Damphousse

Gentlemen, I think the polite thing to do is to let Paul sell his camera in peace. There are plenty of other threads to discuss the Canon 5D MK III vs Sony a7s. None of these cameras is perfect and I think in a lot of ways it just comes down to personal preference.

I have a pretty solid science background so I always assume when someone speaks about one parameter or another they mean, "all things being equal." It's weird because I've never seen anyone on this forum say I prefer this 4k camera over an Alexa. I mean I really wish our discussions moved beyond that. In science when you want to study one variable you hold all the others stable. It's just common sense. So I am 100% with you on that. Honestly if my BMPCC was putting out Alexa quality video I would be too busy shooting to have any penis envy about 4k. The problem I think for these lower end cameras is the best way to get rid of moire/aliasing and get Alexa like detail is to go up to 4k and downscale. If you have an Alexa you don't need to go through that exercise.

There you go. You answered the OP. What's the point of 4k? It looks better.

Go to a well stocked electronics store and look at the TVs yourself. If you are satisfied with 720 then just use that. Keep in mind though a lot of what is labeled 1080p is not. As others are saying because of the bayer sensor you have to record a heck of a lot more than 1080p on a bayer sensor in order to downscale to anything close to 1080p of true detail. And true detail is not taking mushy Canon 70D video and cranking up sharpening. So if you are satisfied with 1080p off of a blu ray or whatever made from scanned film you will be disappointed with a Canon 70D. Honestly being a logical pragmatic person I bought in to the whole 4K isn't noticeable hype... Then I took my sorry @$$ down to the local electronics store and my jaw dropped. I also saw downscaled 4K on the internet. Jaw dropped again. If you are shooting 1080p on an Alexa... okay that is going to look sweet. If you are shooting "1080p" on a Canon T3i... not so much. True story... I was just at a warehouse store this morning and I heard a house wife say, "My goodness I can see the difference and I'm not even wearing my glasses!" They weren't shopping for TVs. They just have the 4k display near the entrance so everyone can see it when they enter. Ironincally they had pallettes of Canon rebels and 70Ds right next to those TVs. There was also one really low end Sony DSLR on display. Nothing by Pananonic... as usual. No Samsung interchangeble lens cameras... no surprise there. So 4k TVs... no 1080p cameras. Lol!

WTF?! Do you not understand the concept of modeling different scenarios? I doesn't mean that the scenarios have happened or will happen. Why would anyone other than people replying to the make believe scenario presented by the other poster say that Panasonic's camera division is going out of business?! It's make believe. Why are you taking this so personally? Okay tell us what you think would happen in that one highly unlikely scenario. And why. Which is why Panasonic shuttered their prestigious plasma television division this year. Some of the absolutely best televisions in the world. And they shut it down.

Did you read my post? I was giving my answer to a very specific and very unlikely scenario. If you aren't going to go back and read the scenario presented please refrain from critiquing my answer. Also my post was based on the current market share and finanical positions of the mentioned companies. It was also based upon statements put out by company upper management. You can't do company and industry strategic planning based soley on what you read in videography forums. There is a lot more to running this companies and divisions.

Canon is an investment grade company. Sony is a junk bond company. Canon is the number one camera manufacturer in the world. Sony is a distant third. Why would you assume they would have similiar strategies? Canon is making money. Sony is losing money. Even if you go down to the division level Canon and Sony are making money in very different ways. Canon has the Cinema line and their DSLR lineup where they are king and Sony is doing good things with it's larger sensor mirrorless cameras. Also Canon has all their lenses where as Sony... They are just two companies in very different situations and they are both doing what they think is best for them. Look at Apple and Samsung. Both have a strangle hold on the world cell phone market. Apple for most of its history sold ONE cell phone. Now after Jobs died they are up to three. Samsung sells a ton of different phones and many of those come in two or more versions. Apple is more profitable than Samsung but you wouldn't suggest Samsung's solution is to slash its device line down to three high priced (IMHO overpriced) handsets? Neither would you expect Apple start selling tons of cheap iphones to compete with Chinese manufacturers. My thesis is Canon has decided to cede one segment of the camera market to Sony, Panasonic, Blackmagic, etc. They are being left to fight it out. That guy probably never even picked up a 7D MK II. Like many people on photography review sites and forums he probably heard more video features and just assumed the camera sucks. I've posted numerous quotes in this forum from photography forums and review sites from photographers swearing not to buy such and such camera if Canon/Nikon add any more video features. If you are using that guy as your source the conclusion you should reach is Canon should move away from video. This is what guys like that want... http://***URL removed***/reviews/nikon-df Hard to believe but those people do exist. And they are a lot more common than you think. Panasonic's camera division goes out of business. Samsung... who knows. They are a profitable company overall so they can have a division losing some money. Blackmagic... It really depends what they come out with. I mean the $500 BMPCC sitting on my desk isn't a good omen. Sony... they get out of the consumer camera business. Their low end stuff sales have already dropped precipitously. They are banking on the a7s, a7r, etc. The funny thing is people talk about "Panasonic" listening to their customers, etc. Actually they should say some engineers and marketers in Panasonic's camera division. Because I have seen zero commitment from the CEO of Panasonic to the camera division. Panasonic is pivoting to industrial and automotive businesses and away from consumer electronics. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-13/panasonic-revives-as-nintendo-sony-falter

No. Canon's camera SYSTEM is second to none. Canon has more excellet modern OEM lenses than everyone else. They have some of the best IS implimentation in the business. They have the bigger sensors everyone craves (Full frame and APS-C) not miniture sensors you constantly have to justify. Canon falls short big time in sub $3000 video. But that is not what the majority of people buy a DSLR for. Canon sensors also fall short in some photography metrics, but the problem is camera sensors are so mature now for the majority of people it doesn't matter. To take your analog if they did the Pepsi challenge with Canon, Nikon, and Sony no average person could tell from the prints which photograph came from which camera. And I mean real life shots. Let three pros go out with each camera and shoot a variety of subjects of their choosing. Toss them in a pile and ask someone off the street to sort them by camera manufacturer. No one could do it with any degree of accuracy. But you ask anyone who can count and they will tell you Canon has more lenses than anyone else. The world is far more rational they you are giving it credit for.

You just elegantly illustrated why Canon isn't too pressed to go after the enthusiast video market in a big way. The number of people that actually know how to get decent video out of ANY camera and appreciate it is small. No one I know shoots DSLR video nor would they ever buy a Panasonic or Sony camera. Honestly, amongst the pure hobbyists on this forum how many of you know other friends/family who shoot DSLR video? How many of you know anyone who edits video in a NLE? There is a market for enthusiast video. It’s just not as large as people think. I can’t think of many people that put as much time and effort into hobbies as I do into video. Between researching the equipment, learning shooting techniques, learning coloring and the basics of editing it’s a lot. Photography is a different game. Just point and shoot. Maybe point and shoot in aperture priority mode. No manual focus... just zooms and IS lenses. Asking people to go back to manual lenses with no IS and learn about shutter angle and ND filters is a giant leap backwards. The average person will just whip out their iphone and be done with it. And I think when you are giving people advice you really need to consider that. Slog2 and various flat profiles are fine but is the person really going to have the time and skill to grade all that footage? I know I wasted a lot of time with log footage when I started.

thisisrmm, The real question is what do you intend to do with this camera. If you are heavily into stills then perhaps sticking with Canon or maybe going over to Nikon might be what you need to do. But if you are mostly video then switching to another system might be your best bet. I came from a Canon T3i. I still own it for stills. But I got a BMPCC during their sale this summer. I use it with a BMPCC EF Speedbooster. I am not sure your ef-s lens can be modded to work on the Speedbooster. I have an $800 EF-S lens and it was easy to mod. I modded it in less than a minute non destructively. Regular EF Lenses work as is. So I use the BMPCC for all my video work and the T3i for all my stills work. For the money I couldn't find a better solution. If you are interested I may be able to get you a deal on a new BMPCC. 25%-30% discount... depending on shipping, method of payment, etc. Anyway think about it. First figure out EVERYTHING you want to do with the camera and then ask what to buy/keep.

The point is no one can look back over the last five years of financial statements and find a loss on Canon's income statement... the same cannot be said for the next 4-5 competitors. Canon is rock solid. I am not necessarily happy with their efforts in the consumer range as far as DSLR video but I have to admit they are accomplishing things that other companies are not... like avoiding junk bond status (ie Sony). Sony's camera division may be doing better than the rest of the company but when it has to access the credit markets it will have to deal with that junk status. I don't think Sony's camera division is in the same position as Panasonic's. I was just highlighting that when it comes to finances they certainly don't have the upper hand on Canon. There will be a shakeout in this industry. You brought up the cell phone industry. Apple and Samsung are number one and two based on a wide range of metrics. Can anyone on this forum name number 3 and 4? The consumer camera industry is maturing. There simply is not enough space for 6+ major players.

Well this should cheer you up. Sony posted over a billion dollars in losses a few months ago.

In 2010 Nikon posted a net loss. Panasonic posted a net loss in 2013. Sony has their struggles. The only major player who has been enormously profitable across that entire time frame is Canon. That is what he is referring to.

And again Canon's net income is far higher than Nikon's. We may not like what Canon is doing but they obviously have good reasons for doing it. We need to separate what we want from what makes good financial sense for these companies. I think saying Canon is losing customers in the video enthusiast market is reasonable. I don't think it is reasonable to extrapolate that it is going to cost them dearly financially in the long run. I wish it would cost them... but so far it hasn't.

The FILM division at Kodak is still profitable. That's an interesting analogy. Frankly I would consider Canon analogus to Apple... not Nokia. And when you say "Apple" you have to define that. When "Apple" wasn't profitable Jobs wasn't there. It was only when Jobs came back that they finally returned to profitability. When you bought Apple you definitely had some worth from the brand but what you were really buying was Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs has always been a good bet. Steve Jobs is a steady hand on the tiller... or was. And that is what you have at Canon. A very careful methodical organization that has weathered many storms and emerged as the preminent camera company in the world. The other thing you have to keep in mind is Apple is mainly a phone and tablet company with some laptop action thrown in there. That's it. They have two or three main products. How many products did Nokia have? Nokia tried to be all things to all people. And as you pointed out they failed. Remeber the old Nokia product catalog? That thing was gigantic. They had a million different phones with a million different features. What did Apple do? They came out with ONE phone with a fraction of the features. And they sold millions of them. It's only in the last few months Apple has and a 1080p phone. Think about it. The most profitable phone company in the world only came out with a super expensive 1080p phone a few months ago. Remind you of anyone? Like a company that came out with a super expensive 4k DSRL? Can you pop a 128 GB microSD card into any idevice to expand your storage? No? Remind you of any other highly profitable company that releases devices missing certain features we like? Without profit you can't make cameras. Some of these companies that are being praised for their innovation won't be in the camera business 3-4 years from now. The average user will not invest top dollar in a dead ecosystem. I'm not going to invest $900 in a Panasonic 12-35mm zoom until I see at least two or three full years of strong results out of their camera division. I remeber posting my misgivings about Blackmagic. People really harangued me but what happened? Mere months later I was picking up a new BMPCC for $500. I think your overall thesis is correct. Canon seems to have decided to cede the DSLR/hybrid market to other players. I'm not happy about it but from a financial point of view I can see where it may make sense. Cheap DSLRs for the masses. Expensive EOS Cinema gear for the pros and cede the video enthusist area to a fragmented market place serviced by several players... some of which have questionable financials. I guess the thing is they know if they release a 4k internally recording APS-C camera for $1500 with a decent codec and no moire/aliasing several second tier players go out of business overnight. In a sick way it may be in our best interest for Canon to ignore this space for a few more years.

Yeah. Profitable companies don't take their cues from companies hemorraging cash. An obvious and kind of sad lie.

Please let's leave real photographers out of this. As someone who has been an amateur photographer for years I've never seen anyone in the photo community have any problems with sensor/film size. Photography forums are not full of people arguing about FOV. We all reference "full frame" 35mm and get on with our lives. No photographer in their right mind would say, naw let's look at it from the perspective of APS-C or god forbbid micro 4/3. Only Hollywood types seem to have this issue with using 35mm as the reference point and working from there. I have everything in my photography bag APS-C, "full frame" 35mm and medium forumat. And now I have the ludicriously small super 16 in the form of the BMPCC. And of course I immediately got a speedbooster to bring it into line with what I usually work with and moved on with my life. Super 16 definitely has an advantage when you want depth of field. No one can argue about that. But it also has an issue when you want to go wide... which is why I spent more than the cost fo the camera to get a Speedbooster. Anyone that thinks that is insignificant or irrelevant is smoking crack. And anyone that thinks DPs in the 40s, 50s, 60s, etc wouldn't have used full frame 35mm film if it was cost effective and practical is also smoking something pretty good. Some choices were made for practical reasons. That doesn't mean we should be stuck with them forever.

You can't buy a patent filing. So many technologies have been patented over the years and promised to revolutionize our world and then nothing came of it... or something much less impressive actually came out of the factory. I think we will continue to see the same situation we have today for quite some time. There will be a lot of interesting cameras but under a particular price point you will have to make trade offs. Someone mentioned Fovean. It was a great idea and when it was announced people swore it would take over the world. When was the last time you've actually seen someone use one of their cameras? I would be shocked if this sensor functions in the way you guys imagine it will. It's either going to have an outrageous price tag or multiple issues. That doesn't mean it won't be a worthy addition but let's wait and actually see some video before declaring our gear obsolete. And by the way that's the reason I bought my BMPCC for $500 instead of $1,000. It doesn't matter what comes out next year. I will still be happy with my purchase.

I don't understand how increasing my country's current account deficit helps our economy. What I said is not controversial and is the advice most experts give to anyone starting a new hobby. Dave Dugdale said it in his GH4 review. And multiple people on this forum have said similar things to people decrying the depreciation of their cameras. The technology is moving so fast by the time a complete novice can actually take advantage of the features of the a7s the camera would have depreciated quite a bit. If you are patient you can literally go on ebay and pick up a mint t3i kit for peanuts, learn, then turn around and sell it for the same amount you paid for it. Meanwhile the depreciation on the a7s will be more than the cost of a t3i kit. Honestly until you learn a lot of the fundamentals and issues with the current technology you really can't make an informed decision about what camera is best for you to blow $2,500 (body only!) on. That's pretty prudent advice. None of these cameras is perfect and it takes quite a bit of experience for you to figure out what is worth your $2,500. And my advice was not designed to get the guy to sell his camera or feel bad. I posted what I posted so the next guy that comes along realizes that there is nothing wrong with starting small and it is actually probably the better way to go.

For someone starting out that is probably a bit much. You can set your camera to 23.976 fps and a shutter speed of 1/48 and win an Academy Award. I don't change the shutter speed on my camera from one month to the next. The only thing that forces me to change shutter speed is a change in my fps. So 30fps necessitates a shutter speed of 1/60. And S-log is a big no, no for beginners. Just set the camera to some neutral profile and try and get things right in the camera. Shoot like you are shooting jpegs. Just jpegs with a bit less contrast and saturation. S-log and really flat picture profiles are for people that know how to grade. That's advanced level stuff. Sharpening depends on the camera. I wouldn't robotically turn it way down. Some cameras need a bit of sharpening before 8bit compression. I don't know about the a7s. Frankly that is more of a tweak. I would just say don't go crazy with sharpening like people do in photography. But if things are softer than you like bump it up a bit. You can skip sound initially and just concentrate on the visuals. There are plenty of movies on vimeo that have no dialog. They just have music added in post. Pick one of your favorite MP3s that goes with the movie and drop it on the timeline in your editor. That's it for sound. Start off real simple and master the basics. Then add one small thing and master that. Then another and another. Don't try and do a bunch of creative shutter speeds, external sound, S-log, etc. Just getting the camera set up with basic settings and holding it straight and steady will be work enough. As was mentioned a shoulder rig, monopod, tripod and/or IS lenses are a big help. I use a <$100 sturdy tripod a lot. I don't do pans and tilts with it because it isn't smooth. But you would be amazed what you can do with a cheap tripod, cheap monopod, and an IS lens.

That's a whole lot of camera for someone that doesn't even understand shutter speed as it pertains to video. Shutter speed is simple. First figure out the frame rate you are using 23.976fps, 30fps, 60fps etc. Then set the denominator of the shutter speed to twice the fps and leave it there. That's it. So 23.976fps means shutter speed should be about 1/48. A substantial deviation from that rule can be done for artistic reasons. I wouldn't worry about that at this stage though. Control exposure with ISO, ND filters, and aperture. Really though you should get into the habit of controlling exposure with just a variable ND or seperate ND filters. Aperture should be only used for controlling depth of field. A lot of cameras have optimal ISOs for various situations. For example a lot of people use the BMPCC at ISO 800 exclusively. On my T3i I try to use ISO 80 most of the time. Obviously as the sun sets if you don't have controlled lighting you will have to bump up ISO. Dave Dugdale has a ton of interesting videos online. And he also sells beginners guides for Canon Rebels. Honestly if I was just starting out I would buy a cheap used Canon t3i kit, throw magic lantern on there, and experiment with that. It has a compressed codec and tons of moire and aliasing but they are dirt cheap. Once I had kind of a clue what I was doing I would look for an upgrade.

You need to go back and read my post. The whole point is when you are on a budget like say $500 for a camera (bmpcc) or less than $2,000 for a camera (GH4) you have to scrimp and do some tricks and work arounds. I will repeat, if I could work with an Arri Alexa at 1080p neither I nor anyone else would trade it for the 4k of a GH4. You have to use common sense and look at the tools available to people on a particular budget. These DPs working on $30+million movies with multiple Alexas scattered around are not addressing the fact that you get more detail with a GH4 than with a BMPCC. Watch some BMPCC vs GH4 review videos. My jury is my eyes and they are in with a verdict. Didn't even realize this was controversial. I've shot medium format film since well before someone even thought up 4k or a bmpcc. I can focus a lens. I'm also not one of those people that is enamored with shooting everything at f/1.4. As I stated in the answer you are quoting the place where you really see 4k shine is in those sweeping lanscape shots. The T3i just falls to pieces on that kind of material. And guess what kind of shot appears a lot in vaction videos? Guess what aperture you shoot those landscapes at. Guess how far back you are standing from those beautiful vistas. I mean really if you can't get a landscape in focus on a m43 sensor with a wide angle lens and the apeture stopped down... I don't know what to say. For the record I own a bmpcc. It's the best video camera I own. But that doesn't mean I'm blind to its shortcomings.

I think that is the best explanation so far. The other thing to take into consideration is the quality of the 1080p. I'm sure the detail they can pull from their 1080p is a little bit more than the detail I can pull from my bmpcc... And obviously my T3i is a joke for anything other than closups of people's faces. If I could shoot 1080p on an Arri Alexa I wouldn't trade it for 4K from a GH4... and for that matter neither would anyone else on this forum. The problem is we are not getting 1080p worth of information out of a bmpcc. And the bmpcc is arguably the most detailed image till you get to... 4K in the GH4! The punching in and simulated dolly stuff is great with 4k. But just getting true 1080p from down sampled 4k is boon. Those DPs were talking amoungst themselves and to the high end $30+ million budget movie people. But to someone like me shooting vaction movies we need more detail. I doubt most people that saw the Hobbit thought it looked "hyper-real." Frankly I think things like the sweeping New Zealand vistas in the Hobbit benefit from things like 4k and higher frame rates. One of my biggest pet peeves is how in a lot of movies they open up with those sweeping aerial shots and the trees or ground in the foreground is just a mushy stuttery blur because of the frame rate. It doesn't bother most people but to say there is no room for impovement is a bit much. Or at least to say improving it degrades the movie is a little over the top.

I see you haven't had a chance to enjoy Blackmagic's wonderful products. Honestly I've changed the shutter anlge on my Blackmagic pocket a total of twice. It's not the type of thing you change from one week to the next.

If I was doing 50/50 stills and video I would just stick with the 5d MK III. It's not like you have to shoot it in RAW. You can see where it ranks (RAW and nonRAW). You are going to give up full frame for travel photography? Or you are going to drop to 12 megapixels for travel photography? I personally use a BMPCC and a T3i. Maybe your solution is picking up another camera just for 4K. That way you have a great photo camera, a solid full frame video camera, and a 4k camera. Maybe the LX100 might work for you. As someone else stated and even Dave Dugdale stated you won't have the lens selection with fast autofocus and IS like you do on the 5D MK III. I have no desire to mess with manual focus when grabbing vacation and family shots. I do that enough with medium format film and the viewfinders on those cameras are big bright and gorgeous. A lot of these cameras are great but none of them is perfect... even if you just want them only for video. And if you want them to do both then they are really far from perfect. I just couldn't imagine shelling out $1,000 for a Panasonic 12-35mm 2.8. So true. I use my BMPCC for times lapses instead of my T3i. It is much lower resolution but I don't want to destroy the consumer shutter in my T3i.