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Looking for cameras for low-light work


Kelly Hicks
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Hi Everyone,

I have an opportunity to shoot a quartet in a few venues around town. At the moment, I'm using a EOS R and 6D. The 4k crop in the EOS R is fine for this type 
of work, but I would like to upgrade the 6d since its only 1080p and also get another camera to give me more angles. 

The problem is that most of these venues are pretty dark, so I'm having to use 3200-6400 ISO on a full-frame. I can't figure out what would be a good match with the EOS R and also have low noise for high ISO work. Would some of the panasonics(m34) or other cameras be good for this?  Since I probably need two more cameras I'm trying to watch my budget too.

Any recommendations or advice is greatly appreciated. 

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1 minute ago, rawshooter said:

Sigma fp with CinemaDNG is excellent for low light, especially if you denoise with Neat Video Pro.

He could get an EOS R for cheaper though which would make more sense if he's matching cameras. 

I feel like an XT3 especially used would be a great bargain. If you don't need 4k a used A7S is even cheaper plus the low light performance is the best money can buy. 

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5 minutes ago, HockeyFan12 said:

Can you buy faster lenses?

In general I like the S1H but I haven't tried the autofocus. Low light is excellent, maybe not best of the best but very very good.

The S1 is amazing as well and auto focuses better(until they get that firmware update for the S1H). Both are more expensive than a used EOS R tho

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Just now, thebrothersthre3 said:

The S1 is amazing as well and auto focuses better(until they get that firmware update for the S1H). Both are more expensive than a used EOS R tho

Good point. For the price I suppose the S1 is the better option and not that different unless you really need C4K or the h264 codec.

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While not 4k, I would recommend a C100 for low light. The 1080p will be better (in quality and low light) than the EOS R 1080p and they are easy to match. You might even get away with mixing C100 1080p and EOS R 4k without anyone noticing. You can find these C100 like dirt cheap. Found myself one for 800€ with atomos ninja 2 and other stuff included.

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10 minutes ago, Avenger 2.0 said:

While not 4k, I would recommend a C100 for low light. The 1080p will be better (in quality and low light) than the EOS R 1080p and they are easy to match. You might even get away with mixing C100 1080p and EOS R 4k without anyone noticing. You can find these C100 like dirt cheap. Found myself one for 800€ with atomos ninja 2 and other stuff included.

Great idea actually. The C100 1080p is also pretty darn good 

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Thanks everyone.

As far as lenses, I'm using all EF canon: 24-70mm/2.8 , 70-200mm/2.8, and 17-40mm/4. 

I think I may have to stick with 1080p as 4k is really not needed at the moment for this project and it might give me some more affordable options. The RP or C100 might be good enough since they are pretty decently priced.  

I wouldn't have thought about the C100, that seems like a good fit. 

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1 hour ago, Kelly Hicks said:

Thanks everyone.

As far as lenses, I'm using all EF canon: 24-70mm/2.8 , 70-200mm/2.8, and 17-40mm/4. 

I think I may have to stick with 1080p as 4k is really not needed at the moment for this project and it might give me some more affordable options. The RP or C100 might be good enough since they are pretty decently priced.  

I wouldn't have thought about the C100, that seems like a good fit. 

Yeah C100 is still pretty good after all these years, and their price came down a lot! Paired with sigma 18-35/50-100mm 1.8 you get really nice low light performance.

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A first version A7s (or second for that matter but dearer) and it does not MATTER what lenses you use as it is only getting warmed up at ISO 6400.   You could use your existing 17-40 Canon f4 (as well as the others) with a cheapish adapter as long as you are happy with manual focus (AF is very slow with Canon lenses on the A7s).     Even ISO"s like 25600 and higher still are usable in many cases with it ( I have had ordinary photos of bands published in newspapers at decent size at ISO 51200 with my first A7s).     It can do 4k with a recorder later if you need it as well has having some of the best native 1080 still.   You can also use it with fast (or any) primes as a 2x zoom if you like as well as having ok APSC mode (APSC is a bit limited for stills but fine for video use if not as good as FF).

A7s , ISO 12800 with a Canon f4 lens (at 5.6) and ISO 102,400 again with a Canon f4 lens this time at f4 (in order to use a very fast shutter speed in low light)

DSC07656.jpg

DSC08795.JPG

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Frame grab from a spur of the moment video shot this morning before dawn hand held and not even properly focused with a Canon 24 1.4 L lens at 5.6 and 1/50.   Only have a 32GB card in so only lower quality AVCHD rather than XACVs as shot.   Auto ISO but the photo I shot immediately after with the same settings was at ISO 32,000 

SnapShot.jpg

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