C200: $1,000 Price Drop.....C500MKII coming soon?

[scorsesefan]

I'm trying to take a break from camera purchases to save up to buy a house. This one looks nice for a single guy.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2472-Mccullough-Rd-Hampton-GA-30228/14897871_zpid/?

Oh wait, this isn't the housing forum. Yes, cameras. Uhm, a 4K Alexa Mini is on my radar for a purchase in perhaps a couple years from now. Feeling pretty good with what I've got now. A C500 Mark II would be kind of a joke in terms of naming; "Please buy our follow up to our last failure!" I'm content with Canon coming up with nothing in the near future so I don't need to replace my C300s, just as long as they can stay current with the competition, which I feel they still are. The good news is the C300 Mark I is still not fully outdated so even if/when a Mark III comes out hopefully the Mark II would be viable for a few years after that.

That's exactly what my sister paid for her house in Nassau county (a suburb of NYC) 4 years ago. Except it's about half the size and she has a nice little garden instead of a swimming pool

 

[combatentropy]

If Panasonic can deliver a quality 6K for $4,000 [...] then all the other competitors must respond in kind.

If two cameras were exactly alike --- exactly --- except one was 4K and one was 6K, and they were the exact same price, then I would pick the 4K.

 

[DLD]

If two cameras were exactly alike --- exactly --- except one was 4K and one was 6K, and they were the exact same price, then I would pick the 4K.

A 4:2:2 4K is 17.6 MPX, which is what F65 has. An RGB 4K is 26.4 MPX (F35 was RGB 2K with 6.6 MPX). The rest is marketing.

 

[chris f]

If this latest Canon Rumors story is true it looks like Canon might be admitting the C700FF is dead.

My hunch is that the C500MK2 will be a chopped up C700 with options to put it all back together for about the same price like the C200B is to the C200, but crippled a little bit (no ProRes recording). Maybe this will get the C700 components off the shelves finally (but not likely). Unless they shock everyone and add a good high frame rate and come in at a really competitive price I don’t know who buys this camera outside of someone that is fully committed to staying in the Canon ecosystem.

 

[DLD]

FWIW, Sony Alpha Rumors has a quote from a Sony executive that "Sony's still working on the A7 SIII".

Which is a big pile of bollocks, as A7SII came out four years ago and, had Sony wanted it, they could have had III and IV already much like they did with R. The deal, as it appears to me, is that A7 SIII has already come out. It's just that it's called Panasonic S1 - and soon to be S1H - and Nikon Z6. Each has the same Sony sensor that can be found in A7III as well. Sony naturally had to cripple their own model by removing 10-bit in order not to compete with Nikon and Panasonic on the video in the same market niche. Normally, these non-competes agreements last two years but, considering how fast Nikon (external ProRes Raw) and Panasonic (S1H) are modding their devices, the term could be shortened to about a year.

 

[Stills2HDConvert]

All this spec u bation.
The info was Nikon income, not Nikon profits.
If BM could make a reliable camera with decent autofocus forget the big 3.
But alas they can't.
But we're all agreeing that what is out there now is pretty much good enough.
What does FF get you?
Low light?
Low DOF?
Less noise?
To my eye anything below F4 with a C200 is too shallow for video. I'm always hunting for the subject. I shot some video on my 5dMII at 1.8 and it drove me crazy even though it was in focus. I've youtubed other videos at full frame and fast aperatures like that and they all bug me. It takes F4 for it to barely seem normal. F4 on a C200 sensor seems normal.
So a C500 FF at $20k just doesn't fit many scenarios.
A C200 is good enough at a much better price point.
A think a lot of us are on last camera syndrome for now.

 

[chris f]

at some point you cannot show up to certain professional productions with a camera that looks like a photography system. Certain people/clients will not understand.

I’m going to have to agree here. Maybe if one of these cams really knocked it out of the park I’d consider it for gimbal work, but I’ve pretty much completely ignored all DSLR/mirrorless cameras for the past 5 years for this very reason. In my experience producers want reliable, pro cameras that they and their editors work with often and clients want to see expensive looking gear that doesn’t look exactly like what their 13 year old son is playing with.

You can argue image quality of (fill in the blank photo camera) til your blue in the face, but at the end of the day its like hiring a real estate agent - are you confident hiring the one pulling up wearing cargo shorts in a 2001 Prius or the one wearing business clothes in 2015 BMW sedan?

 

[DLD]

It depends on where you live. In hot climates in the summer, no one wears business attire in residential sales.

In any case, if C100 MKII ($3,000 retail, not counting the rebates) look like a pro camera but a $4,000 S1H doesn't, then it's your behind-the-times boss paying more for less. The main point here is that C200 ($6,500), EVA1 ($6,500) and FS-7 ($6,500) are considered pro devices and F-55 and Red Epic Fire Breathing Dragon are often considered a surplus to requirements. And today's $6,500 model will be sold for $1,500 tomorrow. And you won't be able to say, "But the division in quality begins right under my piece".

And all it'll take is a great promo reel and a few quality S1H or UMP owner operators underbidding the Amira owner operators on job where S1H and UMP are good enough and where the budget is tight enough. And within a short time frame, that will be the bulk of the business. And you won't be able to set the prices because the market will do it for you. Your only option will be to join it or leave it.

 

[puredrifting]

It depends on where you live. In hot climates in the summer, no one wears business attire in residential sales.

In any case, if C100 MKII ($3,000 retail, not counting the rebates) look like a pro camera but a $4,000 S1H doesn't, then it's your behind-the-times boss paying more for less. The main point here is that C200 ($6,500), EVA1 ($6,500) and FS-7 ($6,500) are considered pro devices and F-55 and Red Epic Fire Breathing Dragon are often considered a surplus to requirements. And today's $6,500 model will be sold for $1,500 tomorrow. And you won't be able to say, "But the division in quality begins right under my piece".

And all it'll take is a great promo reel and a few quality S1H or UMP owner operators underbidding the Amira owner operators on job where S1H and UMP are good enough and where the budget is tight enough. And within a short time frame, that will be the bulk of the business. And you won't be able to set the prices because the market will do it for you. Your only option will be to join it or leave it.

I agree, other than for Hollywood features and other projects where the camera line item is inconsequential, I can see this happening, although I don't know if the S1H will be the magical camera to make that happen? There's still pretty good support in the commercial, music video, high end corporate world for REDs and Arris, not sure if a prosumer device will replace those rentals yet? Hard to say for sure.

 

[DLD]

Probably not S1H but a $6,500-$15,000 6K camera with pro features on jobs where the Reds and the Amiras currently hold a large share.

The high end is where the talent sets prices/fees for its services. As one slides down in budgets, it kind of becomes scale.

 

[chris f]

It depends on where you live. In hot climates in the summer, no one wears business attire in residential sales.

In any case, if C100 MKII ($3,000 retail, not counting the rebates) look like a pro camera but a $4,000 S1H doesn't, then it's your behind-the-times boss paying more for less. The main point here is that C200 ($6,500), EVA1 ($6,500) and FS-7 ($6,500) are considered pro devices and F-55 and Red Epic Fire Breathing Dragon are often considered a surplus to requirements. And today's $6,500 model will be sold for $1,500 tomorrow. And you won't be able to say, "But the division in quality begins right under my piece".

And all it'll take is a great promo reel and a few quality S1H or UMP owner operators underbidding the Amira owner operators on job where S1H and UMP are good enough and where the budget is tight enough. And within a short time frame, that will be the bulk of the business. And you won't be able to set the prices because the market will do it for you. Your only option will be to join it or leave it.

Couldn't disagree more. Any "behind-the-times" boss I've ever had has been in business long enough to value the consistency, reliability, and workflow of pro camera systems. Once I land the job, I do my best to provide way more value than my rate when it comes to image capture and more importantly communication, reliability, ease of getting along, etc. Then when they need another video they call me again because the quality was "good enough" and they liked working with me and trust me - new, cheaper cameras never have entered our conversations. I'm very confident that I'm not losing any clients because of someone else's promo reel.

Are there people out there working for much cheaper and using photo cameras to make really nice looking lower budget videos - yes. When I get those types of inquiries I pass them on to my camera assistant all the time and he is thrilled to do the job on his GH-5 and I'm more than happy to get the job for him and am very happy that I'm not the one doing that job. That segment of the market is growing a ton and may be setting it's prices as you suggest, but every couple of years I'm raising my prices and happily getting further and further away from that segment of the market.

In 5-10 years will this continue? Who's to know, but my hunch is that if I've priced myself out of the market as a cinematographer I will continue my shift into producing - where no gear is necessary - only relationships, people skills, critical thinking, and experience.

 

[chris f]

Also, to clarify I get work from two different places:

-Other producers who find me online when searching for someone local in my area, see and like my work, and then during our conversation ask "Do you have (fill in the blank pro cinema camera) or something equivalent? Then 95% of the time I can say yes I do (or offer to rent the better, more pro system they want for the other 5%).

-Clients (often referred to me) where I produce the whole project and can pick the appropriate gear for the project (which my pro camera is good for 99% of the time). For my direct to client work I could totally get by on using photo cameras, but buy owning and being very familiar with pro video cameras I also make myself eligible for the other stream of income mentioned above. If I only had photo cameras I wouldn't be getting any of the other jobs.

Also of note, I try to view cameras as assets (ie: something that makes money for me, not costs me money). I finance both of my C200s through Canon for 0% interest and every month I charge producers/clients more in rentals than I pay for my cameras, so my "pro" cameras literally cost me nothing while usually making me a rental profit every month AND making me eligible for the first type of jobs I mentioned above (other producers) that are used to paying higher rates. So I hope I'm not poo-pooing photo cameras, but for me personally they would actually cost me more money than owning/leasing a pro video camera.

 

[DLD]

But what happens when your assistant - whom you taught well over the years - replaces his GH-5 with either S1 or Z6 and can deliver footage as good as C200 (or, technically speaking, superior to C200 since these two cameras each have a 6K sensor that oversamples into 4K)?

Then what if a bunch of 25 year old film school grads with their new inexpensive yet high quality gear (and a bunch of USC grads whose dad bought them a Red and an Amira on top of a 5-series BMW) avail themselves for the jobs you normally bid on?

This is known in economics as the "barriers to entry". If the most affordable "pro" camera were in the Amira/F55 range, there wouldn't be that many owner-operators (and most of them will be frequenting the RedUser ... but I digress) outside of NYC and LA. Lower it to the FS-7/C200/EVA1 level and suddenly there are a bunch of video pros in San Diego and Portland too. Lower it to Z6/S1 tier and your neighborhood begins to resemble the Paramount backlot. Get it inside a smartphone and now you're getting competition from the members of your immediate family.

I am being a little silly but no one ever overturned the basic laws of economics. (I lived in a country that tried).

 

[chris f]

Not worried about this scenario in the slightest (unless they start packaging 15 years of intangible experience along with the kit lens).

The barrier to entry may continue to lower, but that will put further value on the person over the gear and I really like my odds going against millennials (or whatever recent college grads are) with bad work ethics, social media addictions, no real world experience, and a ton of student loan debt or an education they don't value (if their rich parents paid for them). For the ones with great talent and work ethic, they will rightfully pass me up in time, but this will not be because they have an S1.

Video distribution and consumption are currently growing with no end in sight so I'm sure there will be plenty opportunity for everyone, there's no need to fear cheaper cameras putting you out of business.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

I get hired primarily because of my demo reels, equipment list, client list. A kid who's mom bought them an Amira just as they're starting in the business isn't going to have a good demo reel or client list. They'll probably charge less than a quarter of what I charge, and that alone will be one of many warning signals to the client that they're not a professional.

Most of my clients are large companies with big budgets. What do they hope to gain by hiring a kid with an S1H? Save an inconsequential amount of money at the cost of a lower quality video? Comparing an S1H to an Amira is silly because the Amira is way better, and people who own Amiras typically have more knowledge, skill, and experience that enabled them to afford an Amira than the kid who got an S1H, as well as having the knowledge of why an Amira is actually better, and being able to create better results as a result. At the end of the day, there will always be big budget clients who want the best and are willing to pay for it, and a recent film grad with a $4k camera is rarely going to have the same level of skill and experience as 20+ year professionals, so cheap quality cameras being available isn't really changing things much in the video production world, aside from perhaps the low end, which isn't my market anyway.


And you're also not factoring in all the peripherals. Sure, maybe some day we'll have an Arri quality sensor in a small pro camera with all the basics (SDI, XLRs, NDs, etc.) for a measly $1,000. But, the lenses, lighting, Steadicam, gimbals, dolly, jib, audio, etc., at the high end, is still going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. You're lighting a large room filming with the S1H, and you still need $100k of lighting gear just to get the look you want (high ISO capability does not eliminate the need for expensive lighting). Then you want a sweeping overhead shot that moves throughout the room, and you've got to get a telescoping crane for $100k. And so on and so forth.

Lots of kids think you just get a Red for $30k, spend $1.5k on a set of Rokinon primes, put it on a $500 Manfrotto tripod, and you're as good as a pro. But in reality, the camera is just a part of what is needed, and while cameras may be going down in price, the rest of the gear out there is not so much. LED lighting is more costly than tungsten was. Lenses for full frame cameras to get equivalent framing are more costly than Super35 lenses. And I still argue that cameras aren't really going down in price, as $4,000 is still more than say what was standard for people entering the market back in 2009, the 5D Mark II at around $3k, or say the DVX100 at around $4k back around 2005.

 

[DLD]

Your competition will come from the remnants of the kids with GH-5's and XT-3's, who have learned the craft, learned the business and survived it long enough to build a client list. Amira owners sit at the top of the local video circles. Amira owners with the national recognition are the top of the Amira owners. You will hold out the longest but you'll probably have to move up in weight class to maintain your income/fees.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Your competition will come from the remnants of the kids with GH-5's and XT-3's, who have learned the craft, learned the business and survived it long enough to build a client list.

Yeah, at which point they'll buy an Arri or whatever $50k camera sits at the top because they've got the rates to justify and afford it and get the better quality that comes with it, and they'll have no reason to stick with the low budget cameras which yield lower quality results. And the circle of life continues.

You seem to be implying that the kids with the craft, business acumen, and client list, will stick with low end cameras. There's really no reason for them to, just like there's no reason (aside from rare specialty shots or shoots) for Hollywood to be shooting on low end cameras when they've got millions of dollars available and know that high end cameras yield better results.

 

[DLD]

... You seem to be implying that the kids with the craft, business acumen, and client list, will stick with low end cameras...

I am not implying anything. I am stating unequivocally that a $250,000 F35 from a decade ago has been replaced by the $25,000 Reds, Varicam LT's, Sony's F-55's everywhere except the network/cable TV and features. Where F35 is replaced by a $50,000'ish Sony Venice, Red Monstro, Panasonic Varicam, $80,000'ish ARRI Alexa LF and (can't buy it even if you try) Alexa65.

But, even with big budget productions, NetFlix has EVA1 and C300 on their approved list and the next generation of cameras will deliver a feature quality image for even less. Look at it as a musical instrument where Chuck Berry showed up at concerts with his ES-335 guitar (knock-offs available for under a grand) and his Princeton reverb amp (about a grand) and no one told him that he needed to spend more on his equipment. If the camera trend follows the electric guitar trend, a working cinematographer will own half a dozen cameras, all of which combined won't add up to the investment required for one Amira from 2017.

In other words, camera choice will no longer be a subject of a debate.

The only thing is that you would also have to know the riffs to Johnny B. Goode.

 

[Run&Gun]

I am not implying anything. I am stating unequivocally that a $250,000 F35 from a decade ago has been replaced by the $25,000 Reds, Varicam LT's, Sony's F-55's everywhere except the network/cable TV and features. Where F35 is replaced by a $50,000'ish Sony Venice, Red Monstro, Panasonic Varicam, $80,000'ish ARRI Alexa LF and (can't buy it even if you try) Alexa65.

But, even with big budget productions, NetFlix has EVA1 and C300 on their approved list and the next generation of cameras will deliver a feature quality image for even less. Look at it as a musical instrument where Chuck Berry showed up at concerts with his ES-335 guitar (knock-offs available for under a grand) and his Princeton reverb amp (about a grand) and no one told him that he needed to spend more on his equipment. If the camera trend follows the electric guitar trend, a working cinematographer will own half a dozen cameras, all of which combined won't add up to the investment required for one Amira from 2017.

In other words, camera choice will no longer be a subject of a debate.

The only thing is that you would also have to know the riffs to Johnny B. Goode.

BS, because there is more to it than pure image quality/image specs. If that was the only thing that mattered, I would have shelved my 720P P2 VariCam years ago and would only be using my C300 or F55. What's so hard to understand? In most instances, most professionals do not want to shoot on DSLR style cameras, regardless if the image quality matches the bigger, more expensive ones.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

I am not implying anything. I am stating unequivocally that a $250,000 F35 from a decade ago has been replaced by the $25,000 Reds, Varicam LT's, Sony's F-55's everywhere except the network/cable TV and features. Where F35 is replaced by a $50,000'ish Sony Venice, Red Monstro, Panasonic Varicam, $80,000'ish ARRI Alexa LF and (can't buy it even if you try) Alexa65.

But, even with big budget productions, NetFlix has EVA1 and C300 on their approved list and the next generation of cameras will deliver a feature quality image for even less. Look at it as a musical instrument where Chuck Berry showed up at concerts with his ES-335 guitar (knock-offs available for under a grand) and his Princeton reverb amp (about a grand) and no one told him that he needed to spend more on his equipment. If the camera trend follows the electric guitar trend, a working cinematographer will own half a dozen cameras, all of which combined won't add up to the investment required for one Amira from 2017.

In other words, camera choice will no longer be a subject of a debate.

The only thing is that you would also have to know the riffs to Johnny B. Goode.

The F35 was never a popular or mainstream camera, so I don't feel it's worth bringing up in regards to the cost of cameras going down. Pretty much no owner/ops bought the F35 at the original price, so there was no replacing it with $25k cameras as you're suggesting. At the high end, Hollywood went from film cameras to Arri and Red, and now mostly Arri, with the other brands like Sony and Panasonic being far behind in popularity at the high end.

As I'd mentioned, even if the costs of cameras do go down to an inconsequential level, the costs of support equipment will mostly remain the same, so perhaps freelancers would be more judged by say their lighting and stabilization equipment than their monetary investment in a camera system. That said, I don't feel the S1H is really going to change anything since it lacks professional video features, and we're still quite a ways away from fully featured cameras with top of the line image quality hitting the bottom of the price spectrum. The 4K Alexa Mini will likely be the next main camera to get, as the current Alexa Mini is super popular, and that won't be out for probably over a year, will then remain popular for years, followed by the next iteration at the high end. I doubt in 20 years from now we'll have $1k cameras that are considered high end, but again, even if that did happen, the support gear won't get that much cheaper. A telescoping crane is a lot of complex hardware and design that isn't going to be going down significantly in price likely anytime within the next 100 years.

An S1H is basically a decent image quality while missing out on many of the features that are absolutely required for professional production. Considering a viewfinder alone for an Alexa is $7k, it's going to be awhile before the cost of a high quality viewfinder/monitor goes down to say $100 to fit on this supposed $1000 high end camera of the future. Everything costs money; the XLRs, NDs, pre-amps, SDI ports, etc. These are sourced from various parts of the world or designed in house, and will always cost money to make and implement in a camera, and it will always be cheaper to come out with some bare bones DSLR that has none of these features. Because these items all cost money, especially say a high end viewfinder, that's why I feel we're still a long way off from every single one of these peripherals all simultaneously going down so far in price that they can all fit in a $1000 (or even $4000) camera package.

Netflix approval doesn't mean much; take a look at what cameras Netflix is actually using. It's not the C300 or EVA-1, which I haven't seen used on any of their popular shows; it's mainly Red (Stranger Things) and Panasonic Varicam (OzarK), and F55 (The Crown).

As Run&Gun said, why are you ignoring camera feature set in this discussion and only focusing on image quality?

At the professional level, it's irrelevant if the next generation of cameras "deliver a feature quality image for even less" if those camera lack professoinal features that make them suitable for professional productions. And that's why the S1H is irrelevant to professional production, and will have little to no impact on it.