Advanced features comparison site for DSL(R)/Camcorders?

[tosvus]

Hi,

 

I am wondering if anyone knows of a site/blog/spreadsheet or whatnot that keeps track of all the video-capable cameras/camcorders out there? I am thinking of features like is 1080p available in real 60 progressive, is HDMI out clean, and if so, is it 4:2:2, how many bits per channel etc?

 

I am having a hard time figuring out a camera that can cover my needs, for around $3000. I am completely open to whether form-factor is a dslr, mirrorless, specialized "movie" camera like bmcc, camcorders like sony vg/ea/fs series etc. 

 

If anyone have ideas of a single camera in the price-level, that has the following features, please reply;

-changeable lenses

-1080p24+1080p60

-That rez/those frame-rates either being possible to output over clean hdmi or internally store at 4:2:2,minimum 8-bits per channel, preferable 10 or 12. 

-Preferably Dynamic range around 13-14

-minimal jello/antialiasing artifacts

 

The ea-50 seems to be the closest that fits the bill out of the box (though I am not sure if gh3 or canon 5dmk3 can be hacked to have all of these features). However, not much info/footage I could find about ea-50, and everybody raves about the bmcc which is likely to have much better dynamic range and higher quality output (12bit per channel?). However, as far as I understand, none of the blackmagic cameras support 60p, which I find necessary for slow motion effects.

 

Sorry for the lengthy post!

 

-Tom

[Julian]

I am wondering if anyone knows of a site/blog/spreadsheet or whatnot that keeps track of all the video-capable cameras/camcorders out there? I am thinking of features like is 1080p available in real 60 progressive, is HDMI out clean, and if so, is it 4:2:2, how many bits per channel etc?

 

Good question. Funny enough, this doesn't (seem to) exist. Although all the manufactures supply extensive spec sheets with their camera's, the advanced video features are usually kept out. Recently the companies (Canon/Nikon/Panasonic) started adding some info for the hdmi output, mostly in cases where they think it is a selling point that the hdmi out is clean. And than it usually just says that it's clean... and not much else.

 

So as of now, the only way of really knowing, is actually trying it out or searching and reading about certain cameras because probably someone has had the same question before. There isn't really a database for these advanced (unspecified) functions as far as I know...

 

The EA-50 might have the specifications you are looking for. Probably it doesn't give the image you want. Basically it's a NEX camera in another housing. I think the GH3 image is much better and has pretty much what you are looking for, although 13-14 stops DR is not very realistic. If you want that, you have to go raw.

 

5D3 raw is definitely the best image quality you can get for that money at the moment. 60P might work at lower resolutions (hacked). A raw workflow requires more time/money though.

[tosvus]

Thanks Julian, I guess it isn't my google-skills being horrible then ;) It is a bit surprising nobody found it worth the effort to put this together. I know there are partial lists done by the canon community for their dslr's for instance, but even those seem to be pretty narrow in scope/depth.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, if the 5d3 could do 60p, I think I would have gone for that but since not - after mulling it over, (other than waiting another year (and hoping) blackmagic design comes up with the next killer model that has 1080p60 (maybe as an addition to their 2.5K or 4K cam)), I probably need two cameras; The GH3 and the BMPCC. The GH3 for slowmotion,extra wide shots, and situations where autofocus is important and the soon to be out blackmagic pocket cinema camera (bmpcc) for other (majority of) scenes. There is very limited footage out yet, but if it truly matches the bmcc, but constrained to 1080p instead of 2.5K, it may give better picture than the GH3, and it will definitely be better for post, as it seems it definitely will be 4:2:2. Since I also plan to do some greenscreen work, that would be important.

 

At least they both use the same mount (micro four thirds) and can be adapted to work with all my Minolta lenses. The crop-factor on the Gh3 is rather high (2x I think), and the bmpcc is even worse, at 3x. The wildcard could be if metabones come out with a speedbooster for sony alpha glass to m43 cameras. The rumor is that the alpha->nex will come in August, so one could always hope...