One of THOSE camera threads (Page 1 of 2)

Thanks mate, I definitely know what the Canon DSLRs can do, I was wondering more about the side of usability and functionality under actual production situations. The more I read and hear I'm definitely starting to lean heavily in favor of a 7D, unless Brian (Seeing as he's the only person I know who has one) or anyone else with experience can tell me otherwise.

Rent a few different kinds of cameras and kit on a per project basis a couple times and try them out yourself. Better use of money, and you learn different systems. There are way too many variables against someone's specific requirements to say which they should buy and why.

And as you mentioned effects stuff, the Canon Ds are bad news for 3d tracking and greenscreen.

Use the several hundreds of dollars you save over buying a prosumer thing and pick up a handful of books about on set lighting and the ASC manuals, so when you actually do buy a killer camera, the investment is even more worth it.

Last edited by paulou (2010-09-12 19:57:32)

As well as some other stuff you can see on my Vimeo page: http://vimeo.com/user3029603/videos

I love my 7D; it's not without it's limitations, but it produces unbelievable images for the price. That being said, while the camera and a basic lens put it in the 1-2k range, outfitting it with other accessories to make it a truly viable filmmaking machine bump up the cost. In addition to the camera and kit lens, I got a decent tripod with a fluid head, a couple of prime lenses to take advantage of the camera's low light capabilities, a sound recorder and shotgun mic, and other smaller accessories. None of these are top of the line, by a long shot, but it's still a few hundred dollars each, which adds up quickly. And that's not counting a proper hand held rig (I bought a Gorilla-pod, which I use as a poor man's hand held rig), a case to carry it all, or a slew of other incidentals.

But you don't necessarily need to get that fancy with it. It all depends on what you want to do. If you're out to practice your storytelling and compositional skills, I'd say go for it and then just get out there and shoot. You only get better by doing and it's vastly easier to do when you have a small camera like a DSLR that you can just grab and go with. But if you have a few specific projects in mind, it might be better to go Paulou's route.

Also, I haven't done anything with 7D footage and visual effects, so I can't speak to that aspect.

If you're only focused on video, consider the T2i, I went with the 7D as a way to upgrade my still and video cameras at the same time.

7D experiences rolling shutter, which is difficult for FX, and especially difficult for tracking.

/made Movers

I have no recommendation. I know nothing about cameras. Dorkman might know, or know where to look.

As mentioned, shutter artifacts from the way the camera draws a frame will fuck up tracking. The Foundry has a cool tool to compensate for that, but it's not 100% reliable.

Keying gets really hard because of the (8bit) compression algorithm used in the camera starts to degrade significantly when you introduce some arbitrary level of detail that's beyond the functional bitrate of the video. Then your edges go to shit.

Renting/borrowing/thiefing cameras for different projects will teach you a lot more about the pros and cons of the tools than any amount of forum discussion. And  (this is where I was less clear) if you're only looking to do a project once in a while, just renting a camera for shooting days can be the better option financially than dropping big bucks on your own for something that may not be used enough to justify the expense.

That money could go to more important, longer lasting aspects of your development as a filmmaker (like booklearnin or watching/buying more movies) Your brain and your ability to tell a compelling story is a lot more important than talking about sexy bokeh and compression artifacts.

But then again, can't underestimate how much you can learn about light and composition from shooting stills in manual with a prime lens. Which you can do with a 7D. If you just want to hear someone say to go buy a 7D, I'll say buy a 7D. And a 50 mil f/1.4. The sexiness-per-dollar ratio of that thing is unrivaled at the moment.

You gotta eventually move out of that, though. I know people who don't have any idea what changing the length of a lens does to photos. They repeat 'if you want to see a subject closer, move closer' like it's a mantra.

Reminds me a bit of piano players who learned the Suzuki method. If they hear a piece of music five times, they can reproduce it perfectly, but if you put a page of music in front of them, they have no idea what to do.

It's funny, because you are both saying the exact same thing.

So after another (I believe this will be the third today) burst of a few hours research I'm starting to become slightly dis/depressed. So far everything I've seen has pointed me in the direction of the 7D/5DMkII(Way outta my price range, but a guy can dream), but the only thing I have seen negating it is this rolling shutter/motion tracking issue, yet I can't find a single damn resource showing how it differs in a practical work flow compared to a traditional camcorder.

Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places but I also can't seem to find a decent resource that outlines alternatives to the DSLRs which won't have the rolling shutter issue but also won't look like a piece of shit or be absolutely useless to work with. And the only cameras I can find even remotely close to it are AT LEAST several thousand more expensive (Which I just can't afford).

So does the rolling shutter issue outweigh the strengths of everything else or is it worth to just suck it up and deal with it? (If there is even a way to deal with it...?)

I don't know much about lower-end cameras, but the Canon T2i seems to be what the kids are into.  As I understand it, it gives you image quality similar to a 7D, but for around $800.  Can't beat that.

For about a year almost everything I shot was on either a 5D or the RED, and in the past 6 months or so the 5D has surpassed the RED by a long shot.  I'm not talking little shorts here and there, either.  I'm talking commercials and features.  The rolling shutter can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but it's not usually a problem unless you're handheld on a non-IS lens longer than a 50mm (which might be a 35mm on a 7D or t2i, I don't know the lens conversion).

You can go ahead and buy a camcorder, but a camcorder is not going to teach you anything about focal length or depth of field.  Those two things are very important when you start shooting on the big-boy cameras, and I don't see why you would wait to start learning them.

I don't know much about the workflow of the DSLRs, even though I own one.  I'm not a post guy.  I think it's relatively similar to most cameras that shoot on cards.

As a final bit of advice, I'd buy a shitty light meter and start metering things as you shoot them.  Not so you know what stop to set your lenses at, but so that as you progress and start to determine your style you'll be able to look at your footage and realize that you generally like a 2-stop difference between key and fill, a 4-stop difference between key and backlight, that sort of thing.  That way when you're on a set you can call for your scrims and nets with much more efficiency, which will save you a ton of time.

That's all I got!

- Branco

HOnestly I'm looking for something that I can practice my optical characteristic skills while making stuff that incorporates VFX (Meaning everything in the frame is of relative importance).

I'm starting to get the feeling that I may be SOL to get all that in my price range.