H4N Zoom for off-camera recording. It's good but it does add extra work flow in post and often sound files don't match up with video files (laziness I know, but often it's just easier on-set to keep the H4N running on one big file for the whole reshoot a). Mainly therefore for convincence and to reduce the number of cables and boxes on the camera for more mobile/gurilla shooting as I often don't have a lot of crew support (I tend to be the mic boom guy on other's sets... Mainly because our of the lot I tend to collaborate I more willing to do it, but it doesn't work the other way with any great results).

@jax

Lot of questions you asked so please bear with me.
RAW - I come from a photography background where I shoot and manipulate RAW files, currently AVCHD is like working with JPEG, it's annoying and trying to do special effects is hard. I don't have any experiance with Log files, so I'm open to advice on that but RAW I understand.

Faster Frame Rates - I like slowmo action scenes, and would really like to put more into my shooting but as of currently I don't have the capabilities in the camera I have.

2K & 4K - honestly I don't need it right now for the web series (and I'm calling it that because it will be posted to the web and unlikely to conform to normal 44mins an hour per episode). However I can see getting better quality out of a 2K or 4K camera which would allow me to correct more for camera shake and crop-pans etc that one can't do with a 1080p camera as easily.

FX / FF Sensor - I have the 17mm lens for the GH2, its sn okay lens, but there is a lot of in camera correction occurring to remove the fisheye distortion so what the camera is outputting isn't exactly what the sensor sees. But i went with it anyway because of the low light feature f1.7 and native AF. I know there are MFT lenses that are great for small sensors, but they cost money (easily $1000 per lens). The thing is I have very nice Pro Nikon Glass, but a lot of the top quality lenses are in the 50-85mm range. Which on a full frame are great, but on a MFT sensor are just too long and shaky. And given that many of the lenses cost upwards of $3-4K each... I should be useing those (cause the next step up would be cinematic lenses). Mainly I've shot on the GH2 the 17mm 90% of the time and a 12-24mm Nikon.

BMCC - it's an option, a serious contender once they get cameras out the door. The 2.5K would be nice as I could downscale or Crop to 1080p. But it's still using the smaller sensor and only does 24fps so I'm again not taking advantage of the lenses I have, nor am I getting the slow-mo I want/need.

 

[jax_rox]

RAW - I come from a photography background where I shoot and manipulate RAW files, currently AVCHD is like working with JPEG, it's annoying and trying to do special effects is hard. I don't have any experiance with Log files, so I'm open to advice on that but RAW I understand.

I think potentially your biggest issue here is the fact that you're using a camera with a 4:2:0 colour space, which makes it hard to do anything. Any camera with 4:2:2+ is going to be better for you, whether it records in raw or not. 4:2:0 is useable but under the right circumstances...
Log is practically raw anyway, especially if recording ProRes 4444. It really depends on your post workflow, I suppose, as colour grading for video is somewhat more difficult than making a photo look good. On top of that, you end up having to grade everything you do, which can can sometime cause issues on tight timelines, as unlike a photo where all you're doing is making it look good - with video you're editing it all together, and then making it look good.

I assume, however, that you've embraced that as just a 'fact of life' in terms of moving forward as a shooter. Perhaps the F3 is something to look at, shooting in Log-S.

Mainly I've shot on the GH2 the 17mm 90% of the time and a 12-24mm Nikon.

Nikon 12-24 @ 12mm si equivalent to a 15mm S35 lens. Now you're getting super wide. I suppose in context, you seem to be coming from photography where your full frame is actually larger than traditional motion picture S35 full frame. The 30-85 range on a GH2 is what I quite often use for mid-wides and CUs. That gives you ~40-100mm equivalent for S35.

 

[gebo]

RED prices dropped a few days ago, did you check that already?

 

[Graeme]

I think potentially your biggest issue here is the fact that you're using a camera with a 4:2:0 colour space, which makes it hard to do anything.

That may be a source of my problems, again its all I have right now and I don't have access to ProRes or Log files. I know I did play around with the BMCC and RED codec files and was very impressed on the amount of tweaking I could do.

 

[jax_rox]

That may be a source of my problems, again its all I have right now and I don't have access to ProRes or Log files. I know I did play around with the BMCC and RED codec files and was very impressed on the amount of tweaking I could do.

You might also be interested in the fact that Red are currently selling battle tested M-X's for $4,000

Now, of course you're still looking at all the Red accessories, but it does come with an SSD module and lens mount, so if you're looking for 4k raw for $4,000....
Just price out all the Red accessories you need before you make any purchases