Jump to content

Recommended Posts

38 minutes ago, David Mawson said:

I think you're missing all the more intelligent points being made in this thread. I strongly suggest that you understand the points made before spending money. If you're learning how to shoot like a pro, then certain features are essential - eg repeatable focus pulls - or very near to it - eg waveforms and vectorscopes and much more per-pixel data than than a G95 gives.

As for what a speed booster is - you really should google that sort of thing, yes? Questions to humans should be saved for when you really need them.

(And the g95's IQ doesn't look that great to me, even for the price. It's more of a vlogging camera - it prioritises features like IBIS over a decent codec.)

ok your right. bmpcc4k is a great camera. it might be my final choice. the low light is good, it comes with resolve,  the sensor is good and looks great with a meta bones, it has flat profiles, and lcd screen looks great. only down sides are battery, no view finder, no stills, in body stabilization is not as good. all I need to do is buy "a" lenses, metacones, tripod, mic, and a cage witch could price me at about 2,000. thanks for the help

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 80
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

The BM4K does have its down sides - the screen is really sharp and large enough to pull focus, but can't be articulated so can make operating difficult. Its not amazing in bright sunlight (compared to a real viewfinder) but with a shade is possible to work. 

The nice thing about M4/3 is its quite cheap to adapt to fit other lenses - it gives you options. The sensor size is smaller then super 35, so you need to go a bit wider e.g 14mm vs an 18mm. Its still a large enough sensor to get selective DOF on faster lenses. Its only and issue if you want crazy shallow. 

I'm not saying a electronic kit lens is great, but is a workable tool when your on a tight budget. Particualy when your getting started and just want something to experiment with. Drama shoots benefit from lenses with repeatable focus stops.

But for me it comes down to codec - I did a shoot mixing A7s and the BM (in prores) and there was just a lot more room to adjust the image. The Sony produced great images, but it didn't take much grading to break them. The BM is just better in that regard and its a proper log curve. Every time I've tied using a Log mode on an 8-bit camera the results have looked worse then just shooting rec 709 - because you don't have the information to manipulate the contrast enough. So if you want to shoot in a Log mode you have to get a camera that records at least a 10 bit file. 

Also I guess it depends on what you want to shoot, how and why. Also is this a shooting kit that you'd continue to expand and develop.

Ultimately once you get into it it starts to get expensive. A nice tripod, lights, filters... slippery slope.

Personally I rock a battered Canon 60D, with kit lens (yes I know its wrong). Its enough for location reccie's, experiments, the odd low budget paid gig, tests etc... but anything important I rent - allowing me to stay up to date with kit and not worry about a huge investment in gear that keeps growing. 

So the other option would be just spend $300-$500 for something you can experiment with and save your investment for a later date if and when you decide you really want to dig deeper into gear ownership

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Phil Connolly said:

The BM4K does have its down sides - the screen is really sharp and large enough to pull focus, but can't be articulated so can make operating difficult. Its not amazing in bright sunlight (compared to a real viewfinder) but with a shade is possible to work. 

The nice thing about M4/3 is its quite cheap to adapt to fit other lenses - it gives you options. The sensor size is smaller then super 35, so you need to go a bit wider e.g 14mm vs an 18mm. Its still a large enough sensor to get selective DOF on faster lenses. Its only and issue if you want crazy shallow. 

I'm not saying a electronic kit lens is great, but is a workable tool when your on a tight budget. Particualy when your getting started and just want something to experiment with. Drama shoots benefit from lenses with repeatable focus stops.

But for me it comes down to codec - I did a shoot mixing A7s and the BM (in prores) and there was just a lot more room to adjust the image. The Sony produced great images, but it didn't take much grading to break them. The BM is just better in that regard and its a proper log curve. Every time I've tied using a Log mode on an 8-bit camera the results have looked worse then just shooting rec 709 - because you don't have the information to manipulate the contrast enough. So if you want to shoot in a Log mode you have to get a camera that records at least a 10 bit file. 

Also I guess it depends on what you want to shoot, how and why. Also is this a shooting kit that you'd continue to expand and develop.

Ultimately once you get into it it starts to get expensive. A nice tripod, lights, filters... slippery slope.

Personally I rock a battered Canon 60D, with kit lens (yes I know its wrong). Its enough for location reccie's, experiments, the odd low budget paid gig, tests etc... but anything important I rent - allowing me to stay up to date with kit and not worry about a huge investment in gear that keeps growing. 

So the other option would be just spend $300-$500 for something you can experiment with and save your investment for a later date if and when you decide you really want to dig deeper into gear ownership

Are uyou saying bmpcc4k is a bad camera? what would you recomend

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In my opinion there's something in that idea of starting out with a camera that actually looks like something a cinematographer/DP 'should' have stuck in front of their eye. Look can be important. My dad told me that once, when starting out on a job/ in a career. At least look the part, and go from there. It gives people confidence in you, or it can get the ball rolling at least. Filmmakers/cinematographers with SLR-looking things, no matter what whizz-bang gimbal thing etc they've got with it, still look like still photographers in my opinion. Yes, a small point to make, but worth thinking over. I'd get something that does the job superlatively, is affordable - so think mostly of lenses, will pay itself back soon so you can upgrade, and also looks like something associated with filming/videoing. Eg. a video camera that looks like one, not a DSLR.

Edited by Jon O'Brien
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Sam Petty said:

Are uyou saying bmpcc4k is a bad camera? what would you recomend

no its an excellent camera in terms of picture quality (the best under $5k) - just the ergonomics and lack of flip screen make it awkward to use compared to a traditional "movie" camera. For instance if you want to shoot hand held its difficult without a cage or rig  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Sam Petty said:

ok your right. bmpcc4k is a great camera. 

I said that you can't afford to buy a BMPC - not once the cost of a speedbooster, lenses and power are added. Again, you really need to read what people are telling you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Phil Connolly said:

 

I'm not saying a electronic kit lens is great, but is a workable tool when your on a tight budget.

Actually some of the m43 kit lenses are great - a lot of samples of the 12-32 have excellent image quality.

But you can't pull focus on them. So as a camera for learning, they're pretty awful.

 

Quote

The nice thing about M4/3 is its quite cheap to adapt to fit other lenses - it gives you options. 

Well, yes: you can fit almost any lens. But so what? Without an expensive XL speedbooster you're going to have a very limited choice of focal lengths. And the point of accessing a large range of lenses is primarily to get those focal lengths. An aps-c mirrorless is much less limiting. The crop is less severe and you can get the original focal length of any 35mm stills lens back with a cheap generic speedbooster. You get a much wider real choice of lenses this way. Even without a speedbooster you can use an old 24mm stills lens to get a wide angle on aps-c, but on an m43 it will be a normal lens.

Plus there' are a lot of cheap good-enough modern Chinese lenses for aps-c with mechanical focus rings and even de-clicked aperture. You can often get these in m43 too, but again the crop factor messes everything up.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

I use Zhongyi Lens Turbo II  speedbooster knockoff with GH4, it is pretty well working though does not have any electronics so only mechanical lenses are practical with it. I know a person using similar booster with the BMPCC4k so it should work with it. Much cheaper adapter than Metabones, here the Zhongyi is around 180 Euros when the Metabones is 800 to 900 Euros. That is basically your only option if wanting a speed booster with that low budget. It is not as good as metabones but should work ok for you. Will still make the budget very tight... you will run out of memory card space and batteries and lenses very quickly.

AND whatever you do the onboard monitor will still be required to be able to shoot efficiently with the camera... it will make the awkward Pocket4k pretty usable system and will help with most of its flaws but you might need to get your budget to 2500 or 3000 to get a usable basic package if wanting the pocket4k.

 

one of the reasons I did not purchase the pocket4k (it was also hopelessly out of stock when I would have needed it for paid work) was that the oddball sensor size does not allow very wide angles when using old lenses (because affordable old wide angles are either super slow speed or otherwise crap OR very expensive)  and if wanting to use affordable Lomo lenses I would have needed to make a PL mount to Micro4/3 speed booster adapter by myself which would have been challenging and would have limited lens choices usable with PL. 

These are very tough decisions and may take lots of time to weight all the options to see which would be the most practical or at least the least horrible choice. If you don't have any lenses yet it makes it a bit easier because not needing to worry about compatibility, you can just purchase whatever the camera allows to use...

Edited by aapo lettinen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sure the crop factor can be an issue and its more of an issue if you already have a super 35 (ish) lens set that you'd like to use. 

But if you have no lenses and are building a set from scratch then there are some options in the 10 to 16mm bracket - much less then say 18 to 24mm. But its doable without a speedbooster - nothing at this price point is perfect.

I've found 14mm to be wide enough for most situations on the pocket

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Phil Connolly said:

But if you have no lenses and are building a set from scratch then there are some options in the 10 to 16mm bracket - much less then say 18 to 24mm. But its doable without a speedbooster - nothing at this price point is perfect.

Yes, but those options are expensive - at least compared to a $2000 budget. He's now being told to buy a $1500 body, a $500 wide, plus the body needs a decent power source, rigging to shoot hand held, a tripod, more lenses, ideally a monitor - that's a $3000-$4000 bill. The budget's $2000. Budgets are things to stay inside of. (And no one has even raised the question of whether the OP has a computer powerful enough to make edit and grade 4K pro res..)

Instead he could just buy a $500 apsc body, a $100 wide, a couple of other - probably even cheaper - lenses. And he'd still have excellent quality with the right body. He could even buy a 5dii, shoot full frame raw, and come nowhere near blowing his budget. Yes, a $3000 BM build would shoot better - but it's out of budget. And he'd learn just as much with the right cheaper camera. Which is the point - this is a camera for learning on. The BM buys more image quality than a $150 EOS-M with Magic Lantern, but no more knowledge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

One thing is that you learn the most efficient way if you continuously stay just a little bit out of your comfort zone and always try new techniques and different shooting styles and projects. If one locks himself to one single camera system and lens and style then one gets comfortable with it very quickly and the learning process slows down or even stops. If the system was expensive there is no money to update to try new things and then the gear starts to limit the progress rather than speeding it up. 

One option is to purchase lots of different camera systems and lenses so that you are basically a rental house for low end gear. That is very expensive and will require continuous updates. 

The other option is to just purchase the bare minimum which records any kind of image so one will outgrow it quickly but it leaves financial resources for renting better gear. If shooting other persons projects one can make them pay the rentals so that one can use high end gear basically free. This is ideal for indie projects I think.

The third option is to find out what gear you can borrow for free or for very small price and then just try to live with other persons schedules to pick up whatever is available at the moment. You may not be able to do this forever but you may not need to purchase anything by yourself at first. You will learn a lot because needing to use different gear on every project. There also tends to be much more cameras and lenses than persons experienced enough to do anything serious with them so something should always be available.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, aapo lettinen said:

One thing is that you learn the most efficient way if you continuously stay just a little bit out of your comfort zone and always try new techniques and different shooting styles and projects. If one locks himself to one single camera system and lens and style then one gets comfortable with it very quickly and the learning process slows down or even stops

The first of these sentences has nothing to with the second: there is no logic or reality to what you are saying. You can shoot classic dialogue following the 180 degree rule and Ozu style with the same camera. You can shoot classical continuity style and jump cuts with the same camera. You can shoot a chase scene with a steadicam and a wide angle one day and a tripod and a long tele the next and use the same camera body - and long teles are cheap on ebay. Then you can shoot the next week's chase from a wheelchair or a skateboard, or a drone. Same camera.

As long as your camera body has a decent codec and lenses are available at a reasonable cost then it won't  reasonably confine you at all. Lighting certainly might - there are things you can't do without a huge lighting budget. But  a $150 EOS-M shooting 14 bit raw with an ebayed old f1.2 lens and a Chinese speedbooster would let you do something as insane as shooting the candlelight scene from Barry Lyndon. You can learn to shoot 95% of the styles shot through cinematic history with a single cheap camera system: shooting style and camera system have almost nothing to do with each other.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, David Mawson said:

Yes, but those options are expensive - at least compared to a $2000 budget. He's now being told to buy a $1500 body, a $500 wide, plus the body needs a decent power source, rigging to shoot hand held, a tripod, more lenses, ideally a monitor - that's a $3000-$4000 bill. The budget's $2000. Budgets are things to stay inside of. (And no one has even raised the question of whether the OP has a computer powerful enough to make edit and grade 4K pro res..)

Instead he could just buy a $500 apsc body, a $100 wide, a couple of other - probably even cheaper - lenses. And he'd still have excellent quality with the right body. He could even buy a 5dii, shoot full frame raw, and come nowhere near blowing his budget. Yes, a $3000 BM build would shoot better - but it's out of budget. And he'd learn just as much with the right cheaper camera. Which is the point - this is a camera for learning on. The BM buys more image quality than a $150 EOS-M with Magic Lantern, but no more knowledge.

I suggested the BM 4K - because it is in budget and its a really nice camera. $2k is tight and you would have to make extreme compromises to afford the BM. 

One approach is to get a cheaper camera and have more money for support gear and lenses

The other option is to have a better camera and have less support gear/lenses.

Nether approach is right/wrong/better. Personally I'd try and scrape enough for the BM, because that would future proof me in terms of needed upgrades and I could rent better lenses.

It is possible to put together a sub $2k shooting package for the BM pocket, even with new gear:

BM Pocket 1295, Libec Tripod 235, 2 x L6 Batts 122, Lumix 14-45 299, 128GB SD card 40 - all in for 1990.

That would allow you to shoot images and learn.

Downsides of course would be the electronic lens and 90 mins battery life and the SD card would be HD only. But the cameras future proof.

It is possible to shoot content on this rig:

Stuff like manual lenses, 10 hours of battery, field monitor, handheld rig, follow focus etc... are nice to have but on a 2K budget nah not needed. 

It depends on your priorities, a cheaper body is also a great option. 

I don't disagree that the OP should price up various options and find the best fit.   But don't tell me you can make the BM work on some level under $2k or shoot on an electronic lens, its not ideal but you can do it. I'm presenting an option (that would work) not the absolute solution 

If it was me personally - I didn't buy a camera till I'd been shooting for 10 years...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Phil Connolly said:

I suggested the BM 4K - because it is in budget and its a really nice camera. $2k is tight and you would have to make extreme compromises to afford the BM. 

If "extreme" means beyond the point of reason and diminishing returns, yes. 

Quote


But don't tell me you can make the BM work on some level under $2k or shoot on an electronic lens, its not ideal but you can do it.

 

Once again, those lenses don't let you pull focus properly. Why on earth would you want that in a camera you're buying for learning with? What gain in learning are you getting from the BM that makes up for this? With a cheaper body that runs Magic Lantern and a more balanced spend you can learn to pull focus, use a slider and a steadicam, shoot with a wide range of focal lengths, expose for SOOC, log, or raw. You'd even have money left over for lights and audio. Yes, the BM makes it easier to get good image quality (ignoring the problems from lack of other gear) but it lets you learn less - you're replacing a complete DOP school set-up with a point-and-shoot. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I learn't to shoot on a Canon XL-1 with electronic kit lens.

My focus pulling is just fine thanks.

You can learn a great deal about cinematography without a manual lens. Traditional focus pulling is a an important discipline but its only one component of a giant topic. I don't know why your discussing using Stedicams, audio etc... the OP didn't ask for that.  Just a camera recomendation thats under $2k, not to replicate a film school. I wouldn't be trying to do that on a $2k budget.

I'm not disagreeing on the magic lantern front - that might be a great option. But don't tell me my proposal is useless for teaching cinematography.

I'm not inexperienced in teaching cinematography beginning filmmakers. I have literally taught a couple of thousand people and made use of electronic kit lenses for a variety of classes. Manual lenses are of course better, but for lighting and composition workshops servo lenses are perfectly workable. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sam - I didn't go the film school route but got involved with some filmmakers several years ago, learned what I could, shoot a couple of my own shorts, and continue to learn.  I bought & shot with a refurbished Canon T3i and a refurbished kit 18-135 lens.  They are still quite capable of making movies... and the movies would be better in better hands than mine but that's the continuing to learn aspect kicking in.

I decided I wanted a better camera and one that would serve be well in my continuing education as well as producing a better image.  Rather than going the route of one of the mirrorless DSLR options with auto focus & other bells & whistles of a photography camera that also takes video.  I got (after much waiting) the BMPCC4K.  To get by on lenses, I got some dumb adaptors so I could use my Canon lens as well as some Nikon lenses i had from 35mm film days.  I also spent $150 on a pair of Olympus MFT mount kit lenses.  That was basically all I needed to do a ton of practicing.  You can do something along those lines for under 2K.  The P4K is likely gonna serve you well for a long time and you can expand as your needs & resources allow.

I'm getting rid of those Olympus kit lenses and have been able to acquire a couple of (used) Rokinon Cine DS lenses.  I recently got a Smallrig cage (putting together a kit over time) and a 1TB external drive (SSD cards don't work well if you wanna try BRAW and really limit your capacity).  I also got a pair of extra batteries.  Between the external drive, and several batteries, I can shoot for a couple hours.

I do lust for a speed booster, external battery of some sort, more kit, more lenses, better tripod,... but these can wait until I really _need_ them and have some resources to get them.  I started under 2K between the P4K, some dumb adaptors, and a couple of cheap lenses.  And the P4K is pretty amazing and I can grow into it rather than bottom fishing for a camera & stuff that I'll want to dump in 6 months to get some decent gear.  I've got decent gear now & am looking forward on expanding.  My 2 cents ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
49 minutes ago, David Mawson said:

The first of these sentences has nothing to with the second: there is no logic or reality to what you are saying. You can shoot classic dialogue following the 180 degree rule and Ozu style with the same camera. You can shoot classical continuity style and jump cuts with the same camera. You can shoot a chase scene with a steadicam and a wide angle one day and a tripod and a long tele the next and use the same camera body - and long teles are cheap on ebay. Then you can shoot the next week's chase from a wheelchair or a skateboard, or a drone. Same camera.

As long as your camera body has a decent codec and lenses are available at a reasonable cost then it won't  reasonably confine you at all. Lighting certainly might - there are things you can't do without a huge lighting budget. But  a $150 EOS-M shooting 14 bit raw with an ebayed old f1.2 lens and a Chinese speedbooster would let you do something as insane as shooting the candlelight scene from Barry Lyndon. You can learn to shoot 95% of the styles shot through cinematic history with a single cheap camera system: shooting style and camera system have almost nothing to do with each other.

marrying yourself with a single camera system and single limited lens kit mandates you to adapt every one of your project to suit that camera and lens kit. Not the other way around like it should be. and pretty limiting if we are talking the entry level gear like pocket4k and plastic kit zooms and not high end cinema cameras and lenses...

Though the last couple of years most of the cinematographers seem to have confined their visual style with single camera system (always shooting on Alexa) and the lens choices may even be the same from project to project. That may be perfectly reasonable for a seasoned DP (and the producer probably chooses the camera body anyway) but if you are just starting out you can't limit yourself with an expensive camera purchase so that you are financially unable to test and try anything else for a long time.

 

People often fail to see much logic or reality in my postings especially if their opinions differ from mine. That is perfectly fine and there is no real truths about these things, only more or less valid opinions battling each other for nothing  ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, aapo lettinen said:

marrying yourself with a single camera system and single limited lens kit mandates you to adapt every one of your project to suit that camera and lens kit. Not the other way around like it should be. and pretty limiting if we are talking the entry level gear like pocket4k and plastic kit zooms and not high end cinema cameras and lenses...

Though the last couple of years most of the cinematographers seem to have confined their visual style with single camera system (always shooting on Alexa) and the lens choices may even be the same from project to project. That may be perfectly reasonable for a seasoned DP (and the producer probably chooses the camera body anyway) but if you are just starting out you can't limit yourself with an expensive camera purchase so that you are financially unable to test and try anything else for a long time.

 

People often fail to see much logic or reality in my postings especially if their opinions differ from mine. That is perfectly fine and there is no real truths about these things, only more or less valid opinions battling each other for nothing  ?

Ya that’s also true. The bmpcc4k could be something I get in the future as an A-cam. I could learn on something cheap to pull focus and upgrade later

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, tom lombard said:

Sam - I didn't go the film school route but got involved with some filmmakers several years ago, learned what I could, shoot a couple of my own shorts, and continue to learn.  I bought & shot with a refurbished Canon T3i and a refurbished kit 18-135 lens.  They are still quite capable of making movies... and the movies would be better in better hands than mine but that's the continuing to learn aspect kicking in.

I decided I wanted a better camera and one that would serve be well in my continuing education as well as producing a better image.  Rather than going the route of one of the mirrorless DSLR options with auto focus & other bells & whistles of a photography camera that also takes video.  I got (after much waiting) the BMPCC4K.  To get by on lenses, I got some dumb adaptors so I could use my Canon lens as well as some Nikon lenses i had from 35mm film days.  I also spent $150 on a pair of Olympus MFT mount kit lenses.  That was basically all I needed to do a ton of practicing.  You can do something along those lines for under 2K.  The P4K is likely gonna serve you well for a long time and you can expand as your needs & resources allow.

I'm getting rid of those Olympus kit lenses and have been able to acquire a couple of (used) Rokinon Cine DS lenses.  I recently got a Smallrig cage (putting together a kit over time) and a 1TB external drive (SSD cards don't work well if you wanna try BRAW and really limit your capacity).  I also got a pair of extra batteries.  Between the external drive, and several batteries, I can shoot for a couple hours.

I do lust for a speed booster, external battery of some sort, more kit, more lenses, better tripod,... but these can wait until I really _need_ them and have some resources to get them.  I started under 2K between the P4K, some dumb adaptors, and a couple of cheap lenses.  And the P4K is pretty amazing and I can grow into it rather than bottom fishing for a camera & stuff that I'll want to dump in 6 months to get some decent gear.  I've got decent gear now & am looking forward on expanding.  My 2 cents ?

Ya that’s a good point. It would be smart to get a camera I can learn with before getting bm 4K. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok so I heard what you all are saying. The bmpcc4k is an AMAZING camera. But I should not start with it for a first camera. I should get something cheap and get a good lenses to learn on. Then when I’m ready upgrade and already have a lense. What camera should I buy that’s cheap? And what’s a good lense. Naive preferably  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is what I did and it feels good so far... I'm going with Canon mount, full frame to the degree that I can in getting lenses and using cheap, dumb adaptors to the MFT P4K.  This lets me use my existing Canon lens as well as pick up inexpensive manual focus 35mm lenses.  Getting full frame lenses with Canon mounts will let me use these on, for example, an Ursa Mini Pro when/if I move further up the G.A.S. chain.  Or I can rent one for a project and already have lenses.  When I have some additional cash, I'll get the speed booster.  That way each lens serves double duty based on whether I use the booster or not (20mm lens can act as 20 or 40).  If I were starting over, and going down this path, I'd go to Canon's refurbished site and get a T7i with the 18-135 lens for around $750.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
3 hours ago, Sam Petty said:

Ok so I heard what you all are saying. The bmpcc4k is an AMAZING camera. But I should not start with it for a first camera. I should get something cheap and get a good lenses to learn on. Then when I’m ready upgrade and already have a lense. What camera should I buy that’s cheap? And what’s a good lense. Naive preferably  

Nearly all of the low-end beginner cameras, don't really teach "cinematography" language like shutter angle or kelvin color balance. These are in my opinion, very important things to learn up front. Plus understanding how to read a histogram, false color and many other tools the pocket has which very few of the inexpensive cameras have. This is why I always liked the pocket as a first choice, even the older model. I just think the user experience is more akin to a real camera. 

A Pocket 4k with a set of 3 Rokinon DS primes, will run you around $2200 out the door. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:
15 hours ago, Sam Petty said:

 

Nearly all of the low-end beginner cameras, don't really teach "cinematography" language like shutter angle or kelvin color balance.

You shouldn't need a camera to teach you shutter angle - it's something you should understand completely with about two minutes of reading. And any camera running Magic Lantern - which should really be the default for a low-end beginner camera - will white balance in Kelvin. I'm pretty sure that Fujis allow this too. And most Canons even without ML. So it's actually a common feature.

Quote

 

 Plus understanding how to read a histogram, false color and many other tools the pocket has which very few of the inexpensive cameras have

 

Any camera with Magic Lantern will have these.

Quote

A Pocket 4k with a set of 3 Rokinon DS primes, will run you around $2200 out the door. 

But you still have to add a decent power set-up. And this is not a camera you can hold your eye and shoot, so you need a tripod and fluid head. Add in memory cards and you really are looking at more like $3000. And then you'd better have a beast mode PC for editing.

Otoh, you can buy an EOS-M for $150, install Magic Lantern and get all those tools, and get then a decent three prime set-up for another $150-300. You don't have a power problem that a couple$20 of generic batteries won't solve and you have plenty of money left over for support - even an HD editing PC if you need one.

You won't get 4K and you'll have a couple of stops less DR, but do those things actually affect the learning process? People shot career making films like Tiny Furniture on the 7D Mk i (which you can buy for just a little more than the M, but has drawbacks as well as pluses) and the current stage of Magic Lantern development means you'll be shooting at a higher level of quality than that. 

The BM is nice, but while I completely agree with your emphasis on getting advanced tools, I think underestimate the real lower cost options. (I'm guessing that you must have heard of ML but didn't realise that it runs on a lot of the cheaper Canon aps-c bodies as well as the 5Dii and 5Diii?)

Edited by David Mawson
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, tom lombard said:

When I have some additional cash, I'll get the speed booster.  That way each lens serves double duty based on whether I use the booster or not (20mm lens can act as 20 or 40).  

That would be one hell of a speed booster. The standard models give you a 0.7 shift in FL. The very expensive XL models manage 0.64. And the XLs cost enough so that it would be cheaper to buy a used 5Dii and shoot full frame raw to get the original FL back.

You can but fairly nice wide angle converters from high-end makers like Raynox very cheaply on ebay sometimes. The tolerable ones top out at 0.7x (and even then you'll need to correct for barrel distortion.) But if you put one on the front of a lens and a Zhongyi or Viltrox 0.7 booster on the back of the lens, then you'll get back the original FL and gain a stop in aperture. Quality won't be perfect, but it should be good enough for a lot of shots.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

Forum Sponsors

Broadcast Solutions Inc

CINELEASE

CineLab

Metropolis Post

New Pro Video - New and Used Equipment

Gamma Ray Digital Inc

Film Gears

Visual Products

BOKEH RENTALS

Cinematography Books and Gear



×
×
  • Create New...