Is camera choice a good thing or bad thing?

[Eric Coughlin]

Let me elaborate what I mean by "choice." Back when the Betacam was popular, it was the go to camera (as far as I know (someone may chime in that there were other options, but that's beside the point I'm trying to make)). So, when say a broadcast DP wanted to buy a camera, there was not much choice, and the choice was simple. Now when a production needed to hire a DP, they could go off of skill, experience, portfolio, etc., instead of moreso needing to find a DP who just happened to have the same camera that matched with the rest of their show (for example, in today's time needing an FS7 at the exclusion of DPs with C300s, Varicam LTs, Arris, or Reds).

Now a days, if you want to be marketable to all of the job types for owner/op jobs, you need to own all of the camera models. This then costs more money for the owner/op, where as if there was less choice, they could just own one camera model and be marketable to all the jobs. At the high end lately Arri has been dominating the market, and as an owner/op, I see this as a good thing as it means you can get away with owning just one brand of high end camera and be marketable to most of the jobs available. The mid range and low end are more polluted for choice.

So when we see new companies come to the camera scene, Blackmagic, AJA, Samsung (NX1), Z Cam, etc., instead of thinking, "Good to have these new choices," I think perhaps, "More camera brands to pollute an owner/op's marketability." Yeah, it's nice if these new brands offer new features and price points, but if at the cost of polluting the cameras one needs to remain marketable, it may not be so appealing in the long run.

Choice can also lead to making big financial mistakes if you choose the wrong choice, like if you bought a C700 or AJA Cion.

Thoughts?

 

[NorBro]

My only personal thought/opinion is that there is an endless amount of work out there that doesn't require a certain camera. For a lot of $$$.

I actually never worked for any company who asked me to have a certain system. If they wanted something, they provided it. Maybe a rare example and maybe that's not how it is out there.

But purchasing a camera these days if you DO work like that...tough call for sure.

 

[puredrifting]

Let me elaborate what I mean by "choice." Back when the Betacam was popular, it was the go to camera...

The only Betacam alternative choice for a long time was Panasonic's MII format, a terrible, sub par format with poor design that only NBC bought into.

As far as your other position, you've nailed everything that's wrong about the camera market for any owner op today. The good part is that they are all pretty good these days.
How many "bad" new camera models are there on the market? The bad part is, exactly as you say, too many damn cameras on the market, too much choice and a lot of clients
do get sold that bill of goods that oh, all of the project MUST be shot on the same, identical camera. It can be frustrating. A friend of mine recently bought the FX9 and he is having
trouble from clients who will ONLY hire him with his old FS7. They ask him, "Is your new camera the same as the FS7?" and he tells them, "No, it's better". A few of these clients have
not hired him with his FX9 and hired other shooters with an FS7. It's very difficult to overcome client brand/model bias, I've dealt with this for decades.

I'd like to think that possibly we can begin to slowly move past "Oh, you don't OWN an Arri or a RED or a whatever" and more toward
"Let me check out your reel, wow I love your work, let's talk project". That all goes back to your market and your clients though. I much prefer
working with clients who hire me because of my reel and don't even ask what I am using. Luckily I don't do many projects that already have footage shot
elsewhere they are trying to match and I don't do many multi-camera shoots overall, usually just a couple per year.

I'm curious, you have the Amiras, how often or have you ever had a client request Arri, then NOT hire you because you had the Amira and not the Alexa or Alexa Mini?

 

[mcbob]

So long as it doesn't hurt anybody, choice is always a good thing. Adapting to that choice profitably is the hard part.

It's like any retail store, really... only buy inventory that sells, not what looks good on the shelf.

Tried to play that game for a bit. Now, I have an old FS5 and A7R4 and a couple Atomos recorders. They've flown for most clients. If I need more, I rent, and have solutions to lens, power, and rig those as necessary. If a cam-specific project runs long enough to make financial sense, I'll consider buying that camera body, but I'm done trying (and too poor now) to chase that moving, accelerating target.

Choiceless monopolies serve primarily to stifle development and progress while enriching a select few who offer a stagnated product... think of your cable provider, 90s era Microsoft, the two-party republic, or communism... avoid making things s*%ttier. Embrace the true diversity of choice.

 

[combatentropy]

Who are these people? I guess I understand only the clients at the extremes:

• If you are the town's local videographer for weddings, school games, and dance recitals, no one cares about or even understands your choice of camera.
• If you work for Hollywood, the producer rents your gear for you.

Between those two extremes are the jobs that many of you get, but when you describe the behavior of your clients, it's like Twilight Zone. What exactly are you shooting for these people? And what exactly is the job title of these camera-specifying clients? Who are these people, and what are they like?

Tell them I can't tell the difference between the Red, Arri, and FS7 --- and I'm more sensitive than the average audience member, because I was into video production for over a decade. For more than another decade, I have still kept tabs on things, because I'm crazy

Anyway, they're bikeshedding. The only good reason I can think of is if it slows down their post-production workflow, because your camera has a weird codec or something.

 

[DLD]

Communism had choices. You could wait in the line for the toilet paper or in the line for leather boots. But not in both lines at once (unless you shifted into a neutrino mode, which some people were actually capable of).

Anyhow, the camera market is shifting from "only a studio can afford this" into "it's good enough for my needs" mode. Soon, it'll be absolutely irrelevant with a minor exception of the ultra high end models that, indeed, only studios can afford to buy.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

The only Betacam alternative choice for a long time was Panasonic's MII format, a terrible, sub par format with poor design that only NBC bought into.

As far as your other position, you've nailed everything that's wrong about the camera market for any owner op today. The good part is that they are all pretty good these days.
How many "bad" new camera models are there on the market? The bad part is, exactly as you say, too many damn cameras on the market, too much choice and a lot of clients
do get sold that bill of goods that oh, all of the project MUST be shot on the same, identical camera. It can be frustrating. A friend of mine recently bought the FX9 and he is having
trouble from clients who will ONLY hire him with his old FS7. They ask him, "Is your new camera the same as the FS7?" and he tells them, "No, it's better". A few of these clients have
not hired him with his FX9 and hired other shooters with an FS7. It's very difficult to overcome client brand/model bias, I've dealt with this for decades.

I'd like to think that possibly we can begin to slowly move past "Oh, you don't OWN an Arri or a RED or a whatever" and more toward
"Let me check out your reel, wow I love your work, let's talk project". That all goes back to your market and your clients though. I much prefer
working with clients who hire me because of my reel and don't even ask what I am using. Luckily I don't do many projects that already have footage shot
elsewhere they are trying to match and I don't do many multi-camera shoots overall, usually just a couple per year.

I'm curious, you have the Amiras, how often or have you ever had a client request Arri, then NOT hire you because you had the Amira and not the Alexa or Alexa Mini?

Yeah, I'll have that conundrum with the C300 Mark III. I could sell my three Mark IIs and replace them all with Mark IIIs, but even if I wanted to spend that much money to upgrade now (which I don't), I feel it would be a bad move because many clients will still have shows shot on the Mark II and will want that camera specifically. I occasionally do three camera shoots with the Mark II so having three matching cameras is always ideal (and I regularly do two camera shoots), so even selling one of them if I got one Mark III would be difficult. So, I'll probably buy one Mark III in 6-12 months from now, then slowly buy a second and third over the next two or three years, and only start phasing out the Mark IIs as they get less requested over time, or just keep them as eventually their decreased used value will make them more valuable for when I need a lot of cameras rather than a small Ebay cash out.

The FS7 is popular in the reality TV world where you have production coordinators (as opposed to experienced producers) who are not very tech savvy so they often just know, "Must be shot on FS7," which has made the FS7 the most popular, "It must be this camera" camera of recent times. So yeah, if I was an FS7 owner/op I'd be pretty wary about selling it off to replace with the FX-9.

I've often had clients say, "We love that you have an Alexa and want to shoot on that." They incorrectly think the Amira is an Alexa; sometimes I correct them and sometimes I don't, but they saw what I have on my site and the Amira is close enough to the Alexa in many ways that if the client isn't technical it's not always worth pointing out the small differences. I don't think I've ever had a client ask for an Alexa and then lost the job because I have an Amira. That said, any client who truly wants an Alexa and knows an Amira is not an Alexa likely would not contact me in the first place since my equipment is listed on my site where they most likely found me, so those are the ones I'm concerned I've lost, hence one of the reasons I've considered picking up a used Mini and perhaps selling off one of my two Amiras, particularly since there have recently been Minis on the used market around $27k whereas they used to be $50k used. Then again, I'm terrible about selling gear. I tend to just keep it, or it gets stolen (my three C100s), or destroyed in transit (my third Amira).

 

[mcbob]

Who are these people? ....
.....but when you describe the behavior of your clients, it's like Twilight Zone. What exactly are you shooting for these people? And what exactly is the job title of these camera-specifying clients? Who are these people, and what are they like?
.......The only good reason I can think of is if it slows down their post-production workflow, because your camera has a weird codec or something.

That last sentence is pretty much it. I'm only asked to provide a specific camera when I'm sending off footage.

"We're shooting this series on [50/50 shot of FS7/C300mk2], so we'll need someone with [aforementioned] to match in post."

In my personal case it's usually for things like Discovery series, development projects, documentaries where I'm one of a half dozen DPs shooting interviews around the world and need to 'match' what someone else is doing. Essentially, they're trying to keep budgets tight in post and want an established workflow.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Who are these people? I guess I understand only the clients at the extremes:

• If you are the town's local videographer for weddings, school games, and dance recitals, no one cares about or even understands your choice of camera.
• If you work for Hollywood, the producer rents your gear for you.

Between those two extremes are the jobs that many of you get, but when you describe the behavior of your clients, it's like Twilight Zone. What exactly are you shooting for these people? And what exactly is the job title of these camera-specifying clients? Who are these people, and what are they like?

Tell them I can't tell the difference between the Red, Arri, and FS7 --- and I'm more sensitive than the average audience member, because I was into video production for over a decade. For more than another decade, I have still kept tabs on things, because I'm crazy

Clients shooting a feature doc and want to pick up an interview in your city without flying in their local team. They've been shooting on X camera and want your camera to match it. They have choices in who to hire, multiple DPs with good reels; all else being equal, who do they choose? The DP with the matching camera they've been using for the rest of the shoot. Makes their life easier. FS7 always looked like crap to me; if I was hiring a DP while producing a project, I would avoid DPs who use FS7s. Producers often have preferences of what cameras they like and they often have technical knowledge as well; many producers I've worked with specifically stated things like how they did not like Red, Blackmagic, or Sony. Not to say no producers like those camera, but they did hire me with a C300 or Arri, so clearly they had their preferences. Reel is important, but it's not everything. I've hired C300 or C200 owner/ops a good number of times, but have never hired an FS7 owner/op (in part because if I'm subcontracting the client often prefers a similar package to what I have, but also because of my bias against the FS7 as a hiring producer).

As mentioned in my previous post, in the reality TV world where FS7 became king, many production coordinators absolutely insist on it being an FS7 shoot to match previous footage shot. A lot of these projects aren't planning for heavy grading and time spent matching cameras in post. Yeah, you shoot RAW on the latest batch of cameras and matching them in post with time and good color grading is quite achievable, but that's the world of these fast turn around shoots that are often shooting baked in looks to more compressed codecs, and they want the footage to match, and I don't blame them. I just wish there were less camera choices so that there'd be less issues with needing to match cameras.

Anyway, nothing new here of clients requesting specific cameras. It happens if you're a freelance DP rather than a full service video production facility. I've explained this many times on DVXuser but this won't be my last because there will always be people around who the concept is new to since it's not how their clients work.

That last sentence is pretty much it. I'm only asked to provide a specific camera when I'm sending off footage.

"We're shooting this series on [50/50 shot of FS7/C300mk2], so we'll need someone with [aforementioned] to match in post."

In my personal case it's usually for things like Discovery series, development projects, documentaries where I'm one of a half dozen DPs shooting interviews around the world and need to 'match' what someone else is doing. Essentially, they're trying to keep budgets tight in post and want an established workflow.

"Sending off footage" is about 90% of my work. Not saying I'm always trying to match someone else's footage, just that I don't edit most of the content I shoot so it gets sent to the client. Even moreso now in terms of sending it off rather than handing it to the producer at the end of the day, as producers now are all staying home and conducting interviews from Zoom or FaceTime.

 

[combatentropy]

fast turn around [...] want the footage to match

Yeah, I get it. Wasn't ACES supposed to fix that? Whatever happened with that?

I guess this was one advantage, back in the day, of shooting film. Cameras didn't matter so much, so long as you used the same film stock (not that there were many film cameras to choose from).

Since we're not going back to that, I think more standardization (like ACES) is a better solution than hoping the proliferation of choices will reverse course.

 

[Run&Gun]

Let me elaborate what I mean by "choice." Back when the Betacam was popular, it was the go to camera (as far as I know (someone may chime in that there were other options, but that's beside the point I'm trying to make)). So, when say a broadcast DP wanted to buy a camera, there was not much choice, and the choice was simple. Now when a production needed to hire a DP, they could go off of skill, experience, portfolio, etc., instead of moreso needing to find a DP who just happened to have the same camera that matched with the rest of their show (for example, in today's time needing an FS7 at the exclusion of DPs with C300s, Varicam LTs, Arris, or Reds).

Now a days, if you want to be marketable to all of the job types for owner/op jobs, you need to own all of the camera models. This then costs more money for the owner/op, where as if there was less choice, they could just own one camera model and be marketable to all the jobs. At the high end lately Arri has been dominating the market, and as an owner/op, I see this as a good thing as it means you can get away with owning just one brand of high end camera and be marketable to most of the jobs available. The mid range and low end are more polluted for choice.

So when we see new companies come to the camera scene, Blackmagic, AJA, Samsung (NX1), Z Cam, etc., instead of thinking, "Good to have these new choices," I think perhaps, "More camera brands to pollute an owner/op's marketability." Yeah, it's nice if these new brands offer new features and price points, but if at the cost of polluting the cameras one needs to remain marketable, it may not be so appealing in the long run.

Choice can also lead to making big financial mistakes if you choose the wrong choice, like if you bought a C700 or AJA Cion.

Thoughts?

I know it's kinda getting off the path, but Betacam was kind of a catch-all referring to both the camera and the format. And just like today, there were lot's of different "Betacams" that shot on the format Betacam(and technically, mostly we were referring to Betacam SP when saying Betacam). There were 'one-piece' cameras and two-piece dockables and you could actually pair heads of different manucatureres with decks of others. But generally speaking again, if you had a "Betacam", at least at a certain minimum level model, you usually were good to go. It was all 30fps SD and 4:3 here in the US(16:9 switchable camera did become available, but there wasn't much acceptance) with what would be called a "baked-in look" today that was largely the equivalent of what most people refer to as rec 709. Most of us ran the "Macie Standard" look that was in vogue and a lot of networks and shows required you to have your camera set-up by him for that look. I actually miss those days of "broadcast" standards and a uniform look watching network TV. Even at the local level. Now everything is all over the F'n map, even within the same net/station/show. Sometimes clients did ask for certain specific models, like the Sony D-600, which had a DSP front end and could take set-up cards with scene files written on them, just like today. But this was pretty big in the late 90's. Ikegami also had a deeply loyal following and a lot of people preferred their look over the Sony's. Side note: I believe some of the engineers on the original VariCam were from Ike.

 

[Grug]

Frankly I think this is all pretty easy to work around these days. For the sort of jobbing Camera Operator jobs where you're hired in a with a camera and a couple of lights - assuming you're charging a normal commercial rate - you should be able to comfortably hire in whatever camera body is being requested (generally FS7, F5 or C300ii for most of those jobs) and still make a fair day's wage.

I think there's a lot of value in investing in the necessary accessories to make those shoots viable. That means having an e-mount lens adapters (or two) on hand, so that you can pop your PL or EF (or whatever) glass on to an FS7 body that you rent in for jobs that need one. And a clamp-on matte box so that you're not beholden to the camera body you hire, having a 15mm rails setup included.

Likewise with the C300 - find a source that has PL or EF mounts to suit the glass you already own.

If you only need to rent in the camera body, and can supply the rest of the accessories yourself, then you lose far less of your dayrate to the little bits and bobs that eventually add up to making the rental more substantial.

 

[ahalpert]

I agree with the original premise - more cameras is more choices, but also fewer jobs demanding any single camera model. (Although, by that logic, there will also be fewer competitors for jobs that use the camera you own.)

Personally, I tell prospective clients that I have the camera they want (after making sure I can rent it and know how to use it) even if I don't own it. If I have to rent it, I mark up my rate a bit, making me less competitive than actual owner/ops

If I have to rent a camera a lot, i just buy it. That's why I bought the OG C300 and later the FS7. Nobody ever took me up on an EVA1 when I said I owned that, so I saved myself from a bad investment there although I like that camera.

I'm planning on telling people in the future that I own an FS7 and a Komodo and seeing how much business Komodo could land.

 

[Run&Gun]

I agree with the original premise - more cameras is more choices, but also fewer jobs demanding any single camera model. (Although, by that logic, there will also be fewer competitors for jobs that use the camera you own.)

Personally, I tell prospective clients that I have the camera they want (after making sure I can rent it and know how to use it) even if I don't own it. If I have to rent it, I mark up my rate a bit, making me less competitive than actual owner/ops

If I have to rent a camera a lot, i just buy it. That's why I bought the OG C300 and later the FS7. Nobody ever took me up on an EVA1 when I said I owned that, so I saved myself from a bad investment there although I like that camera.

I'm planning on telling people in the future that I own an FS7 and a Komodo and seeing how much business Komodo could land.

Betcha a Coke that the Komodo will generate more interest than the EVA1...

 

[ahalpert]

Betcha a Coke that the Komodo will generate more interest than the EVA1...

Probably. But in my experience, people closely associate RED with RAW (even though they shoot ProRes too). So, if they don't want RAW they don't want RED.

But who knows, maybe people are more comfortable with RAW now, along with their computer speed and NLE workflow.

 

[J.Brown]

When you are known for your skills rather than for your camera that's a good day.

 

[ahalpert]

When you are known for your skills rather than for your camera that's a good day.

this is true, and many of my clients don't know or care what I shoot on beyond being able to provide the delivery resolution. but then there are those who care.