Lenses for Alexa Mini LF

[Eric Coughlin]

Yeah, I'm not gonna compete with five ton grip tricks cause I don't foresee ever wanting to deal with the hassle of owning and lugging that much equipment or constantly managing the lugging aspect of the crew to lug it. But yeah, I could see adding a line item of some of my lights to go with the multi-ton lighting package the gaffer is bringing. Again, Charles probably has more insight into getting lighting rentals as a DP on bigger productions.

 

[rob norton]

Yeah, I'm not gonna compete with five ton grip tricks cause I don't foresee ever wanting to deal with the hassle of owning and lugging that much equipment or constantly managing the lugging aspect of the crew to lug it. But yeah, I could see adding a line item of some of my lights to go with the multi-ton lighting package the gaffer is bringing. Again, Charles probably has more insight into getting lighting rentals as a DP on bigger productions.

In my experience any DP adding on any specialty lighting equipment is to either make their life easier or contribute to a signature style etc. rather than as a pure money maker. I'm sure you could fill some gaps or complete existing lighting packages e.g. get a skypanel s-360 onto a commercial with everything else being supplied by a lighting company that doesn't own one. Or one of those mole beams Mark loves.

Re spending money, I'm pushing for it. While your set up can't simply be copied by everyone, it's great to have as many points of reference as possible so I'm selfishly interested to hear how it all unfolds (and of course hope it works out). Also, you're contributing to keeping video production a valuable service rather than some people wanting to so badly expedite the race to the bottom.

 

[David W. Jones]

As someone who at one time had 75+ lenses in inventory, and is now on the back side of his career, the best advice I could give would be ... Don't tie up $150K in lenses, Rent.

 

[DLD]

... I don't know why people keep making suggestions on how to save money; the whole point here is to buy more expensive gear so I can charge a higher rental rate and make more profit...

It's not a question of saving vs. spending; it's a question of the return on investment. And that always involves some common sense calculations on top of the risk assumptions (FWIW, I am very risk averse). In other words, if more expensive was always better, every airplane with every airline would be either a 747 or a 380. Except, it's not.

 

[dmitrizigany]

Not sure if you missed it but the Angenieux EZ 1 & 2 zooms cover the sensor of a mini LF (up to 46mm, LF sensor is 44.71).
Maybe not the very high end you’re after, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be good enough for many jobs and your own projects and then rent for the jobs that demand better?
Spending so much on lenses that might not fit every job anyway seems like a gamble. Maybe then you need two sets? One clean sharp and one more character like Cooke... and that’s a lot of dough

 

[Eric Coughlin]

It's not a question of saving vs. spending; it's a question of the return on investment. And that always involves some common sense calculations on top of the risk assumptions (FWIW, I am very risk averse). In other words, if more expensive was always better, every airplane with every airline would be either a 747 or a 380. Except, it's not.

Right, and I believe I can get a return on the investment, and also feel the risk is low if the investment return doesn't happen, as I could always sell the lenses and can afford to take a small loss on resale value, which as noted, may still end up breaking even or still ahead if I booked at least a few jobs with the lenses to offset the loss of resale. But even if say I straight up lost $40,000 in resale on a $200,000 set of lenses, that's not a big deal to me as I'm already making good money. I buy my gear with money I have, so since I don't do loans the risks are low and the profits are immediate since there are no leases or loans to pay off.

So what I'm seeing is, low risk, with potential for high return. Win win.

I suppose there are always other investment opportunities like real estate or stocks, but those aren't my profession, so I feel I'd be more likely to make a better return on investment at my actual profession. A lot of people doubted my investment in the Arri Amira, but as mentioned, I tripled my income as a result of getting that camera and it's the best investment I ever made.

As mentioned, I do hope to find a house to buy before making these larger equipment investments as a house is an important long term investment to have, while equipment are typically short term investments, though lenses tend to last longer than other gear.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

As someone who at one time had 75+ lenses in inventory, and is now on the back side of his career, the best advice I could give would be ... Don't tie up $150K in lenses, Rent.

Judging by the 2016 demo reel on your site, it doesn't appear you're doing high end commercial work, which is primarily what I'd target with such purposes. I'd said before in this topic, yeah, an Alexa LF with high end lenses would be overkill for the typical corporate and doc market.

My current cinema lenses I spent $20k on (buying used, on the new market they're $46k) and get about 25 days of rentals per year from them (charging $800 per day), so each year I make about what I paid for them, so having had them for three years, two years have been straight profit. And as usual, owning them also enable me to book jobs I wouldn't have booked otherwise, so it's really more than just the lens rental rate in terms of them profiting me. On top of those 25 rentals per year, I probably do about another 25 days of passion projects or lower budget narrative work with those lenses. So, 50 days of using cinema lenses per year.

Now if I were to rent a set of Arri Signature primes 50 times per year, for say the next 10 years, at say $5000 per rental of a full set, times 50, times 10, that'd be 2.5 million dollars, which is a lot more than the $400,000 it cost to buy a full set.

Are other people just not shooting that much? I don't get it when people say you should rent instead of buy, which I commonly see people say. You really have to be not shooting much for renting to make sense as typically 20-40 rentals pays for the equipment (sometimes more for equipment that lasts longer such as lenses), so if you're doing less than 20-40 jobs with equipment over the period the equipment is up-to-date, then one must not be shooting much.

I understand some equipment is specialty gear that is rarely used, like say a jib, but lenses are a commonly used part of one's equipment kit.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Not sure if you missed it but the Angenieux EZ 1 & 2 zooms cover the sensor of a mini LF (up to 46mm, LF sensor is 44.71).
Maybe not the very high end you’re after, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be good enough for many jobs and your own projects and then rent for the jobs that demand better?
Spending so much on lenses that might not fit every job anyway seems like a gamble. Maybe then you need two sets? One clean sharp and one more character like Cooke... and that’s a lot of dough

As mentioned, I'm looking to upgrade and not side-grade. The EZ's are also considered soft wide open, don't seem to be true T/2 lenses as they don't increase by a stop of light from T/2.8 to T/2, so essentially become soft f/2.9 (T/3.5) when the full frame adapter is put on.

I was a camera op with a D.P. on a national commercial for Culver's restaurant. He owned a full set of Leica Summilux-C lenses which he got on discount for around $250k, he also owned a set of Cooke lenses, a couple Angenieuxs, as well as an Alexa Mini, Alexa XT, a Red, and various support gear. I believe he was charging around $9k per day for that two day shoot, so $18k for two days. I know he did a loan for the Summilux-C lenses and sub-rented them through a rental house.

Personally, I'd rather be making $9k per day while owning a lot of high end equipment than the average of $3k per day day rates that I get now. Even with the hefty equipment expenses, I would imagine he makes a lot more actual profit than the typical C300 owner/op who tends to make around $70k-$150k per year. I looked his home up and it's a $900k house to give an idea of lifestyle outside of gear expenses. Shane Hurlbut lives in a 1.3 million dollar home.

Aside from higher rental rates from owning higher end equipment, it also means you can use that equipment for free on your personal projects, and personal projects are a great way to build portfolio, which you can then in turn use that improved portfolio that's improved from the benefits of higher end gear to charge a higher labor rate as well. Chris f also just had a post I related to in the Canon forum about how buying new gear can motivate one to push themself further. Buying the Amira pushed me to completely restructure my business model, so while I don't get a ton of rentals with it, the motivation it gave me to move to GA and change my business model is what drove me to much higher profits. If buying higher end gear motivates me to make spec ads and get into the higher paying commercial world, then that's a good thing, even if the actual rentals don't pan out well.

 

[Grug]

Now if I were to rent a set of Arri Signature primes 50 times per year, for say the next 10 years, at say $5000 per rental of a full set, times 50, times 10, that'd be 2.5 million dollars, which is a lot more than the $400,000 it cost to buy a full set.

Where are you getting $5,000/day as a rental rate for Signature Primes? Most prime sets in that price range (that I know of) go for around $2,000-$2,500 AUD per day here in Australia.

I'd make sure you get quotes from local rental houses for the actual rates in your area, before making any estimates on potential ROIs.

 

[DLD]

... So what I'm seeing is, low risk, with potential for high return. Win win..

Now we're on the same page. Just make sure, as Grug says above, that your numbers are reflective of the actual rental rates in your area.

 

[JPNola]

You don't want the Supremes, Eric. You want the Radiance Supremes.

heh heh. I just added at least $50k to your pricetag!

 

[Eric Coughlin]

The local rental house in Atlanta charges $300 per lens for Arri Master Primes and Leica Summilux-C lenses (interestingly Cooke S4s are $160, perhaps because they've been around longer). For a 16 lens kit (which is how many Signature Primes there are), that would come out to $4800. As an owner/operator you can charge a bit more because you're saving the client from needing to manage picking up the equipment, your personal gear is likely in better shape, and since you come with the gear and they're also hiring you for your skill set, that also gives you more leeway in choosing a rental rate.

I've had clients before particularly when they just want to hire me as a cam op for their DP tell me my rental rates are too high, and my typical response is along the lines of, "Those are my rates so if you can find it cheaper at a rental house and don't mind the hassle of that then go for that," and they often don't hire me then which is fine with me. Most of my clients appreciate my work as a DP so are willing to pay the rental rates I charge even if it's more then a rental house. I'm on a four day shoot right now and rental houses typically give discounts for multi-day and I typically do not, but the client preferred the ease of renting from an owner/op rather than micromanaging all the equipment that would have been needed otherwise from a rental house, even though I'm likely charging 1.5 to 2x as much as a rental house would have. It's also a big Fortune 500 company so they have a good budget.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Art Adams talking about the rear filter holder on the Arri Signature Primes.

https://www.provideocoalition.com/behind-the-lens-nets-a-lost-art-makes-a-comeback/

 

[David W. Jones]

Judging by the 2016 demo reel on your site, it doesn't appear you're doing high end commercial work, which is primarily what I'd target with such purposes..

You are correct. I put this together a few years back to get local pickups which is generally easy monthly cash flow for banging out spots.
Where I'm at now we mainly do national and regional automotive which keeps a crew of 32 very busy.
I am ending my career the same way I started it, in the position of a sound designer, as well as voicing right at 48 national voiceovers a year.
The only reason I mentioned renting as opposed to purchasing those lenses, is once upon a time I went down the same path.
Red Epic, ARRI Alexa, F35, F65, and tons of expensive lens sets.
If I had it to do all over again, I would keep overhead low with a base camera and lens set, rent when needed, and markup the rental to the client.
But you know your business model better that we do.

FWIW I still have a Sprinter Van and $240,000 in lighting, grip & the like to sell since I retired from full time shooting if anyone is interested.

Best!

Dave

 

[david dominguez]

Judging by the 2016 demo reel on your site, it doesn't appear you're doing high end commercial work, which is primarily what I'd target with such purposes. I'd said before in this topic, yeah, an Alexa LF with high end lenses would be overkill for the typical corporate and doc market.

Are you trying to get to that super high end by investing in hundreds of thousands in gear, or are you trying to continue to stay up to date ? (as you already own lots of amazing gear) Don't take this the wrong way but judging by your work you still have a ways to go to command those rates. That's not a jab. I have miles to go to be half the DP i'd like to be one day.

 

[rob norton]

The local rental house in Atlanta charges $300 per lens for Arri Master Primes and Leica Summilux-C lenses (interestingly Cooke S4s are $160, perhaps because they've been around longer). For a 16 lens kit (which is how many Signature Primes there are), that would come out to $4800. As an owner/operator you can charge a bit more because you're saving the client from needing to manage picking up the equipment, your personal gear is likely in better shape, and since you come with the gear and they're also hiring you for your skill set, that also gives you more leeway in choosing a rental rate.

I've had clients before particularly when they just want to hire me as a cam op for their DP tell me my rental rates are too high, and my typical response is along the lines of, "Those are my rates so if you can find it cheaper at a rental house and don't mind the hassle of that then go for that," and they often don't hire me then which is fine with me. Most of my clients appreciate my work as a DP so are willing to pay the rental rates I charge even if it's more then a rental house. I'm on a four day shoot right now and rental houses typically give discounts for multi-day and I typically do not, but the client preferred the ease of renting from an owner/op rather than micromanaging all the equipment that would have been needed otherwise from a rental house, even though I'm likely charging 1.5 to 2x as much as a rental house would have. It's also a big Fortune 500 company so they have a good budget.

If I'm the producer and would also be the one picking up equipment, an owner op appeal increases like in your examples. But the alternate scenario, which happens if the shoot is large enough, is a PA/runner getting paid peanuts (could also be in-house intern) picks up the required rental equipment around town, so the bottom dollar becomes important again and the equipment collection is a non-issue.

How common is it for a commercial to rent a 16 lens kit? I have no idea.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

The only reason I mentioned renting as opposed to purchasing those lenses, is once upon a time I went down the same path.
Red Epic, ARRI Alexa, F35, F65, and tons of expensive lens sets.
If I had it to do all over again, I would keep overhead low with a base camera and lens set, rent when needed, and markup the rental to the client.
But you know your business model better that we do.

FWIW I still have a Sprinter Van and $240,000 in lighting, grip & the like to sell since I retired from full time shooting if anyone is interested.

Best!

Dave

For me owning isn't just about getting rental rates, it's also about having equipment easily available to do personal projects with. Now, personal projects not just in the sense of making movies for fun, but from a business standpoint, having high quality gear that you can shoot your own unpaid projects with to increase your skillset, portfolio, and experience doing the types of projects that you want to do. I regularly do these types of projects and have always found doing unpaid projects is the best way to grow, because paid projects often have a lot of constraints on them that limit growth.

These days I may shoot an unpaid project using $200k of my own equipment, spend around $750-$1500 on the project (food, props, locations), and thus be able to get a decent product without spending a ton of money. Now, if I had to rent $200K of gear just to do a passion project, spending $10K just on gear rental, I'd likely rarely do personal projects, even if, in the long run, renting was cheaper than owning, I guess simply because with rentals you see the money getting thrown away on an unpaid project, whereas with ownership, it doesn't feel like throwing the money away, plus you're still getting paid rentals from it for paid jobs. That said, this year for example, I did about 10 passion projects, around 25 days of shooting, which means this year alone the rental costs from doing those projects could likely cost the same amount as buying the equipment, and that's obviously excluding the say 100 paid shoot days I'll do in a year.

So I guess a couple questions come to mind. One, if you could afford all that expensive gear and wish you hadn't spent that money on gear, what would you have spent it on otherwise? Retirement fund, real estate investments, stocks, life luxuries (vacations, a nicer house and car, etc.)?

And two, let's say you spent a million dollars on gear, later resold it for $600k, are you saying you did not make at least $400k in rentals to break even on the investment? As I'd said before, considering you can always sell gear it often doesn't take that many rentals before you start breaking even, and outside of gear, you're always getting labor rate as a DP whether or not you're coming on with gear, and often owning gear gets you on more shoots that you would not have gotten on otherwise.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Are you trying to get to that super high end by investing in hundreds of thousands in gear, or are you trying to continue to stay up to date ? (as you already own lots of amazing gear) Don't take this the wrong way but judging by your work you still have a ways to go to command those rates. That's not a jab. I have miles to go to be half the DP i'd like to be one day.

The first, I'm trying to get onto higher end shoots by owning higher end gear; it's been working so far at greatly increasing my income so I don't see a reason to stop now. I'm planning to do spec ads coming up soon to get more portfolio there. It's all relative to where someone is at; perhaps now my work is good enough to land commercials in the $10k-$100k range, and as my work improves, perhaps it goes up to the $100k to one million dollars range, if I ever make it that far. So far the biggest commercial I DPed was around a $20-$25k budget for a one day shoot, another I was a cam-op for was probably around $100k for a two day shoot, and aside from that I've done various smaller commercials, but not much that I'm happy with in terms of portfolio. Right now I'm not thrilled about any of my commercial portfolio currently, while I'm happier with my narrative portfolio.

Meanwhile, having high end gear such as lenses that should last me during that whole growth period, seems like a good way to go. It's not like I'm going to start out taking a loan out for a full set of Cookes and Arri Signatures, spending $700k on lenses off the bat. Perhaps the lower budget commercials would be more willing to work with say a Fuji zoom or a 3-6 set of Signature primes instead of insisting on a full set. And sure, lower budget commercials would also be fine with an Amira with CN-e zooms, but the point is to grow beyond that with better gear that can get bigger projects, producer better results, and get better rental rates.

I personally don't think my work is not currently good enough (aside from a current lack of commercial portfolio as I have a lot of narrative portfolio which uses a similar skill-set) that no one would want to pay $4k for an Alexa Mini LF rental with say five Signature primes on top of whatever labor rate I'm at.

How common is it for a commercial to rent a 16 lens kit? I have no idea.

The producer's I'm working on a corporate shoot with now do high end commercials as well. They said they like working with Cooke lenses and that any well budgeted commercial would typically want to have a full set of primes. If you think about it, why would a production costing $500k want to limit the DP's focal length choices just so they could save $2500?

 

[rob norton]

I personally don't think my work is not currently good enough (aside from a current lack of commercial portfolio as I have a lot of narrative portfolio which uses a similar skill-set) that no one would want to pay $4k for an Alexa Mini LF rental with say five Signature primes on top of whatever labor rate I'm at.

The producer's I'm working on a corporate shoot with now do high end commercials as well. They said they like working with Cooke lenses and that any well budgeted commercial would typically want to have a full set of primes. If you think about it, why would a production costing $500k want to limit the DP's focal length choices just so they could save $2500?

I guess once you enter the commercial realm you're also up against the most talented DPs working for rates lower than yours. If you got in with an agency and became their go-to commercial DP then a lot of this wouldn't matter.

Regarding a compilation of spec commercial work, I think seeing real commercial work is more impressive in relation to being trusted with a huge budget, overseeing a large number of crew members, pleasing the agency people, not cracking under pressure etc. vs. purely the looks you can create. I'm interested to see if the spec work comes off. I'm sure this is separate to your plan but I hate it when people pass spec work off as if it were an official commercial. It's massively misleading, essentially pretending that a big company trusted you with one of their important campaigns. I guess video production is all an act so who cares anyway?

The $500k budget/$2.5k savings wouldn't be as significant but wouldn't it more likely be $20k-$50k, in which case any savings is probably appreciated?

 

[Eric Coughlin]

I guess once you enter the commercial realm you're also up against the most talented DPs working for rates lower than yours. If you got in with an agency and became their go-to commercial DP then a lot of this wouldn't matter.

Regarding a compilation of spec commercial work, I think seeing real commercial work is more impressive in relation to being trusted with a huge budget, overseeing a large number of crew members, pleasing the agency people, not cracking under pressure etc. vs. purely the looks you can create. I'm interested to see if the spec work comes off. I'm sure this is separate to your plan but I hate it when people pass spec work off as if it were an official commercial. It's massively misleading, essentially pretending that a big company trusted you with one of their important campaigns. I guess video production is all an act so who cares anyway?

The $500k budget/$2.5k savings wouldn't be as significant but wouldn't it more likely be $20k-$50k, in which case any savings is probably appreciated?

Why would their rates be lower than mine? If they're the most talented DP's than their rates would likely be higher than mine. Rates are just a matter of finding out where you belong, which mainly depends on how busy you are. The busier you are, the higher the rates you can charge.

Well yeah, obviously real commercial work is more impressive, but spec ads are better than nothing. Right now under the commercial section on my website I've got a YMCA ad which I DPed, a Culver's commercial I was a cam op for, and a BMW sorta doc style video which I guess can sorta pass as a commercial I was also a cam op for. The YMCA ad looks okayish, but nothing special nor something I'm that proud of. I didn't DP the other two ads, but they look good, and the BMW one is pretty cool and got 4 million views. I just took down a couple of the lower end commercials I DPed, aiming for quality over quantity.

But I think that having some well shot spec ads up there which I've DPed would be beneficial.

How is it $20-$50k savings to rent a partial lens set vs a full lens set? I guess if it's a five day commercial shoot and charging $5k per day, then yeah. But as far as I know most commercials in the under $200k range are likely one to two day shoots. And then if it's say a million dollar budget for a five day shoot, then they've got more money to pay the DP and equipment rental.

The DP I'm working with on my current shoot DPed a couple shots for this ad as pickup shots; Claudio Miranda was the 1st unit DP. Five day shoot with one day of pickups, Arri camera (not sure which model) with Cooke lenses.