Bill’s Rules for Buying a Camera

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pictured above is the Sony FS100.

With the announcements of new cameras happening more frequently than new car introductions, it seems useful to list the things I do, things I don’t do, and things I look for when considering a new camera. But first, let me say that all rules can be broken. However, my camera buying rules have served me well over many years and I don’t recall any instance in which I broke the most basic one.

I haven’t really articulated these rules before and the order is not significant, except for No. 1.

Rule No. 1: NEVER pre-order or buy a camera as soon as it’s announced. 

Since these are my rules I’ll explain by citing what I’ve done since the old Betacam days. (I could take it back to the film days and my Cinema Products CP16, but that’s a bit extreme.) Here’s the timeline, and dates are approximate:

Late ’80s — Sony introduced the Betacam SP self-contained camcorder, the BVW200 around 1988. There was an Ampex version as well, but it was really a Sony. I was blown away. The camera was no bigger and no heavier than a 16mm sync camera. It was all in one piece. No separate recorder tethered with a 26 pin cable. No big heavy dockable deck. It would be like shooting film again. But I waited. It was too new. TV station video engineers didn’t like it.

Then around 1989 the second generation came out, the BVW300. The regional Sony broadcast rep overnighted me one to try out. Sony was like that in those days. I used it for a day, sent it back and immediately ordered one. Then called the bank about getting a $40,000 loan. The camera served me well for about a dozen years.

1999 — The DV revolution was in full swing. The old Betacam needed a lot of maintenance and a new 2/3″ broadcast camera was in the works. I went to NAB that year, and Sony introduced the DSR500, a DVCAM broadcast camera. I told my partner at the time: That’s probably the next camera but let’s wait.

Also in that year the 1/3″ chip DSR250 came out. It was the second generation of the DSR200, which was cool but had a lot of problems. I bought the BVW250 for a specific series of projects.

2000-2001 — Updated DSR500A came out and it was time to buy. Some improvements were made over the original, including slightly higher resolution. It was time to buy.

2006 — Canon had taken the DV revolution to a new level with the HDV XL H1. Although still editing in standard definition, I was eager to get into HD shooting. My theory was that I’d have the better quality original so if SD went away quickly, I could always rebuild a show in that format. But HDV was new and so was the XL H1. But then late that year Canon brought out the XH A1. It had the same guts as the pricier XL H1 but was more compact, with a fixed lens. I considered it a second generation, so once again it was time to buy.

Do you see the trend here? Every camera I had bought since Betacam and including the BVW300 was a second generation model. I was never the first kid on the block with the new toy. When the DSLR revolution started, I didn’t buy the 5DII. I waited until the following September, 2009, and got the 7D, which was in effect Canon’s second generation hybrid DSLR. Then in 2010 Canon had some firmware upgrades to the 5DII, so I got it.

And today I have the Sony FS100. Just got it a few months ago, in September 2012. The camera was introduced at NAB 2011. I bought it after the first year. I have followed my Rule No. 1 pretty seriously and have never had a problem camera. I’ve also never bought into a format at the end of its run. You could say it’s sort of a Buddhist thing: follow the middle path. The way I generally state it is: let other people be the Beta testers.  Don’t jump into the bathtub until the water is hot, but don’t wait until it’s cold.

Rule No. 2: Be careful in your research.

I believe in researching every major purchase, whether it’s a camera, a car, a computer, or TV, etc. It’s easy to find multiple sources of information on all the boards, customer comments at B&H, and trade publications. But, be careful of how you gather your information. For example, with all the manufacture-driven interest in RAW and 4K these days, a casual reader would feel that it’s impossible to make a film without RAW or 4K files. You might think you can’t even tweak the gamma of an H.264 file without it falling apart. You’ll see that if you want chroma key, it can’t possibly be done with AVCHD. And the beat goes on. If you go to the Red user board, you’ll come away thinking that all other cameras ever made, including film, are crap and that nobody can possibly make a movie without 4K.

But if you dig deeper in your sources you’ll find out all about all the films made with Canon’s 5DII and 7D. You’ll run across the last episode of the excellent “House” TV series shot with three 5DII cameras shooting H.264 with excellent color grading. You’ll find the film “Act of Valor” that Shane Hurlbut DP’d with a huge number of 5DII and 7D cameras, as well as a high end Sony HD camera and it all cut together beautifully.

People who shoot feature films for a living will tell you that they pick the best tools for the job. Lots of wannabes will proselytize about a specific camera or format and tell you 4K is a must. People I call brandwhores will preach the virtues of the camera they have bought or want to buy. Some sites will promote certain brands for money or gear or other freebies and trips and all.

Years ago I wrote articles for trade journals and always got paid by the manufacturer. It had to be an objective article, a legitimate feature, but I could have photos of the equipment and do interviews with people who praised it. In those articles you would never see any serious criticism of the equipment. You can usually spot those articles. The article makes you want to buy the camera, and to retain objectivity there will be some minor criticisms. They try to be unbiased, but I’m not sure about that.

I don’t know if some of the discussion boards still have shills–people paid by the manufacturer, or its agency, to write good things about their product. My guess is that they’re still around, although many have been replaced by the religious fervor of the brandwhores. Overall, read lots of different sources, be wary of all of them. Don’t believe everything I write either without checking.

Rule No. 3: Don’t cherry pick the data.

It’s easy to get enamored of a new camera and read only the articles that praise it. All of us have a tendency to want something and then go out and justify its purchase. Read all the negatives about the camera as well as the glowing positives so you can have balanced information when you pull the trigger.

Rule No. 4: Figure out what you really do before buying.

Everybody today wants the new Sony F5 or F55. A few months ago everybody wanted the Canon C300 or C500. Lots of people want the Sony F100 or the upcoming Canon C100. Everybody wants the Black Magic. Everybody wants a Red. As soon as a new camera is announced, people go nuts. Think about his: that’s what the people who produce the advertising want you to do. They spend unconscionable amounts of money to manipulate you into thinking you absolutely must have the new camera to survive.

Everybody thinks they need to shoot RAW. Or 4K. Why? Most all TV shows that are shot with high end cameras don’t use the full capability of the camera. TV wants high quality, quick turnaround. Those who use the Arri Alexa shoot plain ol’ ProRes 422 with it. That’s why Canon targeted the C300 to the television production world. Think of the incredible amounts of storage space they’d need on every shoot if they shot RAW or 4K on everything.

IF you shoot in a manner that requires extensive, professional and expensive color grading by a specialist, then by all means go as uncompressed as you can get. But before you jump into that river, think about what you really use a camera for. Do you do documentaries? Corporate video? Are you a hobbyist who does an occasional film for fun and no profit? If you do local TV spots you most likely don’t need either 4K or RAW, but you may have agency clients who think they’re in the big time if they insist on it. That’s a different story. If you’re in that business, sometimes you have to buy a certain camera in order to assure you have the proper image (not video image) with the client. It has nothing to do with quality, rather it’s all about being cool, which may be necessary to retain the business.

What if you want to make a microbudget indie film? Don’t you want the best, most transparent video quality? In my opinion, no–you want the best production quality. ANY big chip HD camera can give you good enough quality for any film with a budget up to a few million bucks, if you now how to use it effectively. Good lighting, good sound, good composition have nothing to do with the kind of files the camera produces. It’s all about first story and second production values. Your HD footage is only a tiny bit smaller than 2K footage. You can convert to ProRes422 or some other equivalent format to edit or for your final master. Most all theaters are going 2K digital these days. Even the AMC theaters which have Sony 4K are projection mostly in 2K. Resolution will always improve, but you can reach a point of diminishing returns. If money is no object, as in a big Hollywood production, then by all means go for the Sony F65 or the Arri Alexa. But if you’re doing a documentary for HBO or a small indie narrative, you can shoot it with an FS100. Somebody did one recently for HBO with an FS100, which is why I mentioned it.  You’ll find documentaries shot with the 7D, the 5DII all over the place.

Rule No. 5: Cameras are temporary, lenses are forever.

You can go to B&H today and buy the Sony FS700, which does incredibly beautiful slomo, for about $8K. If you get the package with the 18-200mm kit lens, it’s only about $600 more. That lens is OK, fine for outdoor run-n-gun. Not a bad lens. But not a really good lens. To get what you want out of that camera, or any other, you need good lenses. That doesn’t mean you can’t make a movie with a cheap kit lens. You can. But I’d rather have a cheaper camera with better lenses.

Good lenses are expensive, but thanks to today’s technology and things like the Metabones “smart” lens adapter, you can use excellent quality still camera lenses on most excellent quality video cameras. Old AI Nikkor lenses can be found on eBay in great condition for a fraction of the cost of big chip cine lenses. I would, of course, prefer the Zeiss CP.2 lenses at $4K apiece, but that’s not the world I live in today. My ancient Nikkors give me a full set of fast primes up to 105mm. My Canon L zooms give me high quality run-n-gun lenses.

My point here is, I want good lenses, but they don’t have to be expensive good lenses. A Canon 24-105 f4 lens is an excellent quality lens and is about $1,000 today. That’s a tiny fraction of the cost of an equivalent cine lens. If I had $15K to spend, I would keep my FS100 and put the money into Zeiss CP.2 lenses before I’d buy the more expensive Sony F3. Good lenses will long outlast any camera built today.

Rule No. 6: The camera is only a small part of the production package. Don’t blow the budget on it.

It’s natural to want the best camera you can afford. We all do. If you’ve been in the business awhile you may have everything you need–good tripod, lights, sound gear, support gear, grip gear, shipping cases, lenses, and on and on and on. In that case you can figure out what you want to spend on a camera and spend it. But if you are new, or coming from a fixed lens video camera, you’ll soon find that the camera is the tip of the iceberg.  I heard from one person who bought a 7D, got a couple of acceptable lenses and thought he was set. He had lights, sound and support. Then he discovered that he needed a set of ND filters or a good quality variable ND. I mentioned that a good one was $400 and cheaper ones were around $200. I thought the poor guy was going to cry. “Dammit, every time I turn around there’s something else I need.”

Yep. That’s the way it is. If you spend $2K on a DSLR like the 5DII, or less on the 7D, or more on the Nikon D800, you’re still going to need lenses and filters. On top of that you need a sound recorder. And if you do any amount of handheld work, you’ll want a support rig to turn the camera into a shoulder mount setup for stability. And don’t forget an LCD viewer and maybe an EVF. And a follow focus system with lens gears if you use still camera lenses with very short throws. Not even counting lenses, it’s common to spend more than the DSLR cost on support gear to make it work like a video camera. That’s not a criticism of the DLSR, merely an acknowledgement that we have to consider all the costs before blowing our entire budget on the camera alone.

Rule No. 7: Be aware that there’s not one do-it-all camera

The reason there are different cameras is because there are different uses for different cameras. There are people out there today who think the Black Magic is the answer to their prayers for the price of a good DSLR. Could be for some, but does it look like something you’d use for a documentary?  Do you shoot a lot of stills and some occasional video? A DSLR package might be better. Do you shoot professional stills and professional video? You might need a DSLR and a “real” video camera. Do you have to shoot for another person and give him the files? A 5DIII may not be good for that, and he may not want to have to sync up the audio–which means a “real” video camera would be better than a hybrid DSLR. Do you do a lot of composite work, lots of special effects? Maybe the Black Magic is the best, but if you want to also shoot a lot of quick and dirty exteriors you might need something else as well.

Roger Deakins  shot “Skyfall,” the new James Bond film, with the Arri Alexa and a couple of other Arri digital models. My FS100 would not be the best tool for that job. But the Arri Alexa would not be the best tool for the work I do (assuming I could afford it). Sometimes a crescent wrench is the best tool to tighten up a nut, other times you need a good set of sockets with a torque handle. Shane Hurlbut uses everything from the 7D to the high end Sonys, depending on what works best for the shot.

Rule No. 8: Forget “future-proofing.” It doesn’t exist.

We all consider a camera a huge investment. We’d like to buy the One True Camera That We Can Use The Rest of Our Productive Lives. Guess what:  it doesn’t exist anymore and probably never will again. If you bought a 35mm or 16mm film camera in 1970, or 1960, or 1950, or even earlier, you could be still using it today for shooting film. Those days have gone the way of film. It’s a digital world and that means change. Change, however, does not mean that the camera you own is obsolete the minute a new camera is announced.

If I had not wanted the look of the big chip DSLRs, and now the look of the big chip “real” video cameras, I could still be shooting every day with my Canon XH A1, bought almost 7 years ago.  It’s not obsolete. It still looks good. Lots of people are still using them. People are still shooting with the HVX200. Everybody I know has pretty much abandoned tape, but that doesn’t mean tape acquisition is obsolete.

There are three things I can think of that can make a camera obsolete:

1. It’s old and would cost more to maintain than it’s worth. Maybe it needs new heads, or the tape mechanism is dying. You can put a quarter million miles on a Toyota, but eventually it’s more practical to get a new car than keep on fixing the old one.

2. The type of work you do changes. If you’ve been happily shooting with a 7D but suddenly need to shoot politicians giving speeches or Catholic weddings, the 12 minute limit isn’t going to cut it. A “real” video camera that is limited only by the capacity of the recording media you use might be better.

3. Technology advances to the point that your images are no longer good enough. An example of this would be the slow move from standard definition to HD. My SD footage looked very good a few years ago, but when 1/3″ chip HDV cameras came out at a fraction of the cost and produced better images, I knew it wouldn’t be long before the world was HD and SD just wouldn’t look good enough anymore. The manufacturers would have you believe that we’re in a 4K world and you need to be there too, but that’s a few years away from being true.

Eventually the world changes and you have to change with it. However, I think we’re at a point in terms of image quality where it’s only a few degrees of better that separates a $5,000 camera from a $50,000 camera. Yes, properly graded RAW files will look better. Yes, comparing good 4K to good 2K shows that 4K is cleaner. But you can stick high quality lenses on an FS100 or an FS700 and go out and shoot a quality production and if you know what you’re doing, nobody in the audience will ever say, “Man, that image quality sucks compared to what I saw shot with a Red.”  Sure, you can put footage up and do side by side comparisons, do 100% blowups and you can shoot resolution charts and low light comparisons and go nuts with it. The higher resolution will always come out on top, but if you go out and make a movie you can intercut 7D files with Red files and nobody will ever see the difference. If you light properly, you  won’t need to capability of high end color grading because you’ll only need to do minimal color balancing.

But the time will come to change. Don’t do it too early and don’t do it too late. Your camera will never be totally future proof, but it should last you a number of years. The only thing I own that’s future proof are my lenses and lights.

Rule No. 9: Buy from a reputable dealer.

Always buy from a reputable dealer, such as B&H. If you buy strictly on the cheapest price, you can get burned. If you buy a lens from B&H and it looks soft when wide open, all you have to do is call up and let them know and they’ll send you a return authorization and will refund your money or exchange it for you (keep all the packaging in pristine condition). If you live in a city with good dealers, it’s nice if you can support them, but always check prices with B&H first. Anybody that’s more than 5% higher than B&H is gouging you; anybody more than 5% cheaper may be risky.

Conclusion

Over the years I’ve made a decent living making movies. Mostly corporate, TV spots, training, educational, promotional and motivational films, with lots of documentary and some narrative production thrown in for fun but little if any money. I’ve gone from 16mm film to 2″ video, from 1″ video to 3/4″ video, from Betacam to DVCAM, from standard definition to HDV to HD, from tape to tapeless, from sync blocks to Premiere Pro. I’ve spent a fair amount of money on camera gear–not Hollywood, not high end studio, but the stuff in the middle. I’ve always looked for reasonable quality that fit the job to be done. Out of the nine “rules” here that make up my camera buying philosophy, I can see that in some circumstances most any of them could be violated successfully. Any except Rule No. 1 and No. 9. I will never order a camera that has not been out there a few months, and I will never buy a camera from any dealer I don’t know well.