Help me choose. Lenses and Camera kit.

A

astigmatic

Well-known member
Help me choose.

If you can only have one of these:

Ursa 4.6k with
1. Cinealta 6 lens set
2. 5 Zeiss CP.2s
3. 3 Zeiss Otus lenses.

or

4. Red Raven with about 1k worth of cheap still lenses.
 
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Good glass trumps all. But personally, I would never stake my career on the reliability of a BMD camera (yet). Someday, they will be as bulletproof as a Sony or Canon, but for now, all of my friends who really like them are no budget indies or hobbyists where if their camera does something dumb, it's not usually the end of the world or they can't pay their mortgage. The Ursa and Ursa mini look good and have nice feature sets, but I question their day to day reliability and long term reliability. The RED will be more reliable probably but cheap lenses are crap (mostly, although I like weird, funky cheap lenses for artsy stuff). It would be helpful if you said if you put food in your kids stomachs with your work or if you are a hobbyist. If you get the RED, www.lensrentals.com can solve your lens problem, most pro level work can support a couple of hundred dollar budget for renting some good glass. I would rather rent the good stuff and save the cheap crap for playing around but not usually for clients. So in the end, depends on what you do or want to do with your gear. If it's make a living for clients, get the RED and rent good glass. If you have a real job and just have filmmaking as a hobby, I agree with Justin.
 
puredrifting said:
It would be helpful if you said if you put food in your kids stomachs with your work or if you are a hobbyist. .
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Neither ha! But for all intents and purposes, your advice to a hobbyists applies.


Are super speed CP.2s worth the added costs? I've read there are some poor performers in the CP.2 lineup. Which are the must have lenses, which are the ones to avoid?

Thanks!
 
astigmatic said:
Neither ha! But for all intents and purposes, your advice to a hobbyists applies.


Are super speed CP.2s worth the added costs? I've read there are some poor performers in the CP.2 lineup. Which are the must have lenses, which are the ones to avoid?

Thanks!
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CP.2s are just Cine housed ZF lenses. Honestly I'd go CONTAX Zeiss over CP.2s. Great image qualty at a great price. Same Zeiss sharpness but that more warm vintage look too. Check out the extensive CONTAX Zeiss thread over at RedUser. I got a set and love mine. http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?92044-Contax-Zeiss-Survival-Guide
 
ultramaze said:
CP.2s are just Cine housed ZF lenses. Honestly I'd go CONTAX Zeiss over CP.2s. Great image qualty at a great price. Same Zeiss sharpness but that more warm vintage look too. Check out the extensive CONTAX Zeiss thread over at RedUser. I got a set and love mine. http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?92044-Contax-Zeiss-Survival-Guide
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I used to own a nice set of contax. They were great. I still have the 28 hollywood because I couldn't get myself to part with that lens, which was my favorite of the set.

However, I rather go cinema glass because I prefer accurate lens markings and the use of a measuring tape.
 
1K worth of stills lenses won't get you very far, even a decent set of Canon FD glass will run you more like $1500 to $2000.

For $11,000 I think I would probably choose a different camera than the Raven. What's wrong with Sony FS7?

I'm guessing you have about $20,000 to spend and need a complete system including media, is this correct?
 
Greg_E said:
1K worth of stills lenses won't get you very far, even a decent set of Canon FD glass will run you more like $1500 to $2000.

For $11,000 I think I would probably choose a different camera than the Raven. What's wrong with Sony FS7?

I'm guessing you have about $20,000 to spend and need a complete system including media, is this correct?
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I'm not really smitten by the images I've seen from the Sony.

My budget is around 13k for lenses or 18k for a whole new system(current system is a BlackMagic 4k/lomo lenses).
 
Couldn't you keep the lenses and "upgrade" as money came in? If you are happy with the BMD cameras, seems like a logical choice to go with a newer one.

Everything I've read says the Sony lenses are very good, especially when you consider the price. But I haven't touched them myself.
 
What are you shooting and what's your budget? Your budget seems a bit confusing since you seem to be comparing a <$15k raven kit to $20-30k ursa kits?
 
Greg_E said:
Couldn't you keep the lenses and "upgrade" as money came in? If you are happy with the BMD cameras, seems like a logical choice to go with a newer one.
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Yeah that's where I'm at I guess.



nyvz said:
What are you shooting and what's your budget? Your budget seems a bit confusing since you seem to be comparing a <$15k raven kit to $20-30k ursa kits?
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I shoot narrative films. Ursa kit is about 13k in lenses(4-5 used CP.2 ) + 5.5k for the Ursa Mini. So that's 18.5k
I'm not too familiar with how much it will take to get a complete Raven system up and running with power supply, recording media, etc. I'm guessing around the same?
 
Talk to RED owners. My producing partner has a Scarlet and he tells me that he was surprised at how many batteries, media, and other toys you need to make a RED work and how much all of that stuff adds up to over time. While the Raven may be cheap, the RED infrastructure is not. Make sure you price out a package that will include enough power, media and all of the other little accessories needed to make the Raven do what you need it to do.

For your needs, I would lean more toward the Ursa Mini. Lack of built in NDs and global shutter aren't going to matter to you, the image itself looks nice from what I've seen. As far as lenses, tough choice, there are so many nice ones. For narrative, personally, I think you only need a three lens standard set, at least to begin, 28mm 50 and 85mm. You an always rent longer or wider for those few times you might needs them but 90% of shots can be photographed well with one of those three primes. I don't think you NEED a five lens set, but of course, you may WANT a five lens set. I would rather make sure I have a really, really good tripod (used Sachtler, Vinten or Miller head, carbon sticks, no Bogen/Manfrotto/Benro crap), maybe a slider and or jib? And I would make sure you have all of the shoulder mount, handles, follow focus, etc. that you need to make that Ursa Mini into a handheld cinema camera, that stuff adds up really quickly. Do you have all of this other stuff from other cameras you've owned because I can see another $5k to $12k easily for all of this support stuff, if you really want to make movies.

Also, back to the BMD, what will be your backup camera? I don't head to set without a backup camera. If your A camera dies on you the night before a shoot, it's nice to have something that is good enough to at least continue the shoot. For me, it's my 5D MKIII. If my A camera goes down, the 5D MKIII takes the same lenses (mostly) and works with my monitor, shoulder mount, etc. While the quality would be less than my A camera, I could at least keep shooting rather than bail on a whole shoot, the entire crew, talent, "because my camera broke".
 
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^

Yeah good advice. I have basic support equipment, although I'm thinking I can use a stabilizer setup. I usually rent jibs and dollies etc because they take up too much space when not in use. My backups are Gh4s/G7s.
 
astigmatic said:
^

Yeah good advice. I have basic support equipment, although I'm thinking I can use a stabilizer setup. I usually rent jibs and dollies etc because they take up too much space when not in use. My backups are Gh4s/G7s.
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Sounds like you got it covered, those are good enough cameras to save a shoot. Let us know which way you go.
 
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