Dustin

What everyone has said pretty much man. Every camera has a weakness. I don’t think you’d go wrong with any of these. If AF is your TOP priority don’t go GH5. Again though i don’t think any of the cameras mentioned out there would disappoint. I went from a Nikon d5300 to a 6500 and I’ve been blown away by the video features on these bodies.

Unreal! I purchased a refurbished basically like new a6500 in June from Adorma for around $800. I agree with your post this would be a much better deal. This is def one of those “what were they thinking” products.

@Kangaroo the g7 is the way to go, out of the cameras mentioned. I shoot on an a6500 and like others have said downscaling isn’t any more work than dragging your footage into the timeline. I use resolve so it automatically downscales my footage to match my project. And you get super sharp 1080p footage.

I just wanted to report, after shooting around the holidays with my A6500 in 4k 24fps and 1080 120fps, I wanted to test Davinci Resolve's Optimize Media render times. I must say I am IMPRESSED. I was able to make ProRes LT proxies and now my timeline is buttery smooth. The real kicker is the speed at which it was able to do this for me. In the past I had tried to use premiere to do this, but my computer would wind up crashing after 40 minutes. I was able to get around 80 4k clips and 40 120fps clips (various time lengths) optimized in around 45 minutes. I've been going crazy researching for a new laptop but my gosh perhaps, I can hold off and keep saving in the meantime with this awesome feature. Another tick in the pro's column for Davinci Resolve and another ding in the "Going Back to Premiere". (So far I really don't see myself going back..considering I'm on the free version and it's doing just fine...)

@webrunner5 thanks for your input! I am behind on the gpu research as I wanted to keep the possibility of a hackintosh on there. I will update! Ideally I’d have two screens but as this is a budget machine for something that is only a hobby I figured a wide screen would help. In my 9-5 I have 2 screens and a vertical screen so yes that would be the ideal setup for sure!

Meanwhile I just priced out a i5 8600 pc build including 16gb of 2666 ram, an m.2 drive, a Radeon 580 8gb card and a super wide screen lg 25ips screen with other parts for $1000. That outta handle my a6500 footage right? PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/4vcKLJ Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/4vcKLJ/by_merchant/ CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8 GHz 6-Core Processor ($193.99 @ B&H) Motherboard: Gigabyte - B360M DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($69.99 @ SuperBiiz) Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($118.99 @ Newegg) Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($127.89 @ OutletPC) Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($44.89 @ OutletPC) Video Card: XFX - Radeon RX 580 8 GB GTS Black Core Edition Video Card ($189.99 @ Newegg) Case: Cooler Master - MasterBox 5 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($68.99 @ B&H) Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ Newegg) Wireless Network Adapter: Gigabyte - GC-WB867D-I PCI-Express x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Adapter ($36.81 @ OutletPC) Monitor: LG - 25UM58-P 25.0" 2560x1080 60 Hz Monitor ($176.98 @ B&H) Total: $1088.51 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-01 10:33 EST-0500

You’re telling me man. I’ve been researching for a year or two. Since I do it as a hobby I don’t quite have the cash to upgrade yet but I think it’s time soon. I was going to do it last year but with the graphics cards being insane I couldn’t quite do it. I’m also not sure if I wanna try hackintosh. I got a feeling of apple puts a laptop out with their own chip it may be tough on hackintoshing!

@Snowbro care to share more specs on your machine? Any reason you chose the 8700k as opposed to the 8700. Pricing out a build myself. Don’t think I can do $2k on a MacBook Pro...

@smoke23 What did you go with? I’m in the same boat and really need to decide windows or Mac. (Or hackintosh)

Ok last attempt here: if I could describe it, when I’m in movie mode, the af-c transition is smooooth as butter. When I switch to M mode, no other settings are changed, it sometimes will work fine, then after about 3-5 minutes it can’t focus or if it does, it’s a very jarring focus despite being just fine in movie setting! Then when I half press the shutter will focus but will not return to whatever else is in focus. This is just so jarring, especially because it works fine in movie mode! I know some of you have mentioned shooting in manual even Andrew mentioned it but on my camera the AF-C doesn’t seem to be working correctly in M photo mode. Can anyone help!

Any ideas before I refresh my camera and start over from scratch? LOL

Can someone perhaps help me on the a6500. I’ve had this camera for about 6 months and have been loving it. Originally I did as @Andrew Reidsuggests in his guide to set 2 modes up under M for 24p/120p to enable use of photo capability. At some point I overwrote those settings from video mode because when I switch to m for photos, the AF-C sometimes doesn’t work at all and only focuses with a half press of the shutter, instead of automatically focusing. Have I setup something wrong? In other words, video in m mode is unusable with af-c focus not working correctly. It’s very annoying because it was working perfectly at first and I have no idea what setting I’ve adjusted. Help?

@kaylee I’ve been recording for about 10 years now. I wouldn’t personally use Adobe audition for a DAW. I used to use pro tools but for $299 I’d say pick up either Logic Pro or Studio One- no monthly payments for me lol. I personally use and LOVE studio one, I have the pro version3. Next- get yourself a decent audio interface such a Focusrite Scarlett’s 2i4 or 2i2. These are pretty cheap around $100. Next you can use the sm58 but I’d pick up a $100 large diaphragm condenser microphone and a pop filter. If you are making beats you will want a midi keyboard at the minimum. If you’re just buying beats then this won’t be necessary. Spend some time on YouTube and find some good tutorials but it’s not any harder than video editing, just a different creative hat to wear! Finally pick up a good pair of studio headphones or monitors so you can accurately hear everything. Nice studio monitors can help with video editing too btw. I have a set of KRK RP5’s and the KRK Kns 8400 headphones. These are fantastic! best of luck!

I was a cc subscriber for 4-5 years but simply refuse to pay $60 a month. I have dropped to $10/month for photoshop/Lightroom and currently am trying out resolve which is free. Does everything I used premiere pro for...

Just wanted to say thanks to all of you for contributing to this thread, I will be bookmarking it. After 5 years of paying for the creative cloud, (most on the student discount) I simply cannot afford $60/mo. If it was the student price I would consider. That said, I have briefly played around with resolve, edited a few clips and watched a few tutorials and I think I should be just fine lowering my adobe to just photoshop. The only reason I’m keeping photoshop is I use a film correction plugin for scanning 35mm film (photography not video) and $10 a month is something I can afford. As with any creative outlet I always like to pick the best tool for the job and budget, I’m looking forward to diving into resolve. It might take a few projects to get that muscle memory going but I’m pumped! At the moment I shoot 4k on my Sony a6500 and downscale to 1080p timeline for super crispy 1080p. In resolve will this downscaling happen automatically upon drag and drop or will I need to set it up to do so?