The Camera Market

Since we talk about cameras sometimes, I wanted to get the forums take on the existing camera market. For the past 10 to 15 years, the camera market has been changing and getting better substantially year after year. Which made buying a camera feel like money down the drain when you see a new better one the next year. But now with 4K being in most cameras, raw codecs, and decent frame rates (usually with at least 120 fps), does anyone get the sense that we will be seeing that upward curve slope down a bit. I mean there are only so much more things you can do to make a camera better. Of course there are always fields to improve on:
ISO
image sensor
even more higher fps
follow focus
the ability to move focus in post with recorded camera light data.

Does anyone have any other thoughts on this? I for one would like to see a bit of a slowdown, just so we can get good with the cameras we do have and all the externals we buy for it will have more longevity.

I think there's definitely room for a camera thread. I'm a shooter/editor on a lot of jobs so I spend a lot of time thinking about camera issues. To my mind the market changed with the 5D II when Canon inadvertently killed off the appeal of their camcorder lines to a lot of users. I think this was an excellent time for video content creators as it brought high quality, beautiful imagery within the reach of smaller production people. The 5D quickly became the camera to have for work (before it was the Sony Z7 I seem to remember that all the producers wanted you to have). The 5D still holds up - I use mine on lots of work -but others are arguably moving ahead of Canon. It's confusing because there are lots of cameras that will do 95% of the job but none that will do 100%. There are always work arounds though. The Sony A7s will shoot in ridiculously low light - and 4k with an external recorder - and there's a new version with built in 4K coming - but it's still compressed - so grading is compromised. Black magic do really good cameras shooting in ProRes and RAW but aren't as good in low light. There are a ton of other factors to consider. The new Ursa Mini from BM looks great with some really interesting features - including a gyroscope which *could* mean built in camera data for post - but it records on C2 cards which add another 1k to the price. There are also lenses - you can have the best body in the world but if your lenses are poor you won't get good images. That said, if you get good glass - that tends to hold value and you can still use it when you upgrade camera body. There are also rigs to consider (especially with something like the Blackmagic pocket camera which shoots amazing footage but has a display that's impossible to see in any degree of bright light), battery times, etc.

I think you are right as well about it being difficult to know when to make the jump and invest. I'm thinking about getting something that can work with 4K moving into the new year (hopefully the Ursa Mini, once I've read some reviews) but I do mostly internet content so I'm just as interested in the high frame rates shooting at HD as the 4K aspect. Having a higher end camera also means you can charge clients for it - make the kit pay for itself.

Just jotting down initial thoughts but I'm up for discussions on cameras (and post workflow with FCPX and/or Resolve).

Bobby

The 7D was picked up and used quite a bit by lots of pros before the 5D was introduced.

Yes, a camera thread would be nice to have, though there are lots of good ones already out there. Not sure if Peter wants to add more work to the site. But, it'd be interesting.

Not sure if Peter wants to add more work to the site.

LOL, excellent, if one thing brings a site to a halt it's PChardware and cameras (excepting the usal cause of wars, politics, religion, sports...)

In read_mode_ONLY I follow a few sites ... there are pixelpeepers discussing on photon-level, no joke!

fcp.co's charme is its hands-on approach.
no (very few....) academic dispute about the last digit, no freehand pans from homes balcony to proof 'quality issues', no RED vs Arri crusades ...

I assume the competence to recomend or discuss cameras is extremely high on this board, based upon first hand experience - but a Camera-section should be somehow sandboxed, fenced, "enter on own risk!" wotever .... :woohoo:

Good points, Karsten! Because as we all know; "If it's not Scottish, it's crap!" (anyone remember that one)

I hear you. That said, I've also heard just as much mud slinging about edit solutions on other, less civilised boards

I still think it's a good idea- but maybe if kept in the context of post-production workflows (so it doesn't drift too far and get too all encompassing). I'd find that useful. There are plenty of other sites to discuss bokeh.

robertdee wrote: ....There are plenty of other sites to discuss bokeh.

You almost killed my keyboard!! :silly:
yepp, bokeh ; to pronounce correctly you have to have make a funny face of emptyness ... >> a bit of Zen, hm? "How does bokeh looks like when taking pictures in a complete dark rooom?" ....

a bit more serious:
cam discussion/requests for support - for sure (in context with FCPX)! But no own cam-category here... please!

I should have made myself a bit more clear. I didn't want to bring cameras into the site of FCPX, I was just curious if the guys and gals who write on these boards feel like the camera market is slowing down in advancements or still going at the pace its been doing for the past several years (which is significant yearly advancements).

The camera market moves so fast these days its impossible to keep up anymore. Remember when it was just 35mm & 16mm (and 8mm if you really had to)? Back then other than advances in film stock there was practically no change from year to year.

But yeah, other than increasing size up to and beyond 8k, high speed, and light sensitivity there is not much else to expand upon.

Probably new advances in lenses (or the way they the sensor adapts to lenses) will be the next step forward. What was that still camera where you could change the dof in post?

Codecs! OMG, the freakin' codecs! Why do we need a new codec for every freakin' new camera someone makes? What's the point? Half of the codecs we have now don't play well and have issues. Get one, "industry standard", stick with it, don't change it unless you have some significant improvements! I HATE the multitudes of codecs being used now. And don't say "AVCHD" without telling us the make/model of the camera. Because only then do we know the proprietary tweaks the manufacture made to it, so it isn't really standard AVCHD. Man, I freakin' hate all those esoteric, idiotic codecs we're stuck with now. It all started with HDV (all 12 or so flavors of it), and has gone to hell since...

I wonder is it that codecs are proprietary? Or is it simply manyfacturers trying to strike a balance between size and quality specific to the hardware of the camera?

Prores belongs to Apple? So can any manufacturer just use it or do they have to pay royalties?

The Red digital cinema company is extremely protective of their compressed raw codec to the point where they have taken other companies to court for infringement....

BenB wrote: .... It all started with HDV (all 12 or so flavors of it), and has gone to hell since...

it started with DV, when Microsoft brew its own versions, in its hybirs calling it DV1, and people today ask: "my kiddies video can not be read, thought .dv was a universal standad??? .."

No, it started all with VHS-halfspeed to make 4h boring liveshow fit onto a cheap 2h cassette; and only that one sspecific recorder was able to playback...

No, it started with 1" A and B and C and ... no, noboy cared, anybody who owned a 1"B had at last one 1"C too ..

No it started all with PAL vs NTSC ....

No, it started with 60Hz AC vs 50Hz AC - which is the basis for our diff. framerates in video....

No .... no