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Still no better camera than t4i???


Max Field

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Okay just hear me out, there are plenty of cameras that look better than a t4i, however I've yet to find a better overall easy-shoot minimalist camera than this cheap little toy.
I genuinely would like to be proven wrong.

Things the t4i did well:
-Small and light weight
-Big sensor
-Swivel screen
-Nice battery life (and cheap batteries)
-Common recording media
-Button and menu layout
-Decent image noise suppression

Things the t4i did poorly:
-Internal H264
-Audio
-Dynamic range


Have there been plenty of cameras that have corrected everything in the red category? Absolutely.
Have there been cameras which have corrected that category yet maintained the green features? ...That's what I'm trying to find out.

The Pocket 6K is the closest I've seen. I'd love to shoot GH5 but the sensor is too small. Perhaps the FS7? Maybe there's a DSLR I'm overlooking?
I'm sick of my big heavy cameras so any thoughts would be appreciated!


 

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On 3/27/2020 at 7:04 AM, Max Field said:

The Pocket 6K is the closest I've seen. I'd love to shoot GH5 but the sensor is too small. Perhaps the FS7? Maybe there's a DSLR I'm overlooking?
I'm sick of my big heavy cameras so any thoughts would be appreciated!

the Pocket4K with a speedbooster or the 6K.  Or the GH5 or the GH5s with a speedbooster.

You can use cheaper Chinese speedboosters if the Metabones ones are too expensive for your use. I use the Zhongyi Lens Turbo II which is pretty OK quality and costs 1/4th or 1/5th of the Metabones price (the Metabones's are useful if you need electric lens connections and adjustments. Otherwise a "dumb" adapter should do)

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Currently, there isn't a perfect small form factor camera. All of them have pretty major issues. I have used: 

7D
5DMKII and MKIII
A7SMKII
GH5 and GH5S
Blackmagic Pocket original and 4k

I wound up going with the pocket camera because it didn't look like any of the other cameras, it had this beautiful color pallet that was easy to manipulate in post. The easy to use menu's, standard cards, standard batteries, post-friendly 10 bit and RAW codec's, the smaller imager which allowed me to use S16 glass instead of blowing a fortune on new S35mm glass. I also liked the form factor, the original pocket is truly small, it's smaller than MOST still cameras. Sure it has horrible low light capabilities, sure it has bad rolling shutter, sure it can't do slow mo, but for $998 NEW, NOTHING on the market comes close. The image quality and ease of use blew the doors off anything remotely near that price range. The only reason I don't own a 4k pocket is because I don't like the imager or the form factor. I think they lost sight of what the camera is. The 6k version only interests me because it finally looks good and it's a 35mm sized imager, with hard PL mount capability. 

I'm personally holding off on buying a new digital camera because with the FX9 release, I think everyone is going to come out with a decent mid-sized camera that has a similar feature set. I hope blackmagic does as well because BM Raw is a really sweet and easy to work with codec and if they can release a new UMP with a 6k or even 8k imager that LOOKS GOOD, I maybe on board for that. I just don't know when, but people are doing press releases during the time of NAB, so hopefully we'll know more in a few short weeks. 

Still... if "budget" is #1 priority, the original pocket is by far the best, you can't beat it for the price vs performance. They're $500 bux used! 

If we can all agree the 6k pocket is probably the best camera in this category today and we give it a 9 out of 10. Here is how I'd rate the other cameras. 

7D (4) 
5DMKII and MKIII (4) 
A7SMKII (6)
GH5 and GH5S (7)
Blackmagic Pocket (6) original 
Blackmagic Pocket 4k (8) 
Blackmagic Pocket 6k (9)

The Pocket 6k does SO MANY THINGS RIGHT and it's list of 'wrong' is so short; price, battery life, physical size, screen and durability, none of them are mountains to climb. It's not like you have to hang another effin' video recorder to the side of your camera to get 10 bit capture. In fact with the viewfinder adaptor that just hit the streets few weeks ago, now you have a real viewfinder with the stock display, a "must have" when I worked with the pocket. 

I can't believe it's been over 6 years since these cameras first came out and the landscape hasn't changed much. This is my original video about the pocket cameras when they first came out. 

 

Edited by Tyler Purcell
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