Opinions needed on camera purchase

roxics

roxics

Veteran
I haven't been on the forum a lot lately. So I haven't really kept up with everything new and good. However I'm now in the market for my first HDSLR. Never owned one before. In fact I have owned DSLR's before (both Nikon and Canon consumer DSLR's) but I don't have any lenses or accessories to carry over.

I've got roughly $1500 to spend. I'm looking at the Nikon D7000, Canon 7D and Panny GH2.

I am a professional videographer/photographer who shoots with an XHA1 at my day job. That isn't going to change. I'm not a freelancer and I don't own the equipment I shoot with professionally. So this HDSLR is strictly for my own personal (possibly freelance) use.

That said, it will mostly be used for photography and some family and personal videos. It may be used for a couple music video shoots and possibly some side work.

Right now I'm really leaning toward the Nikon D7000, because I have always loved Nikon cameras and their look, as well as their feel in my hands. Never been a big fan of Canon colors or the look and feel of their cameras in my hand. But I'm willing to go Canon if it truly trumps the Nikon in many ways.

As for the Panny GH2. I'm looking to buy this week and it seems to be out of stock everywhere. While the video on it is impressive, I'll be doing just as much still photography work with this camera, possibly more than video. It's my understanding the GH2 falls pretty flat compared to the Nikon and Canon for photo work. So it seems to have two strikes against it for my purposes. But I do like the video it produces.

Any input?
 
If the Canon 7D is in the list, then change that to the 60D. It has the exact same video quality, is cheaper, still nicely build and has an articulating screen and manual audio control. If you will use it mainly as a video camera, I see no reason to prefer the 7D over the 60D.

That saves you a couple of hundred $ and makes it also cheaper than the D7000. After watching lots of comparison videos, I honestly can't tell the difference in detail between the two. Only I like the colours in Canon better but that can be graded anyway.

I would choose the 60D over the D7000 (and I did)

The Panasonic is stated to have more detail and less aliasing problems. It is hard to see the difference between the two on my 'small' computer screen, but it is stated everywhere that its there so I believe it.

The downsides are the small plastic body that looks like it cant be taken seriously and the 2x crop factor in stead of 1.6 for the Canon's. This leads to a small (but visible!) difference in depth of field and framing.

I would still buy the 60D again if I had to make a choice now, although the Panny seems absolutely the best rivalling canditate.
 
I ended up picking up the D7000. I just like the look and feel of the Nikon cameras better. So far it's a nice camera but I haven't had much time to test it out. Especially the video functions.
 
I was going to say that you should get the camera that I have and that everything else sucks. Ha ha!

If you are primarily using it to take stills, I think either the Canon or Nikon are both great choices. I haven't really done anything with the Nikon in video mode (other than take videos with a friend's D7000 once), so I can't comment on that aspect of it.

Congratulations on your purchase :)
 
roxics said:
I ended up picking up the D7000. I just like the look and feel of the Nikon cameras better. So far it's a nice camera but I haven't had much time to test it out. Especially the video functions.
Click to expand...

At least no one can rival Nikons CLS (creative lighting system or it's focus system). I own a Nikon for stills (advertising work) and a Canon for my DSLR cinema work.
 
I can't stand the menus in the Nikon units. I had a D200 and it drove me nuts. The 7D and 5DMKII menus are better engineered in my opinion.
 
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Can't wait for footage! :) Please post some of your work asap! I'm considering the same purchase.... :) (I have cameras to sell first) :(
 
The D7000 lacks 25p
The 7d lacks manual audio
The 60d lacks 720 to a monitor
The GH2 has a small chip, tiny in photography terms

I think at the moment you need to choose a cam that is not fatally flawed for your needs

Hopefully at some point we will be able to choose on merit

S
 
I had a chance to play around with a co-workers 7D a while back. It was nice but I wasn't sure it was worth $300 more over the D7000. Especially considering I've always liked Nikon cameras more than Canon still cameras.

It pretty much came down to whatever I could get the same day without having to order online. Because I'm both horribly impatient and I wanted the option to return the camera in person if I didn't like it. Since I bought it from Best Buy I've got 14 days to see if I like it.

I've shot a few photos and some quick videos but nothing really substantial yet. I'm going to play around with it a lot this weekend. Next week I have an actress coming in to the studio where I can run this camera as b-cam and see how it looks under lights.

So far what I see looks good and I'm kinda surprised the D7000 isn't getting more talk. I mean it seems to do a solid 1080/24p image. It might not do anything other than that, but the reason we buy these cameras in the first place is to have a cinematic looking 1080/24p image, as well as a good stills camera. That appears to be what it does. :)
 
Yeah it's been my understanding that the D7000 has changed that. At least I haven't noticed any in my quick video shots.
 
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