Best price / performance ratio of any piece of gear you've ever purchased?

[unclebob6958]

The best piece of gear I ever purchased is my Shure SM-58 mic. I bought it in 1978 for a $100. I still have it, still use it and it sounds just fine. I've replaced the windscreen once and clean the diaphragm once a year. Even including the cost of the emplacement windscreen that amortizes to less than $2.75 a year. Most of my mic collection - AKG 404B/ULS, Neumann TLM 103,and other mics, about a dozen total - have been in my collection for 20 or more years; still work and sound great.

Mic stands, rack mount cases and the like have been banged around for years and, although they show wear, are still very useful.

 

[robmneilson]

I'd have to say the dana dolly. It's probably paid for itself 10X over in the years that I've had it and has worked on nearly every shoot.

 

[Greg_E]

Sharpie pens!

Also the Paladin cable stripper for BNC connectors that I bought about 20 years ago.

Could add in the Ideal type 110 punch tool (gets a lot of work, recently installed two Audio Arts AIR-5 consoles), Paladin (now Greenlee) crimpers with changeable dies (rj45 & hex).

Screwdrivers that are too many years old to remember.

The GH2 has been good to me too, bought both of them for about $200 each and they still do what I need, and will do so for the foreseeable future.

 

[Batutta]

Easily the 30 dollar Takstar SGC 598 Mic I used to shoot my feature with. Didn't even have to EQ it in post. Just basic noise gates and light compression and it sounds beautiful.

 

[DBP]

I just brought a Small Rig sun shade for my GH5 lcd screen and that might take the cake, hah. 8$ to finally be able to see the screen outside!

 

[BrianMurphy]

My DVX100B, it changed my life professionally, opened up new doors and allowed me to re-invent how I made a living in media. It brought me here to this group where I have and continue to learn more and more each day. So it has now and will always be the best investment I have ever made in tech. And I have to thank the guy from Alberta/SAIT who started this group, thanks Jarrad.

 

[Run&Gun]

I've never used the 2700/3700 series vari's. I'm still quite surprised by the original 27. To think that 15yrs later cameras with all the advancements, and there is still something to the tone curve on the old varicam. It is the reason I am doing a vintage digital camera shoot out. I am curious what makes us respond to some cameras, and whether that was a fleeting moment in time when we didn't know any better, or if there really was something good going on.

As someone that owns and uses cameras from multiple generations, I say there was 'something good going on'. It's kind of sad that so many now look down upon "old" 2/3" 3-chip/CCD cameras. The only thing really bad about my 27H is that it's tape. Operationally and feature wise, the 2700 smokes it, but the 27 still has a great picture.

 

[Grug]

Hands-down, my 3kw portable generator has been the best return on investment of anything I've put money into. It's paid for itself multiple times over.

My Nikon D300s were exceptional pieces of kit too. I was shooting stills work with them professionally for 11 years until I switched over to Fuji at the start of 2019. They simply would not die. If only all the kit we buy would give us so many happy years of service!

 

[niki]

Do you still get work with it? I’ve never shot film and I think it’d be a lot of fun if it were affordable.

Just started working with film a couple of years ago

It’s the best thing I ever did artistically and work wise

You might spend more in pre production (but not really if you own the camera) but save on post(color grading)

It’s cheaper than you think ( and sometimes a lot cheaper)

 

[chris f]

I just finished up calculating all of my jobs for this year up to today. I'm currently financing a Canon C200 and C200B at 0% interest through Canon and to date I've paid just under $5,000 in camera payments, but have charged $10,550 in rentals for them this year. I'm sure that profit margin is not quite as big if I factored in my peripherals and a new lens I bought this calendar year, but the cams are basically paying for themselves twice over.

If I could stay disciplined and keep those cams working for a few more years I'll have made quite a bit off of them (but the allure of a new, more expensive cinema camera is always tempting me....)

 

[puredrifting]

Original DVX-100A, I bought new for $5,000.00, I billed out $28k in customer line items for it before we had to switch to HD with the HVX200. I truly loved that little camera, it was such a joy to use. It was my first pro level small camera, after years with the Betacams, F900, Original 27 Varicam on rentals and owned the Sony DSR-500WS DVCAM. The DVX was a special piece of gear that kind of revolutionized the industry IMHO. The first small, cheap, easy to use, made good looking images with cheap Mini DV tape, I really miss that little camera.

 

[firehawk]

I may revise this as I think on it some more but what comes to mind are:

StarTech Disk duplicator. Allows me to easily clone a workstation drive back to a known good drive when something goes wrong. This little thing saves a ton of time because installing a trainload of software, plugins, updates, OS etc takes a looooooooong time when you do it all legally.

Sony PCM M50 audio recorder: I love these little things. Got the 1st pair back in 2011. So helpful in so many scenarios and good sound!

Phantom 3 Pro: After watching various multirotors for about a decade prior once the P3P arrived the quaility and price finally was where I wanted it to be and pulled the trigger. Suddenly I could do shots I only dreamed of back in the 90s. Also have a P4P which is better but the P3P still gets used.

Panasonic AG HMC150: These stepped us into the world of HD and out of 15 years of using tape. Still have 3 of them we use for events because the colors are nice and love global shutter

Sony NEX FS700R: This camera felt like it stepped us into a larger arena with Slow motion and 4K. Still my A and B cams

Matrox RT.X100 and Matrox MX02 Mini Max: These things let us compete with the big boys in town offering accelerated effects real time operations that most others couldn't do.

Neewer LED CN160 on camera Lights: After spending hundreds on other on-camera lights from other companies I tried some of the cheapo plastic $30 Neewers and never looked back. Use these for every wedding. The weight is much less and the color is more consistant than some others I paid nearly $500 for.

E-image tripods: At the time of purchase these things were by far the best price/performance tripods I'd ever bought. Got them on sale for around $200 or less. Have about 5 of them now (3 different models) and still use them.

Tascam DR 10L audio recorders: Love these little recorders. They make life easier

Sony Action Cams: Using action/bullet cams back since 2002 gave us significant advantages over the competition being able to capture unique/difficult or even otherwise impossible shots. But the required external recorders, cables, batteries etc were a pain and the image was less than our regular cameras. That all changed with the first Sony Action cam 10 years later. We use these little things for nearly everything.

Sennheiser AVX: Got it on sale and want another. Turn it on and it just works. Fast and easy!

 

[J.Brown]

All 10+ light stands I own. They just keeps on working.
Sennheiser G3 systems. I bought some used and I can sell them for just as much and they bring in money better than stock. And they just works every time.
Sony FS7. Paid for it self in a few months and have been a blessing as clients always ask for it so a true bringer of income. And it delivers on image quality.

I can go on but most things I now own have a very good price/performance ratio and I tend to keep things longer and longer. There's just not much to justify buying any more.

 

[puredrifting]

Do you still get work with it? I’ve never shot film and I think it’d be a lot of fun if it were affordable.

You actually used the words "film" and "affordable" in the same sentence. Contraditciton in terms. I loved my Arri SR2 but sold it a long time ago because clients would no longer pay to shoot film and it was way too expensive of a venture for hobby shooting or fooling around.
The challenge with film was, with some scrounging, you could actually find some stock at a reasonable cost (short ends, extra stock purchased and not used, etc.) But then you had lab. And crappy, cheap lab was always a risk so you went to FotoKem and had them do it right.
Cha-ching. Then maybe have them or Yale do a one light, just so you could edit it. Then once you had a locked cut, do a matchback at a high end or even medium end telecine facility ($350.00-$500.00 per hour and up).

Shooting film is great but save it for something that has budget. If you do a low cost version, you won't be realizing what the power of shooting film is and a high end version is freaking costly. And while I loved S16, a lot of times when you had budget,
you'd talk yourself and or the client/agency, whomever was footing the bill, "You know, for just this much more, we can shoot it on 35mm." Then all bets were off and you were spending serious money. But it did look leagues better than S16 ever could.