Konstantin Kovalev

By "cinema photography", do you mean using a still camera to record video? If so, then any new Canon SLR camera from the 550D on up will have roughly equivalent video capabilities, then there is the Lumix GH2 which is said to be good for video shooting, but I have no experience with that camera. Beyond that, the only option is to step up to a large-sensor camcorder such as the FS-100, AF100 or F3, but those are already beyond your budget by at least 3x, so the cheapest way to shoot film-like footage is with still cameras. You're not going to see anything significantly better unless you break the $10k barrier, so you might as well concentrate on getting nice lenses instead.

To shoot slow-mo with any camera, you need to shoot at a frame rate that's faster than the timeline frame rate, for example, if you shoot at 60fps and place it on a 24fps timeline, motion will be slowed by 2.5x Speed ramping, where action gets faster and slower at various points in time, is simply done by shooting at a fast frame rate, and then by speeding the footage back up in the editor, making it "normal" speed. There are also some cameras that can perform speed ramping as you shoot. Do remember the as you slow footage down in the editor, you are stretching frames over a longer period of time, so if you use slow-mo on footage that isn't a sufficiently high frame rate, you're going to get jitter and stop-motion like movement because there won't be enough frames to fill in. So to put it simply, the slowing factor is your shooting frame rate divided by your playback frame rate.

Try using this calculator, it lets you assign any sensor size, and even compare between settings and sensor sizes. http://toothwalker.org/optics/vwdof.html

I'd recommend that too. Using a poor or makeshift tripod is a sure fire way of infuriating yourself with equally bad footage.

That type of mount is called a bowl, which usually comes in 75, 100 and 150mm sizes. The tripod legs are for still camera use and do indeed have a flat base for mounting heads, but nether are compatible, not that you'd want them to be. Tripods designed for still cameras are very inadequate for use in video, due to their single-shaft construction and the lack of a spreader, additionally they generally have a lighter payload capacity.

Well, as far as I know, 2/3" lenses have just recently began implementing IS, such as Canon's HJ15ex8.5B KRSE-V and their super telephotos, but nothing for film style lenses as of yet. Personally, I think IS isn't as important on film lenses because film cameras are always used on some sort of support or stabilizing device, be it a jib or steadicam. Other than that, I also know that large gyroscope stabilizers can be used to stabilize the entire camera, and are usually used when shooting footage from helicopters and such. So just about any nature documentary where you see those fancy aerial shots have some sort of stabilization used.