Which camera is better?

I wanna shoot a few shorts to build a portfolio in order to get funding to film one of my screenplays and hopefully more afterwords. So for shooting shorts that will be winners at the film festivals, I need the camera that will qualify for to be seen as a good director. I am shooting on very low micro budgets though and need some advice. I've done research and so far there are two HD cameras out there, that are cheap, yet seem to be the best choices to meet the standards of being good enough quality to catch the critics eyes.

The Canon Rebel T2i HD and the Canon HV30 HDV. Which camera is better quality and why? And are they both qualify-able for film festival standards to break into the business? And if possible are there cameras with that good of quality, that are even cheaper? I also wanna shoot in 4:3 ratio, if those offer that. Thanks.
 
Last edited:
Well one thing I'm concerned about is that I found out that the T2i's image sensor is smaller than that of the Canon 5D. The 5D uses the same size sensor as a 35mm camera, but the T2i uses one less than half the size. I was told that this could result in more or less pixels in the picture, resulting possibly in a lesser quality picture, than by the 5D's standards. Is this going to be a possible problem, quality wise? I mean my DP has the skill to make the picture look good but he cannot change the number of pixels there are.
 
Dude, the t2i shoots amazing footage, and the only footage I've seen is on youtube and vimeo! If it can look that great there, look how awesome it'll look on a back lit monitor or tv. Sure there's some difference but are you really worrying about it that much at such an early stage?
 
Well one thing I'm concerned about is that I found out that the T2i's image sensor is smaller than that of the Canon 5D. The 5D uses the same size sensor as a 35mm camera, but the T2i uses one less than half the size. I was told that this could result in more or less pixels in the picture, resulting possibly in a lesser quality picture, than by the 5D's standards. Is this going to be a possible problem, quality wise? I mean my DP has the skill to make the picture look good but he cannot change the number of pixels there are.

The 5D has a sensor the size of a 35mm stills camera, not a 35mm motion picture camera. The 550D's sensor is not "less than half the size" - it is 1.6 times smaller. The sensor in the 550D is closer to the size of a movie camera frame than the 5D's, which is substantially larger. Physical sensor size has nothing to do with the number of pixels - the 550D has a higer pixel density (pixels per inch) than the 5D. If your DoP is as skilled as you say, minor differences between the 550D and 5D won't affect his work at all.
 
Well one thing I'm concerned about is that I found out that the T2i's image sensor is smaller than that of the Canon 5D. The 5D uses the same size sensor as a 35mm camera, but the T2i uses one less than half the size. I was told that this could result in more or less pixels in the picture, resulting possibly in a lesser quality picture, than by the 5D's standards. Is this going to be a possible problem, quality wise? I mean my DP has the skill to make the picture look good but he cannot change the number of pixels there are.

You're a little mixed up with your facts and assumptions here. The T2i and all other APS-C cameras have almost the exact same field of view as super-35 movie film. Check out this website for a comparison.

The full size sensor on a 5D is HUGE! The T2i sensor is about the same size as a RED Epic X, RED One, and Arri Alexa, not that you should compare it to those.

Another point to consider. The 5D is 21 megapixels, right? The T2i is 18 MP on a sensor roughly half the size. Which on has more megapixels by area? All of the HDSLR's have to have the sharpness turned all the way down to look like film. They are too sharp on the factory settings.
 
Okay thanks. I was told by a camera specialist that if my film were shown on the big theater screens at the festivals, that it the pixels might appear bigger than normal on a 1.6 size sensor, thus perhaps affecting the quality. But he wasn't sure about how it would look on the big screen. So there's pretty much nothing to worry about with the sensor size then.
 
Okay thanks. I was told by a camera specialist that if my film were shown on the big theater screens at the festivals, that it the pixels might appear bigger than normal on a 1.6 size sensor, thus perhaps affecting the quality. But he wasn't sure about how it would look on the big screen. So there's pretty much nothing to worry about with the sensor size then.

Right.

Beware of camera specialists. ;)
 
Right.

Beware of camera specialists. ;)

Yeah, their job is to sell things, not help you make the best film.

I dunno, I'm not a huge camera guy, but to me the T2i looks a lot like the 5D and 7D. People are shooting features with those left and right. Worry less about your camera and more about art direction, blocking, lighting, and all the other components that go into the overall presentation of your film.


And who said they hadn't ever seen a poor quality digital video camera on a big screen? Those people obviously didn't see any found footage movies, they might be using DSLR's now, for Paranormal Activity 2 and such, but Blair Witch Project got major theatrical distribution with an RCA Hi-8. So that statement isn't true. It's all about final presentation.

Video can get wide distribution, if it's used correctly. Unfortunately, any schmuck can get a cheap video camera, so that's where the negative connotations come from.

More than half of Crank 2 was filmed with cheap handheld Sony cameras.
 
Yeah, their job is to sell things, not help you make the best film.

I dunno, I'm not a huge camera guy, but to me the T2i looks a lot like the 5D and 7D. People are shooting features with those left and right. Worry less about your camera and more about art direction, blocking, lighting, and all the other components that go into the overall presentation of your film.


And who said they hadn't ever seen a poor quality digital video camera on a big screen? Those people obviously didn't see any found footage movies, they might be using DSLR's now, for Paranormal Activity 2 and such, but Blair Witch Project got major theatrical distribution with an RCA Hi-8. So that statement isn't true. It's all about final presentation.

Video can get wide distribution, if it's used correctly. Unfortunately, any schmuck can get a cheap video camera, so that's where the negative connotations come from.

More than half of Crank 2 was filmed with cheap handheld Sony cameras.

Crank 2, interesting. Paranormal Activity, and The Blair Witch Project were going for the found footage look though, so movies like that can get away with cheating on cheap videocam work, than other movies. But yeah, I will worry more about the other stuff, now that I have already got my T2i. It's funny how Paranormal Activity was going for the found footage look, and it was shot on a Sony FX1.

That camera is a big expensive movie camera, and they use it to shoot a found footage thriller. They could have used something much cheaper that would have been more proper to make it look like found footage. Something under $300 dollars would have worked. And for Paranormal Activity 2, they used some high performance camera, even though it was suppose to be shot with security cameras and be found security camera footage. Why didn't they shoot it with real home security cameras to go for the look more realistically?
 
Back
Top