Every camera has its cycle. The truly dominant models like C300 and FS7 may have a longer lasting one but, at some point, they all become old news.
C200: $1,000 Price Drop.....C500MKII coming soon?
- Thread starter chris f
- Start date
Every camera has its cycle. The truly dominant models like C300 and FS7 may have a longer lasting one but, at some point, they all become old news.
puredrifting
Major Contributor
Definitely. But you can currently pick up a nice, low hour FS7 for under $5k. If it take you very long to pay off $5k at $400.00 to $500.00 a day, you're not shooting enough. Then it becomes a profit center for at least a year or two.
If I had clients who were requesting it, I would pick one up. But my producing partner gets them all of the time and he keeps renting it, while I keep prodding him to just buy one. He's leaving so much profit on the table!
Grug
Veteran
I'd agree with others here - I think reports of S35mm's death have been greatly exaggerated.
Newer and better are always newer and better, but I just don't see many producers feeling any kind of urge to pay more for this latest round of cameras (except in a few market niches where maximum quality is always demanded).
They're getting 4k and shallow depth of field already, there's just not a lot of incentive to move beyond that for mild gains in image quality.
I'm sorely tempted by several of the newest full-frame cameras (Mini LF, Venice and C500ii) because they will make my life on-set easier (thanks to superior ergonomics and feature-sets). But the higher price point they'd have to be sold on to producers at, is actually a disincentive.
I'm very interested to see how these thing play out.
But I don't think we'll be seeing any kind of abrupt shift to large-format for the overwhelming majority of production.
Newer and better are always newer and better, but I just don't see many producers feeling any kind of urge to pay more for this latest round of cameras (except in a few market niches where maximum quality is always demanded).
They're getting 4k and shallow depth of field already, there's just not a lot of incentive to move beyond that for mild gains in image quality.
I'm sorely tempted by several of the newest full-frame cameras (Mini LF, Venice and C500ii) because they will make my life on-set easier (thanks to superior ergonomics and feature-sets). But the higher price point they'd have to be sold on to producers at, is actually a disincentive.
I'm very interested to see how these thing play out.
But I don't think we'll be seeing any kind of abrupt shift to large-format for the overwhelming majority of production.
I think it was Eric who mentioned on an accessory thread that it might take a year for 500 MKII to become the camera in demand and, while I have no idea how he thought of that number ... I agree!
As PureDrifting and Jim Martin mentioned, there are already a bunch of preorders on the model, so they'll start showing up on sets somewhere after the holidays. At first, due to their (perceived) dependability and the low light performance, they'll be taking over a bunch of Red 5K/6K/8K, not FS7, jobs. On occasions, they'll even take over the Alexa Mini LF gigs due to the budget considerations. Netflix, having already approved S1H, will jump on board. Other streamers - and this ought to have its own thread - will come along. Et cetera, et cetera.
Let's not forget the "marketing" angle either. Sony's FX9 will eat up everything in the $5,000-$15,000 range, 500 MKII will do likewise in the $15,000-$30,000 territory and take a sizable bite out of the high end features/TV too (albeit, probably, not as the A-cam in every instance).
PS. Sony will actually have a tougher time at the lower end and not due to the used FS7's or used Reds but to the S1H, Pocket6K, Sigma fp and Nikon Z6. On the low/no budget production and YouTube channels, these would make for a solid fit, especially if the expected Raw upgrades come in on Nikon and Panasonic.
As PureDrifting and Jim Martin mentioned, there are already a bunch of preorders on the model, so they'll start showing up on sets somewhere after the holidays. At first, due to their (perceived) dependability and the low light performance, they'll be taking over a bunch of Red 5K/6K/8K, not FS7, jobs. On occasions, they'll even take over the Alexa Mini LF gigs due to the budget considerations. Netflix, having already approved S1H, will jump on board. Other streamers - and this ought to have its own thread - will come along. Et cetera, et cetera.
Let's not forget the "marketing" angle either. Sony's FX9 will eat up everything in the $5,000-$15,000 range, 500 MKII will do likewise in the $15,000-$30,000 territory and take a sizable bite out of the high end features/TV too (albeit, probably, not as the A-cam in every instance).
PS. Sony will actually have a tougher time at the lower end and not due to the used FS7's or used Reds but to the S1H, Pocket6K, Sigma fp and Nikon Z6. On the low/no budget production and YouTube channels, these would make for a solid fit, especially if the expected Raw upgrades come in on Nikon and Panasonic.
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indiawilds
Veteran
Do you know why a lot of people buy RED cameras? It is the aspirational value. When people hear that RED cameras are used by soderberg or in some other top hollywood cinema, people feel that they too can become like that. They forget that camera is just a small part of what makes a hollywood film. However, that is how aspiration works. And there is a thin line dividing greed and aspiration. People will buy the C500 Mark II because of the possibility of jumping into the big league. If spending a couple of thousand more helps you get a C500 II which can land you a shooter role in some prestigious project, then you can brag about it and people will feel that it is worth it. I have seen people buying full RED kits and becoming desperate not getting any such shoots. I have seen many people write in their signature lines that they are available with their full RED kit for 500 usd.
People are forgetting that the C500 Mark II is priced at the C300 range. However, it is hitting at the premium guys. If someone has the creativity and talent then he/she can make the C500 II work. I didn't like the FS7 because of colour. With the FX9, I hear the colour problem is resolved. I am sure we will see lot of good work with the FX9. For me it will be easier to buy a FX9 due to the cost. However, I don't want a 4K non-raw camera. I believe internal raw will enhance the life of a camera. And I am a business as well. I have used my original C300 from late 2012 till recently in official paid shoots. I want my camera to give returns for a long time. If Sony FX9 would have been 6K then it would have been tempting. It is 4K. Suddenly producers will wake up one fine day and insist on 6K. I have no intention of getting into that situation and hiring something else.
People are forgetting that the C500 Mark II is priced at the C300 range. However, it is hitting at the premium guys. If someone has the creativity and talent then he/she can make the C500 II work. I didn't like the FS7 because of colour. With the FX9, I hear the colour problem is resolved. I am sure we will see lot of good work with the FX9. For me it will be easier to buy a FX9 due to the cost. However, I don't want a 4K non-raw camera. I believe internal raw will enhance the life of a camera. And I am a business as well. I have used my original C300 from late 2012 till recently in official paid shoots. I want my camera to give returns for a long time. If Sony FX9 would have been 6K then it would have been tempting. It is 4K. Suddenly producers will wake up one fine day and insist on 6K. I have no intention of getting into that situation and hiring something else.
Eric Coughlin
Veteran
At the corporate/doc level, two things will need to happen for producers to want 6K RAW. One, cheaper hard drives, and two, faster transfer speeds (as in, Thunderbolt becoming the norm going to fast solid state drives). Many of my doc/corporate clients, as well as myself, use Seagate 5 TB drives which cost around $120. I buy around one of these per month to backup footage so $1440 for the year is a decent chunk of change for equipment that I can't bill to the client since I mainly backup footage for demo reel purposes as well as giving the client a complimentary (but not obligatory) backup. As they are cheap and not solid state they are too slow to keep up with the fast read/write speed of newer memory cards, so transferring large files is a hindrance when using these drives.
If I was shooting 6K RAW at say three times the data rate, that becomes $4320, an even more decent chunk of change. Now factor in that over the last few years these Seagate (and other hard drives) have not gone down in price much, and fast solid state drives for backing up 5 TB of storage are still rather expensive. So, it really depends on if this cost and performance limitation of hard drives will change significantly enough within the next few years such that 6K RAW could become a norm for corporate/doc work.
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My crystal ball is on the fritz but the long trend is to get to the 65mm equivalent sensor with a 65-80 megapixel resolution. Medium Format in film was the accepted/dominant format for a long time while the two perf (APS-C) was considered amateur quality and Vista Vision (full frame) was an interim solution on a budget. Digital had to start small because of the technological limitations and is slowly working its way up to the full frame.
chris f
Veteran
Eric makes a really good point here. If I were to “upgrade” to the C500MKII from my C200 personally I would want a better image to make me more excited about the camera (hence my muted enthusiasm to the most recent review video), but in reality I would be buying this camera for better on-set compatibility, ease of workflow, and to move off of shooting raw and back to a more reasonable file size that doesn’t require use of proxies in post. From an image standpoint I’d be curious to see if 4K compressed on the C500MKII looks noticeably better than 4K raw from the C200....
In reality about 2% of producers that have hired me since becoming a C200 owner two years ago have wanted to deal with raw files. And like Eric said a surprising number (like 90% of them) show up to set with $100 usb spinning drives to back everything up on. I can think of two producers who showed up with SSDs. For several projects I’ve volunteered to ship their drives to them instead of dealing with the time crunch of trying to transfer before they have to leave.
For my own projects or ones that I’m producing for clients my current workflow is to shoot everything in raw just because I personally want the quality to be the highest possible mainly for my own enjoyment and satisfaction, but my 50TB raid is constantly filling up and I buy two of those $125 5TB external spinning drives about every other month to make duplicate copies of “old” projects so I can delete them off my raid. Back in my C100 days I could back up my entire year on two drives, this year I’m already on drives #11 & #12 I think.
In reality about 2% of producers that have hired me since becoming a C200 owner two years ago have wanted to deal with raw files. And like Eric said a surprising number (like 90% of them) show up to set with $100 usb spinning drives to back everything up on. I can think of two producers who showed up with SSDs. For several projects I’ve volunteered to ship their drives to them instead of dealing with the time crunch of trying to transfer before they have to leave.
For my own projects or ones that I’m producing for clients my current workflow is to shoot everything in raw just because I personally want the quality to be the highest possible mainly for my own enjoyment and satisfaction, but my 50TB raid is constantly filling up and I buy two of those $125 5TB external spinning drives about every other month to make duplicate copies of “old” projects so I can delete them off my raid. Back in my C100 days I could back up my entire year on two drives, this year I’m already on drives #11 & #12 I think.
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puredrifting
Major Contributor
Ha, ha. It's just a new fact of life. I agree with Eric about clients, that is the typical bring to set, a small, USB 3.0 spinning drive. On projects that shoot RAW, I prep the clients with the 1Gbps number and tell them to bring a Thunderbolt SSD and to plan on waiting around, although I typically set up the download station earlier in the day and begin downloading cards as we shoot so it's not painful at the end of the day. For our docu series we have shot mostly in CRL, we are now up to drives #55 and #56, although we've been shooting close to two years so that's to be expected. RAW is big, but if you are doing projects/shoots with not a ton of footage needing to be shot, an hour or two, it's manageable. If it's more than that, I usually recommend we don't shoot RAW. It's all a trade off. I wouldn't mind having the XF-AVC 10-bit 4:2:2 on the C500 MKII, that would be handy for a lot of stuff.
indiawilds
Veteran
What kind of drives are you using to store? Can you elaborate on your backup plans.
Let's switch gears. Full frame, 6k, 4 channel audio, excellent auto focus, in the C500 MkII. Are we bumping up against the realistic maximum image quality necessary to satisfy the 99% of normal film watchers?
No one can see a quality improvement above 4k. 6k, 8k, 1 million k is just marketing bull crap. Full frame image will give excellent quality even on a theater-sized screen.
My point is that nothing more is really necessary in the midterm beyond what $16,000 will buy today.
Can we now stop lusting after inconsequential technological improvements and actually concentrate on story acting, production design and the like? It is safe to buy a camera today that will give you an image that will not be surpassed in our lifetimes (if not longer)??
I think it is. Time to take the camera out of the filmmaking equation.
No one can see a quality improvement above 4k. 6k, 8k, 1 million k is just marketing bull crap. Full frame image will give excellent quality even on a theater-sized screen.
My point is that nothing more is really necessary in the midterm beyond what $16,000 will buy today.
Can we now stop lusting after inconsequential technological improvements and actually concentrate on story acting, production design and the like? It is safe to buy a camera today that will give you an image that will not be surpassed in our lifetimes (if not longer)??
I think it is. Time to take the camera out of the filmmaking equation.
rob norton
Veteran
Why should anyone concentrate on story or production design if they’re getting paid more money to use a more expensive camera? I don’t think many people are considering a c500 ii as a way to make their movie better.
If all you did was make movies as a serious hobby, I doubt the c500 ii would even enter the conversation because like you say it’d probably more important and fun to concentrate on those other elements.
Eric Coughlin
Veteran
The problem is you're reading into specs too much and the C500 Mark II image is just mediocre compared to higher end cameras so a movie will look considerably better with a lot less post work to do when shot with a higher end camera. I personally have no reason to ever use a C500 Mark II as an A-cam for narrative work due to its inferior image quality.
I guess if we're taking the camera out of fillmaking then we're gonna be stuck making animated movies.
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Maybe. Footage shot on Cookes looked pretty nice. The rest depends on how nice you want it to be vs. the costs associated with the LF tier cameras. There's such a thing as the law of diminishing returns.
I agree with this. If you’re doing narrative work and have $16k to spend, I personally would only go for a VaricamLT or a used RED. I only wouldn’t go Arri because I think of them as needing a real crew, and I’m usually a camera dept of 1-3. If I was doing docs, events or high-end weddings I’d think the Canon would be maybe the best camera ever made because it’s so convenient and the image quality is probably 85% of the higher end cameras.
I just sold my C200 and got a Scarlet W just for that very reason.
PS - every canon cinema cam ever released at this price point has been under $10k a couple years later.
Run&Gun
Veteran
I don't understand this perception and train of thought and wish people would stop perpetuating it. Pretty much what you can do with one, you can do with the other, with the same amount of people. During our coverage of the race yesterday, we had, I believe 12 cameras. Five were C300/C300II's, and the other seven were a combination of Arri Amira's, Alexa and an Alexa Mini. The guy with the Alexa had no assistant. None of us did(three of the cams did have audio ops, though).
I think people place Alexa's up on a pedestal that they don't necessarily need to be on, in regards to how many people you need to have on a crew to use one. It's a dead simple camera to shoot. Is it heavy and use a lot of power? Yes, but so were our ENG cameras that we ran around with SOLO.
chris f
Veteran
I may be in the minority here, but I think you should buy whatever camera gets you the most excited about shooting. And I think superficial reasons are completely valid - if buying a used Alexa Classic instead of a C500MKII will help you feel like you've arrived and will cause you to start taking yourself more seriously as a cinematographer then that's definitely the camera you should buy. As you progress in your career you may realize down the road that the camera (or name brand) doesn't matter as much, but that's totally OK to come to that belief later down the road and not now. If owning a RED gets you excited and helps you commit to taking yourself more seriously do it. If learning how to shoot on a full frame sensor like the C500MKII will re-invigorate your curiosity where you've gotten complacent in your cinematography with your current super 35mm sensor and help you explore new territory or techniques, then do it.
At the end of the day, getting out and shooting will always produce better results than a camera on a shelf that is not shooting, so in summation:
At the end of the day, getting out and shooting will always produce better results than a camera on a shelf that is not shooting, so in summation:
Stills2HDConvert
Well-known member
If this is the case, why were there any C series cameras on the shoot? Why weren't you shooting on all Alexas? If they were hires, why weren't just Alexas hired?
Why even buy a C series?
Since the IQ is soooo much better on the Alexa n'all.
People should stop perpetuating the idea of buying C series cameras.
Stills2HDConvert
Well-known member
Ditto on that.
I know Drifting preaches it's a business, and I agree.
But I have an old BMPC that I've hung onto because of the global shutter.
I'm planning on doing some stuff with it in the next weeks, that I just can't get from a camera with rolling shutter.
I know it's a passion project, but like Chris says, it helps to be shooting with something that inspires you as well.
And if he gets a C500II, I'll be jealous in a good for him kind of way.
And to RnG, how's that excellent autofocus workin on that Alexa, n'all?
Just like in the days of SOLO.
Uh huh.