C100: If you were getting started today...

I am more than willing to defend the Manfrotto 701HD and 500AH heads. I had the 501HD and really didn't like it. Now I use the discontinued 569 that I got on clearance as my main head and it is adequate. Also, the 536 legs are one of my favorite pieces of equipment and I can't imagine an easier or more versatile set of legs for a small camera. Anyway, the 500AH and 701HD heads are not really rated to hold the C100, but they are very capable of getting slow and even pans and tilts. The key is to throw out the pan handle on the head and just hold the camera directly at the grip and lens. This also gives you quick access to the controls and zoom for b-roll. I believe that Benro also makes a nice, smooth, cheap, small head. Low priced heads have their place.
 
Just to piggyback on what others have posted about cheap tripods and heads versus good ones, if you shoot mostly corporate interviews, the quality of the head and tripod doesn't matter much for lockoffs, it really only comes into play when you begin following moving subjects. The move that separates the good stuff from the junk is having a long focal length, following a subject smoothly at that long focal length and trying to perform a silky smooth tilt while panning with the subject. If this this can be accomplished without ANY stiction or lock up, you have a good head and legs. If not, as far as I am concerned, the tripods and head are junk. Many people in the industry aren't aware of what stiction and lock up are. Stiction is the friction that tends to prevent stationary surfaces from being set in motion. There will be a jar to the picture anytime you try to begin or end a pan or tilt as a result of the stiction. It doesn't matter how smooth or talented of a camera operator you are, any head with any amount of stiction is useless for professional results. Cheap legs have a phenomena known as wind up and release. If you have a heavy camera and heavy tripod head mounted to flimsy legs, as you pan the camera, the tripod legs wind up tension because they are loose and not fitted together tightly. At some point in the pan or when you stop the pan or reverse direction, this will result in a small or large jarring movement to the image. Basically, with tripods and heads, bigger and heavier is steadier, yet nobody wants to carry around a big, heavy tripod and head. It's not overkill to have a $5,000.00, heavy tripod with a DSLR. It looks weird but from an operational standpoint, the bigger and heavier, the smoother the moves. When I was in South Africa last year with my C100 and a Canon 70-200 2.8 IS lens, the rental company provided me with a Panavision head with super heavy duty beefy legs. I had an AC to carry the combo around so the weight didn't matter to me. It was funny to see this 12lb camera and lens combo on a massive, heavy head designed to hold a 150lb Cinema camera but the end result was some smooth footage with lots of moves at 200mm.

Manfrotto tripods and heads and all of the other lower end brands on the market and even some of the cheap models in high end lines like the Sachtler ACE and low end Vintens all have varying degrees of stiction and wind up/release (sometimes called whiplash too). They are built well, look nice, have some weight but the pro stuff that has zero stiction and whiplash costs a lot of money. A $1,000.00 Sachtler is made for someone who wants to buy the name and are also designed for really lightweight DSLRs. Take manufacturers weight capacity ratings with a LARGE grain of salt. Ideally, you don't want to exceed about 65% of the advertised weight capacity, those numbers are to sucker in people. Sure, the tripod and head can hold the max weights but can they function 100% perfectly correct with the full advertised weight capacity on-board? Not likely. I occasionally have had to shoot action scenes with the Bogen/Manfrotto tripods and heads and it is an exercise in frustration. I've also shot them with my Sachtlers and it becomes rather simple with the right gear. I have the Sachtler DV6 SB head with the Miller Solo DV carbon legs and the Sachtler Video 18 MKII with the matching Sachtler aluminum legs, they are both great and were well worth their considerable costs. A good tripod/head combo will last you decades, a junk one will frustrate you and limit you from day one, unless you don't shoot movement. Bottom line is that we are talking mechanics and physics here and you cannot cheat either no matter what anyone claims. Then again, I see a lot of jerky, unprofessional camera movement out there too.
 
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I don't know about the ACE but my DV4 has NO stiction. Dead stop to smooth pan always. Have not noticed the tension thing either.
 
I totally agree with everything being said about expensive tripods. And all expensive gear, in fact. But if you are just starting to acquire gear for a venture you are not sure you will see results yet, I don't recommend going all in on a $5k tripod. I think it is important to scale your expenses to your growth. So start out with a $1k tripod/head combo. Limit yourself to locked off shots or really slow pans where the whiolash is able to be dealt with in post. Then, if you start getting more gigs where you really need a $5k tripod, rent it for the first few times, assess whether you will be able to start charging more for your services with this gear, and if the answer is yes, the do it!!!! Or if you can just afford to buy the $5k tripod from the get go without compromising your financial security, by all means, get the good stuff!!

Again, I totally agree that a cheap tripod is not worth the money and that they are frustrating. I just want to contextualize it a bit with other factors. You can still work with the limitations of an affordable tripod for now while you are getting started. Then, if you are having success in your business and you are getting rates and fees that will sustain growth into that pro gear, then definitely grow into the big boy/girl gear! At that point it'll be a great investment!
 
I have a Manfrotto 536 and Cartoni Focus HD head and couldn't be happier. Great combo for a reasonable price.
 
You make no sense. C100 mk2 is for people that need a tried and true PROVEN versatile camera.
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This is true, however, the market is quickly changing to 4k, I wouldn't recommend buying a 1080 camera when the writing has been on the wall for over a year now. Just about every company other than Canon is releasing 4k resolution in the 5k price range. Although Canon does have a 1dc 4k dslr that's three years old now, and is 8 grand. Canon as a company is very conservative when it comes to releasing cameras. They typically give the least amount of features for the highest price. But then again they are reliable, good low light, nice image overall. It's a shame they don't add higher frame rates though. 60p barely cuts it these days when most others are giving twice the frame rate.
 
maranfilms said:
This is true, however, the market is quickly changing to 4k, I wouldn't recommend buying a 1080 camera when the writing has been on the wall for over a year now. Just about every company other than Canon is releasing 4k resolution in the 5k price range.
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Not quite sold on 4K yet brother - I don't anyone with a 4k tv yet and certainly the internet speeds here in Australia don't quite match up with 4K yet so I don't exactly see a worthy investment. I hope that around this time next year it will be a different story although if your clients are wanting 4k you probably have quite a large budget that will pay for it so depends who you're shooting for.

I'd still reccommend the C100 mk i for anybody still starting out in the film and video industry because of it's versatility and functions available. I'd take that over 4k anyday.
 
In addition to that, say you do go ahead and decide to fork out $5k for a 4k camera, then what? The next year they up it to 6k, then 8k and so on. Also editing systems to handle 4k are pricey - mine barely handles 1080p.
 
I had bought my OConnor 1030 HDs fluid head and Sachtler ENG 100 HD2CF tripod when I was shooting with DSLRs. Since I do lot of wildlife work with long lenses, my gitzo GT 3530LSV tripod started shaking as if it had malaria. At 800mm focal lengths it was very noticeable so I upgraded.

If a person knows that he is in this for the long term, then better to make provision for a good tripod and fluid head. Else, everytime you buy and sell to upgrade, you lose money. A fluid head will last for atleast a decade or more. So a 5000 usd fluid head is like 500 usd per year. And if you are a business, then you can easily show it as capital expenses so basically you need to pay less taxes. :)

The only challenge is carrying those heavy tripods and fluid heads. However, you get some very nice footage.

As far as camera resolution is concerned look at your clients and then take a decision if you need 4K. In my market here in India, projects worth 20-25k still ask for 5D III or equivalent. For you we are all faceless entities dishing out opinions based on our own perspectives. Better to analyse all opinions and take up which ever is suitable to your business.
 
puredrifting said:
I am very opinionated on tripods. Manfrotto tripods and heads are not professional tools, they range from useless junk to barely competent junk for their most expensive. I own three of them and use them on projects where the producer is trying to save money and rents them with camera packages. Every Manfrotto head has stiction and it is either very difficult to impossible to do smooth simultaneous pan/tilts.
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Im very much the same as puredrifting on this point. Please don't use manfrotto. They're simply terrible to use by comparison to the other leading brands. If your budget is low, hold off and save more. A tripod needs to do a number of things: lock off and be stable, pan, tilt, pan and tilt together. Manfrotto falls away right after lock off, then hits 0 by the time you're on pan / tilt together.
 
I remember when I fist started buying gear I had perhaps around $3000 in my bank account. I spent $2000 on a camera setup, $500 on a Manfrotto tripod, and $200 on a shotgun mic. With that, I started making money off of the gear I purchased.

The idea of "don't skimp on a tripod" suggests I should have either a) spent $3000 on a tripod and hoped people would hire me as a tripod shooter who doesn't own a camera (uh huh), or b) spent another six months (since I didn't make much money at the time) saving up another $3000 for a tripod before buying a cheaper tripod, and thus miss out on six months of potential work that needs a tripod.

I think for my case it's pretty clear that overspending on a tripod starting out is just a plain bad idea. Perhaps if I did nature videography with 800mm lenses, sure, I couldn't get usable shots with a Manfrotto tripod, but for weddings, events, and corporate work, Manfrotto tripods are generally more than good enough to make you money, which is the most important aspect of any piece of gear from a business standpoint.

Another thing is that for most of my work I use a slider, jib, Steadicam, dolly, etc., and avoid doing basic pan and tilt shots and practically never do a pan and tilt where the beginning and end of the pan and tilt are in the edited shot (hence stiction and other factors such as smooth stops are irrelevant), so for most of my shots having a super smooth head on my tripod isn't all that beneficial, hence why I waited awhile before upgrading my tripod system.


Now I have a Vinten Vision Blue head on Gitzo carbon fiber sticks which together cost me $2000, and I'm wanting to get the Really Right Stuff head for around $2000 before long as well since it's lighter and easily adaptable to sliders, tripods, monopod, etc. I also still use my Manfrotto and Benro tripods as I do a lot of multi-cam shooting, so it's not like my earlier cheaper tripod purchases have gone to waste at all. I will say, while I like the Benro sticks I've used, all of their heads I've used including the one I own are pretty bad; Manfrotto's similarly priced heads are much better.
 
Those are very nice. The FSB 8 is the newer equivalent (they don't sell the DV6 anymore I don't think), very nice but too rich for my blood. Colleague who is a longtime vet in the industry just got the FSB 6 and likes it a lot.
 
It's interesting that you spent the money on microphones that arguably could be considered wasted on the just okay audio specs of lower end cameras yet will live with substandard camera support. Just an observation, not an indictment. And I agree with you, if you don't use a tripod to do a lot of movement, stiction and whiplash don't factor in much. I have mixed feelings because I am an audio oriented person and agree with your decision to buy the best mics money can buy, you will never regret it but arguably, your camera's substandard audio circuitry and mic preamps make the mics you bought at least a partial waste. If you run them into a Sound Devices recorder, you will have killer professional level sound capability.

I also agree with the business case argument, having a great tripod doesn't usually make you money but I would also argue that very few camera buyers know how to budget for a camera. As most pros know, you don't budget for and buy a camera, you budget for and buy a camera package. A package includes a camera, lots of shooting and storage media cards/drives, extra batteries, a case and quality camera support (tripod, slider, gimbal, dolly, shoulder rig). A good rule of thumb is that the camera itself should take 50% of your camera package budget so a camera package budget for a Canon C100 MKII should be around $10k to $11k. This would give you the camera, body, a few QUALITY lenses, QUALITY pro level camera support, usually meaning a tripod and head, extra batteries, media, case. If people had knowledge and experience and approached it logically, they would know this but most people buy off of emotional decisions. They buy the most expensive camera they can scrape the money for and then scrimp and skip the important stuff, which is all of the support gear that make the camera functional. This is why people buy a $6k camera and then post that they, "need to know the BEST lens for under $200.00", which is totally counterproductive. Anyone in that position should be buying a $3k camera and good lenses and good camera support. It all boils down to naivete and misplaced priorities. People see buying a certain camera as being the member of a tribe or club. They will do almost anything to gain admittance to that club, including making short-sighted, bad buying decisions on gear they will discard in frustration before they have earned the money to amortize the costs. I am not saying you did this, I am saying that MOST newbies do though, I see it happen over and over. If the average camera person buys three Bogens, Benros, Sliks, etc. in three to five years and discards them in frustration because they are crap, they would have been much better off from a business standpoint in buying something good that will last them for a good portion of their career. Tripods are one of the few pieces of gear in our business that do not really change and do not outdate, if they are quality.

I can't argue with your experience and you seem like you have been successful in your business strategy but I would say you are an exception to the rule, most people start off in this business and buy cheap junk, hate it, replace it, go through this cycle multiple times before the lightbulb finally clicks on and they start buying the good stuff that will last, giving professional results for decades to come. You obviously agree with me when it comes to microphones, you bought the best. Also, these days, it is feasible to buy a cheap tripod, cheap slider and a gimbal and that may give you great end results that your clients love. But 4k is a lot more susceptible to micro jitters and judder than 1080 and if you shoot with long lenses (not 800mm, anything 200mm or longer is more like it) on a regular basis, you are going to be very frustrated, very quickly with any substandard tripod and head.



Eric Coughlin said:
I remember when I fist started buying gear I had perhaps around $3000 in my bank account. I spent $2000 on a camera setup, $500 on a Manfrotto tripod, and $200 on a shotgun mic. With that, I started making money off of the gear I purchased.

The idea of "don't skimp on a tripod" suggests I should have either a) spent $3000 on a tripod and hoped people would hire me as a tripod shooter who doesn't own a camera (uh huh), or b) spent another six months (since I didn't make much money at the time) saving up another $3000 for a tripod before buying a cheaper tripod, and thus miss out on six months of potential work that needs a tripod.

I think for my case it's pretty clear that overspending on a tripod starting out is just a plain bad idea. Perhaps if I did nature videography with 800mm lenses, sure, I couldn't get usable shots with a Manfrotto tripod, but for weddings, events, and corporate work, Manfrotto tripods are generally more than good enough to make you money, which is the most important aspect of any piece of gear from a business standpoint.

Another thing is that for most of my work I use a slider, jib, Steadicam, dolly, etc., and avoid doing basic pan and tilt shots and practically never do a pan and tilt where the beginning and end of the pan and tilt are in the edited shot (hence stiction and other factors such as smooth stops are irrelevant), so for most of my shots having a super smooth head on my tripod isn't all that beneficial, hence why I waited awhile before upgrading my tripod system.


Now I have a Vinten Vision Blue head on Gitzo carbon fiber sticks which together cost me $2000, and I'm wanting to get the Really Right Stuff head for around $2000 before long as well since it's lighter and easily adaptable to sliders, tripods, monopod, etc. I also still use my Manfrotto and Benro tripods as I do a lot of multi-cam shooting, so it's not like my earlier cheaper tripod purchases have gone to waste at all. I will say, while I like the Benro sticks I've used, all of their heads I've used including the one I own are pretty bad; Manfrotto's similarly priced heads are much better.
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I see buying quality mics being about getting better tonality, vocal reproduction, rejection, etc., which is determined by the mic itself, not the mixer. So even with the worst pre-amps in the world you'll still get those advantages with better mics. Pre-amps are just about lowering the hissing noise and distortion from raising the gain. With a 5D the pre-amps are so bad that the hissing noise is often noticeable. With the C100, I rarely hear hissing noise in the audio, and in the rare cases I have a quiet speaking person and do notice the hissing noise a bit, I get mildly annoyed that I don't have a mixer, and later when I inevitably add in a music track for the video, the hissing noise is no long noticeable, and then I go back to figuring I have saved time (on set) and money by not using and owning a mixer.

I know a couple video guys who own Sound Devices mixers who have C100s and C300s and practically never use their mixers (at least for interviews) since they don't see the benefits of using them, and just see it as a waste of time. Mixers are about having proper controls, multiple tracks, getting levels right on set to avoid needing to make adjustments in post, better pre-amps, etc. Since most of my audio is sit down interviews which generally don't have significant highs and lows, don't need several audio tracks, I don't mind making small level adjustments in post, and the C100 pre-amps are good enough to not notice hissing in most cases, at least so far buying a mixer hasn't been a priority for me, whereas better tonality, vocal reproduction, rejection, etc., did become a priority. I've considered the Sound Devices 633 if I were to get one. For the cases I do need multiple tracks, have b-roll tracking subjects on a boom pole, need multiple wireless mics, etc., then at that point hiring a sound guy makes more sense then buying my own mixer.

I've heard the improved "audio circuitry" argument before, and have never been able to confirm from research that a high end mixer is actually giving significanly better "audio circuitry" or audio reproduction than a cheap Zoom H4n or on camera audio circuitry. Last sound professional I worked with had a Sound Devices Mix-Pre and a Sound Devices 552, and he was plugging his Mix-Pre directly into the C100. I asked him if a Sound Devices 633 would improve my audio much for sit down interviews, and he didn't think it would. He didn't seem to agree with the "audio circuitry" idea. I'm not saying he was right; I'm just saying I've never seen much in terms of confirmation on the whole "audio circuitry" idea which is one reason I haven't bitten the bullet on a Sound Devices 633.


I try to balance out my budget accordingly, and certainly don't spend the majority of my budget on a camera. I was shooting on a 60D ($900) back when I owned $10-15k of gear, skipping out on ever getting a 5D which cost more because I instead spent that money on audio, lighting, and support gear. Now I'm getting a C300 Mark II ($16k) and plan to budget around $10-15k to upgrade my tungsten kit to a nice LED lighting kit. Support gear (tripods, jibs, sliders, dolly, Steadicam, Glidecam, monopods) is what I've spent the most on, around $25k, while my current cameras I've spent about $18k on.

I'm also planning to upgrade some lenses soon, particularly with a Canon 24-70 v.2, as putting my lackluster 24-105 on a C300 Mark II shooting in 4K seems a bit counterproductive. I've considered cinema lenses, but I'd lose the auto-focus capabilities, and I continually hear mixed thoughts between people who say the image quality is much better on mid-range to high-end cine lenses compared to still lenses, to those who say still lenses have equal image quality but merely lack the mechanics. If it's just a mechanical thing, and for one-man-band shooting the C300 Mark II's auto-focus is way more useful than having proper focus marks for a follow focus, then cine lenses would seem to be a waste of money.

I don't think the Vinten Vision Blue is a substandard tripod head, but perhaps you were referring to my earlier Manfrotto and Benro tripod purchases. The Benro head I complained about actually came with the sticks I got with no choice to buy them separately, so I never actually wanted the Benro head, while I do like the sticks which are carbon fiber and has both a center column and leveler built in. I've been wanting to sell the Benro head to replace it with a Manfrotto 502 but haven't gotten around to doing so. Thing is, for my multi-cam shoots, it makes no financial sense to spend $2-$3k each on 3-5 tripods (some weddings are up to five cameras, so I own five tripods). Generally when I'm doing multi-cam it's either for weddings or sit down interviews, both of which don't need a $2-3k tripod.

So basically, my Benro and Manfrotto tripods certainly have their place, and are not wasted money in any way even though I now own a better tripod system. I can see for those shooters who only do single camera shoots, often film at over 200mm, and start by buying a cheap tripod, how they will end up losing money over time if that cheap tripod eventually goes to waste when they get a real quality tripod, and will also loose clients if their cheap tripod is not up to the task for the type of work they're doing, but that's not my situation. My longest lens is also 200mm, which is longer than I need for most of my corporate and doc work which typically maxes out around 105-130mm, and is sufficient though sometimes lacking for wedding work (generally for wedding work I'm not as willing to spend as much extra money on gear for). I see adding a Canon 200-400 perhaps in the next year or two for those times I do want it for corporate or doc work.

I should mention, I know a lot of people doing corporate work tend to film corporate seminars, talks, and the like, but I really don't do a whole lot of that, for which longer lenses and better tripods are more important for that type of work. I also don't do sports or wildlife.
 
puredrifting said:
I am an audio oriented person and agree with your decision to buy the best mics money can buy, you will never regret it but arguably, your camera's substandard audio circuitry and mic preamps make the mics you bought at least a partial waste. If you run them into a Sound Devices recorder, you will have killer professional level sound capability.
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I disagree with this statement, to a point. As far as in-camera audio goes, the C100 is pretty solid, especially if you're just focusing on single or maybe double mic audio. Having recorded straight to the camera and through a separate recorder, I can testify that the difference is mostly negligible (especially for straight-up dialogue), and certainly not worth using the separate recorder and having to sync audio in post, run a slate during prod, etc etc. That said, more elaborate productions that require multiple channels of audio can certainly benefit from a more expensive external recorder. But for me, part of the point in owning the C100 is its onboard audio capabilities.

I also don't think you're wasting your money buying a good mic and using it to record audio straight to camera. I've certainly heard the difference between lower-quality mics and higher quality mics in-camera on my C100. That said, how you define "expensive" is relative. The most expensive mic in my bag is an NTG-3.
 
I have yet to be on a corporate interview where ambient noise and shooting conditions do not completely overwhelm any increase in sound quality that would be gained with using an offboard recorder. I have multiple mixers and use them when it makes sense such as when I know I need 24bits, limiters, and multiple channels, but a mixer is not one of the first things I would purchase when getting started with a C100.

Of course, I also don't use a Ninja or offboard recorder for the video so that may just indicate my general philosophy about the work that I do with the C100.
 
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I have heard that argument from sound guys as well, that camera preamps are always poor, using a separate mixer/recorder will yield vastly better results. What I'm not clear on is WHAT differences I would hear (in their arguments). . .less noise? Better EQ (i.e. "thicker" sound)? What?
 
I have a few different mics including a pair of Schoeps. I do basically music videos..... sound is actually more important to me than video. I have a Metric Halo ULN-2 which I use to record music. That said, I can't imagine you would need to use anything near the set up I have to record voice interviews, and recording voice into the camera seems quite adequate as long as you have a decent mic.

Basic point is if you are recording music use some good mics and a good external recorder, if you are just doing interviews then use the camera XLR's with a decent mic.
 
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