F55: Buying the F55 with about $80,000 in hands.

Hey, if you dump that $80k into the camera, I'll rent it for $200/day and of course I'll pay your minimal fee deposit on insurance. Meanwhile I'm going to duct tape it to a car hood and shoot in the dusty desert. Not gonna really give a crap about those fine desert sands getting into the body because the camera is not mine. I know, a broom stick really isn't an ideal jib but that's what we had to get the shot. Did I mention it was 108 degrees in the desert those 4 days? I didn't exactly cover the camera or the loupe attached to the LCD, sorry if you see some burn marks on the LCD. Of course I didn't do any of this on purpose, but it's a rental and we had to cut corners in production to afford the rental of the camera. Um, yeah... Sorry about that dent on the body. My assistant dropped the camera and I really couldn't yell at him too hard. He's says he's sorry too.

DUDE! I worked with a car photographer that shot remote location high end car ad's. His company would rent cars for the production and yes, pay for the insurance on the rental. ALl that insurance did was give the crew more reason to be brutal to the car. They would go out of their way to damage the car because it was "FUN". I thought it was stupid. But even the BOSS would say, "It's a rental, don't be gentle". They would return cars with cracked axels or large dents in the body, and because they paid for the insurance they would walk out the door with zero worries. So if you think insurance is going to hedge you from that mentality, let it be known that insurance is a free pass to F**k your gear up for some people.

Let's say you rent the camera for $400/day. You will need to rent out that camera for 200 days before you make a single dime off the camera. Don't forget that your paying for an insurance plan too. Take your $80,000 and hold on to it. Maybe take $10,000 and invest in yourself (lighting, lenses, grip and marketing). Then take your very capable FS700 and go make money while the other $70,000 makes more money in investment or just there for a rainy day.
Or buy a BMC and rent that out? Won't take long to pay off the BMC. Do you really want some bearded hipsters tying your F55 to skateboards to make stoner videos? Remember, if they pay your insurance agreement and your camera comes back damaged, it's now your responsibility. IT's A RENTAL, DON'T BE GENTLE.
 
dustylens has got it right, so right. It's honestly one of those investments that 6 months from now... you'll have that gut wrenching feeling inside about how "this was a mistake". The lost money will eat away at you. It's pretty much a given that in 12-14 months the F55 will be had for pretty much half price. At that point... maybe it will be a decent investment, who knows. This plan honestly screams of regret waiting to happen. As to making your own film... why not shoot it on the FS700 or even the BMCC as a cheap alternative or backup? All that extra money would so much better spent on lighting, audio and actual talent. That's enough money to actually shoot a film, a legit feature... forget a new camera for a second- go achieve that dream first!
 
Well personally, given the current market here in Melbourne, I'd say DON'T DO IT. That said, if you do go ahead with it, let me know because if the camera is available at a good rate, I'll definitely rent it from you now and then (when clients have the budget and I want more than 25fps 10-bit SLOG from my F3).
 
selling the business that as i understand brings u major income now for the exchange of a dream - seems strange to me. i would not take a risk like that, and would not risk like that in the name of people who close to me... its just too risky, if it could hurt the family. fs700 is good but from business perspective the price of it is close to nothing really ! f55 is a completely different animal. 1st clients that rent your current cam most likely will not be able to rent your f55 as simply the budget is different, the work flow is different, the tech that needs to process the footage is different....and so on...

if u have just 1 major cam that u ll rent - also think about how often it will need the cleaning, what if it needs repairs even if u r insured, it will takes time to repair it and that time does not brings u profit... but not only that the client can start looking somewhere else..... its a tough business i am sure. Also from my experience good clients with budget dont like running around and renting lets say cam from 1 place and lights from another place and then sliders and crane from 3rd place..... as even if it saves few $, its time and needs dealing with too many people, also with good order comes good discounts..... i think u should consider that as well. and what if something happens to the cam during the shoot what r u going to offer to your client?

also f55 is just out , and i dont think that some one can tell right now that its going to be very popular cam for rent..... especially if the price is so close to alexa for example. here in my country for example the f3 never was popular, in fact i did not even hear that any one at all ever used it here. everything here is filmed on alexa, and sometimes red. a guy from our biggest production company on my question why they dont use sony - they told operators here dont like sony, and boom maybe stupid but simple. it will be hard to make them choose f55 when they got used working with alexa.

if u still will decide to do it, my advice would be never spend your own money, register inc or something .... so that legally you would not be responsible for the financial losses in case of something, create business plan - u need it anyway, get a cam in lease or credit for the equipment .... not sure how exactly it works in usa, but thats the way i would try to do it here in eu...
 
all very good points in this thread. to the op...i agree with most of what these guys are saying. Personally cameras are not what you want to be investing a huge mount of $$ into right now. You have a really nice camera now...other cameras are there that are great that are less $. cinevised stills lenses are there that are on par with cine glass optically speaking, like the zeiss cinemods which btw MANY people use on their epics. Those are built for full frame major mega pixels stills pics so yeh I think they can handle 4k just fine. And then you can also invest in stuff that are not so transient like grip and lighting (or even higher end lenses). Save some $$ and buy those lower end (but great quality stuff). KEEP your business and work less and hire competent and effecient people that can run your business well without you having to be there so much. its called empowerment...and you will have time to pursue your passion. I dunno about your economy but its hella rough out there and if you have a business thats paying the bills consistently i say keep it. You can pop in 3 or 4 times a week and make sure everything is running fine. I'm really not seeing anything stopping you from making a the film you want. Hell u can buy a used RED MX fully loaded for 10 grand on ebay and make your film. Remember the same camera that shot pirates of the caribbean (amongst many other hollywood flicks)....yeh that one, it still works :)
 
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if you're truly serious about cinematography, and want to bring you game up a notch, use a lot of that money to shoot a series of high production value spec commercials, music videos, or scenes from different genres: horror, action, romantic comedy. Don't become a rental "business" become an artist for rent.

The thing is only the idiots out there will hire you for your camera - and those are the people you don't want to work with. FS700 with the right nikon / canon / minolta prime lenses is plenty good enough to shoot great images. Once you build up your reel - well there's the pay off. I bet you you'll find much more satisfaction looking at your great footage vs looking at equipment collecting dust. One brings prestige, the other brings regret.

Having a wide range of "looks" and styles in your reel helps you sell yourself for a wide variety of projects.
 
Wow, Took me longer to go through all the wonderful reply then my marriage paper works. First of all I would like to say thanks you all. 6 months ago I post the same thing about buying the FS700 because I very wanted the camera to shoot some short film since I have had this camera my world has turn upside down...I us can't seem to put down the camera...if I could hang it on my neck like a DSLR I would. Anyway I ended up renting out my FS700 to a friend for just over a month and he gave me 6K plus another 2K came from just shooting for a friends in less then 2 weeks. This is not very about me making money from the camera. It is more about the joy of shooting when I can. My vimeo account has over 120 likes and 79 likes 6500 plays and 1800 loads in less then 6 months. I think I am going in the right direction because I have never study film or learn photography...I just like to watch **** load of movies.

Getting back to what every has said. I think I might do the opposite and spend $15000 on my gears to support my FS700 and setup another business that will take less of my time so I learn more about the filming industry. Spend more time shooting and less time and dreaming about the latest camera that has just been release. Yes I might be lucky to have this $80K but there is a possibility some idiot out there who could break my F55 on his first shoot.

Thanks you all and enjoy your F5 or F55 cause it would have been nice if I could call it my own.

On a side note - I have always wanted to setup a brothel. Well we will all know what I will be filming with my FS700 when I shut my shop at night....lol Joking
 
Daomay said:
Getting back to what every has said. I think I might do the opposite and spend $15000 on my gears to support my FS700 and setup another business that will take less of my time so I learn more about the filming industry. Spend more time shooting and less time and dreaming about the latest camera that has just been release. Yes I might be lucky to have this $80K but there is a possibility some idiot out there who could break my F55 on his first shoot.
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I think that's a great conclusion. If you can buy yourself more time to use your tools to further your creativity that sounds perfect.

Don't forget there's every chance that you'd be able to get a better image out of the 700 when RAW recording becomes possible. I'm pretty convinced the debayering in the 700 isn't perfect. So a RAW recording would not only let you adjust the debayering in post but also get you that extra subtlety of dynamic range the camera is capable of (but being hacked away by the 8 bit outputs). You could probably squeeze 11 real stops out of it via a 12 bit RAW output. I'd imagine a 4K 700 solution would be a bit of a frankencamera to look at, and not a rental option but for your own use it would could work well.

Invest in Lenses, Lights and other grip gear. Even at some point when you do change camera if you buy good equipment it will outlast the camera easily.

I know i have a lot more invested in my lenses, lighting and grip gear than my 700 and 100 combined.

Yes the 55 does have a better colour gamut (one reason i'd be interested) but unless you're set up to grade for that then it will probably be a waste.

cheers
Paul
 
I would perhaps invest a little of the money on one of the many bargain F3s kits on the market too..... You would have a leap in image quality and an A/B camera setup (or an extra camera when one is rented). Seems ideal.
 
Great thread... lots of great information here.

Daomay said:
On a side note - I have always wanted to setup a brothel. Well we will all know what I will be filming with my FS700 when I shut my shop at night....lol Joking
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I was attending a wedding reception and the conversation turned to me filming my shorts and promos and small commercial things and a guy actually pulled me aside to tell me that I'd do really well to get into shooting pornography! I was like "Get out! you old goat!"

I guess that's one way to make a buck. No judgement, but not quite what I had in mind! Yikes!
 
hscully! Good one. Made me laugh this AM.
I had a dude at a very religiously oriented non-profit almost insist that I shoot porn for him. (to be fair, he was not a high-ranking person there).
Finally I asked him, "What am I going to tell me daughter when she finds out?" He left me alone after that.:nads:
 
Daomay,

I assume you're following the thread about the possible announcement from Convergent Design on the Odyssey (http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?304792-New-Convergent-Design-quot-Odyssey-quot/page8) I would join in with the others that recommend you stay with the 700, invest in some lighting and grip equipment and keep on shooing with some money in the bank.

Your stuff looks great. You also seem to really like the slo-mo capabilities of the 700... Don't you think you would really miss that if you bought into the F55?

I've benefitted a great deal from the following philosophies: "Do what you love and the money will follow" and "Jump and the net will appear"

enjoy.
 
I own two companies... production, and inventions...


I say if you have 80K to spend, and you want to spend it on a camera system, do it on a lease for an Alexa and you'll be sitting pretty.

NO one is asking for any camera by name like the Alexa. It has taken over the world, and if something gets put out by Arri thats better you can always lease your way up to the next camera (possibly 4K Alexa by next year or so)

I wouldn't dump that much money into a camera body right now. Lenses yes, camera body, no.

I say buy the best newest glass you can afford thats going to be wanted by others as well. Dont get some weird lenses, and dont get cooke mini s4's Get Zeiss standard primes in good condition or super speeds in very good condition. Or get cooke speeds and have them re-housed by P+S Technic

Just dont forget, the industry is moving very fast in regards to cameras... Lenses, not so much.


If I had 80K to drop and had to buy vs lease, I'd buy USED Alexa, and Zeiss standard speeds, or maybe re-housed Cook speed pancrhos, that would get you right at about 75,000 and then just advertize what you got. people wanting to rent the Alexa are much more willing to spend the money than people wanting to rent an F5/55 right now. Alexa is being used on pretty much everything... F55... not so much.
 
FilmDude;1986298481.. Alexa is being used on pretty much everything... F55... not so much.[/QUOTE said:
True, but at least give it a chance - it did just come out after all ;)
In reality for the OP to invest in any camera system right now ( at least for $80k ) is probably a very bad idea. I have bought a f55 but I also shoot commercials every week and have relationships with local rental houses. Even with that, I need to have the camera make $4000 a month in order to pay it off within a year. I am confident that I can do that but for someone starting out, I would say not a chance.
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FilmDude said:
I say if you have 80K to spend, and you want to spend it on a camera system, do it on a lease for an Alexa and you'll be sitting pretty.

NO one is asking for any camera by name like the Alexa. It has taken over the world, and if something gets put out by Arri thats better you can always lease your way up to the next camera (possibly 4K Alexa by next year or so)

I wouldn't dump that much money into a camera body right now. Lenses yes, camera body, no.

I say buy the best newest glass you can afford thats going to be wanted by others as well. Dont get some weird lenses, and dont get cooke mini s4's Get Zeiss standard primes in good condition or super speeds in very good condition. Or get cooke speeds and have them re-housed by P+S Technic

Just dont forget, the industry is moving very fast in regards to cameras... Lenses, not so much.


If I had 80K to drop and had to buy vs lease, I'd buy USED Alexa, and Zeiss standard speeds, or maybe re-housed Cook speed pancrhos, that would get you right at about 75,000 and then just advertize what you got. people wanting to rent the Alexa are much more willing to spend the money than people wanting to rent an F5/55 right now. Alexa is being used on pretty much everything... F55... not so much.
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By far and away the best suggestion I have seen yet, in my view.
 
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