Panasonic Drops Price of Varicam LT to $9,995.00!

puredrifting

puredrifting

Major Contributor
I had major lust for this camera a year and half ago when I bought the C200 but I just couldn't afford it. Unfortunately still looking at $18k fully rigged out and they have not dropped the price of P2 media to be competitive
with CFast 2.0 or other formats. Good deal though for someone who wants it, it is a really solid camera, love the images and build quality.
https://www.newsshooter.com/2019/05/29/panasonic-drops-the-price-of-the-varicam-lt-to-9995/
 
Woke up to an email from Panasonic this morning about this. I’m on a multi-cam show next week shooting LT’s(show provided), but even at $10K body price, I still can’t justify buying one, because no one outside of Netflix and a few others seem to really be using them. My clients that were historically VariCam are largely F55/5 and Amira. It’s kind of a shame, because the original was THE camera that everyone went from SD to HD with at the broadcast and network level for features and news both. It was pretty much ubiquitous, at least here on the east coast. It knocked Sony off the throne for about a decade, until the F55/5 was introduced. Panasonic should have gone to these “Panasonic Shops” and offered deals on the V35/LT to them and all of their freelancers to keep them in the Panasonic ecosystem. If I thought I could market it and make money I’d get one, but I even had to turn down a deal from my dealer the other year for a full V35 package at ~$16K, because no one I deal with uses it.
 
puredrifting said:
I had major lust for this camera a year and half ago when I bought the C200 but I just couldn't afford it. Unfortunately still looking at $18k fully rigged out and they have not dropped the price of P2 media to be competitive
with CFast 2.0 or other formats.
Click to expand...

Yep.
$10K body
$5,400 VF (I use native VF when available and there’s is good)
$1,500 shoulder mount(I don’t really like their’s and would probably look elsewhere)
$1,200 PL mount
$5,750-$9,125 cards depending on size(IMO you need at least 5 cards minimum per camera to be operational. I have 5/each P2 Vari, 5/C300 and 10/F55-4K chews them up)

$23,850-$27,225 to be truly operational, in my opinion. Too much for a speculative/‘build it and they will come’ purchase.
 
Run&Gun said:
Yep.
$10K body
$5,400 VF (I use native VF when available and there’s is good)
$1,500 shoulder mount(I don’t really like their’s and would probably look elsewhere)
$1,200 PL mount
$5,750-$9,125 cards depending on size(IMO you need at least 5 cards minimum per camera to be operational. I have 5/each P2 Vari, 5/C300 and 10/F55-4K chews them up)

$23,850-$27,225 to be truly operational, in my opinion. Too much for a speculative/‘build it and they will come’ purchase.
Click to expand...

I know, I was trying to see if there would be a cheaper/budget way to make the package work and I come up with:

$10k body
$1,199.00 PortKeys OEYE-3G EVF (won't be as good as the Panny EVF but probably decent)
$500.00 Zacuto VCT Pro Baseplate (I already have one so this would be a freebie for me)
$1,200.00 Panasonic Handgrip and arm

So for $12,900.00, I am shootable but the damn media throws the whole equation off. I regularly use 5 x 256GB Ego Disks when shooting RAW with my C200 so the same amount of storage for the LT would roughly be 3 x 512GB P2 plus media drive - $6k ;-(

I'm up to $19k to just get this camera into my current workflow, even really cheaping out on the accessories, which is a debatable idea. I've used the Panasonic EVF and it's excellent. The PortKeys is new and unproven as of yet, might be terrible, might be good? The Zacuto VCT Pro would work great with the LT and unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any budget alternative for the Panasonic Handgrip and arm if I want remote triggering, which I would. I could live without PL mount as I own EF glass and can rent some pretty nice EF cine lenses when needed/warranted.

Yep, even at a discounted rate, just doesn't work for me. Panasonic should seriously consider just dropping the floor on P2 pricing, that media is integral to their higher end cameras and it's just too costly in 2019. If it were more in the $1.00 per GB range like most other cards and drives other than Arri and RED media, more people would take the leap. I know Panasonic wants to think the Varicam lineup is competing with the REDs and Arris of the world but if you look at rental rates and what rental shops carry and what shows and features are mostly shooting on, very few are shooting Varicam, especially LT although I have seen some GREAT looking images from the shows that do. Great camera line but there are some marketing/segmenting issues that are holding buyers back.
 
I only have two 256 GB P2 cards and have managed with those. I guess it depends on what kind of stuff you're shooting. When doing more high-end work I use the O7Q and record raw.

Internal recording 25 fps on a 256 GB P2 card:
4K and UHD: 83 min
1080p AVC-I444: 150 min
1080p AVC-I422: 287 min
1080p Prores 4444XQ: 81 min
1080p Prores 4444: 121 min
1080p Prores 422HQ: 180 min
1080p Prores 422: 267 min

I use a Gratical Eye as EVF, works fine, and a Vocas shoulder mount. If you're going to use EF-lenses the handgrip/arm is the way to go. since you can control iris on it. The control unit can also be placed in front of you on a small arm if you're having the camera on your shoulder, and by doing that you have quick access to everything.
 
Mitch has an interview with Newsshooter's Matthew Allard where he talks about the difficulty of the $20k price point and says the cameras around $10k are now essentially good enough, and that the new pricing is a reaction to that.

I would argue that the "good enough" price point is creeping down towards maybe $7k.

Either you have a camera in that range, or you're still competing with "everything else". Even so, I'm sure there are customers looking at RED and ARRI that still would like to get away with something good enough for them that won't rob the bank, but I guess they are fewer and far between. Because at the end it's not just a question about what YOU like, but what is requested by the clients you go after.
 
This is a great camera but I think this price cut would have gone a lot further 2 years ago.

The media also really does make things difficult.

I always loved the image from the Varicam LT though, more than from the EVA1.
 
The c200 is a much better deal, with EVF , shogan flame, raw recording and dual AF at $7500. Like others said, their media pricing is unrealistic in 2019. Manufacturers aim at higher margins and end up selling few here and there instead of competitive pricing with smaller margins but the ability to generate higher total gross profits for selling much more. A good example is the sony A7III, different camera category, but the results are clear, total domination of the full frame mirrorless/dslr camera sales for the past year. Sony could have priced it at $3500 and reaped way less sales.
 
It's proprietary media, so it's always going to exist for a bit more.

C-Fast was once more expensive, but its commoditization has allowed for drastic drops.

Here's one I bought in 2014. 120GB (shaking my head).

SanDisk.jpg

If the cameras sold better, you'd have third-party expressP2 suppliers but they aren't bothering. Or maybe the cameras wouldn't work with them. Or it's not worth it because they'd be tied up with too much litigation like anyone who has even thought about making Mini-Mags.

I guess they are still a bargain compared to these:

Sony.jpg
 
Milan O. said:
I only have two 256 GB P2 cards and have managed with those. I guess it depends on what kind of stuff you're shooting. When doing more high-end work I use the O7Q and record raw.

Internal recording 25 fps on a 256 GB P2 card:
4K and UHD: 83 min
1080p AVC-I444: 150 min
1080p AVC-I422: 287 min
1080p Prores 4444XQ: 81 min
1080p Prores 4444: 121 min
1080p Prores 422HQ: 180 min
1080p Prores 422: 267 min

I use a Gratical Eye as EVF, works fine, and a Vocas shoulder mount. If you're going to use EF-lenses the handgrip/arm is the way to go. since you can control iris on it. The control unit can also be placed in front of you on a small arm if you're having the camera on your shoulder, and by doing that you have quick access to everything.
Click to expand...

Thats the challenge, I shoot documentary and often shoot 6-8 256GB CFast 2.0 cards in a day. No way I want to go back to the two cards and have to be downloading one while shooting the second drill like I used to do in the early days of P2. Talk about stress.
 
Big URSA 4K...September 2014.

And to make matters worse, they were knocked off of BM's approved list after a few weeks and SanDisk discontinued them shortly after that and released 128 GB versions (which are probably in their 4th or 5th generation today).

Fortunately, the cards still worked here and there; just would eventually drop frames @4K/60p/80p. Definitely no RAW...needed to use two at once for that until faster ones came out. But then you had to copy and transfer files from two different folders.

What a PITA that was...early adopters, ha. No one really knew who BM was even then in '14.

But at the end of the day, it was still worth it though because the images from that camera at that time were heavenly.

Most people never saw or used anything like that besides high-end ARRI/RED guys and gals.

___

EDIT: Just noticed you were talking about the Sony cards after the edited post...I have no idea which camera those are for.
 
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The next generation SD cards will be NVMe but backward compatible, whereas the QXD size CFExpress will outperform then (~ 4 GB/s vs. 1). The proprietary media formats - and the related markup - are going out of style.

Much like URSA.
 
lol. RED probably makes more money on theirs than some companies make selling some of their cameras.

URSA was ahead of its time...UMP is pretty successful and now G2 is going to make a run.

Obviously with the availability of and access to better technology the writing is on the wall.
 
filmguy123 said:
This is a great camera but I think this price cut would have gone a lot further 2 years ago.

The media also really does make things difficult.

I always loved the image from the Varicam LT though, more than from the EVA1.
Click to expand...

Yep.

And yes... The media is expensive. Basically the cost of the base camera all over again on cards.
 
Milan O. said:
I only have two 256 GB P2 cards and have managed with those. I guess it depends on what kind of stuff you're shooting. When doing more high-end work I use the O7Q and record raw.

Internal recording 25 fps on a 256 GB P2 card:
4K and UHD: 83 min
1080p AVC-I444: 150 min
1080p AVC-I422: 287 min
1080p Prores 4444XQ: 81 min
1080p Prores 4444: 121 min
1080p Prores 422HQ: 180 min
1080p Prores 422: 267 min

I use a Gratical Eye as EVF, works fine, and a Vocas shoulder mount. If you're going to use EF-lenses the handgrip/arm is the way to go. since you can control iris on it. The control unit can also be placed in front of you on a small arm if you're having the camera on your shoulder, and by doing that you have quick access to everything.
Click to expand...

puredrifting said:
Thats the challenge, I shoot documentary and often shoot 6-8 256GB CFast 2.0 cards in a day. No way I want to go back to the two cards and have to be downloading one while shooting the second drill like I used to do in the early days of P2. Talk about stress.
Click to expand...

Yep. In the real world you need lots of cards. I was on a BTS/EPK shoot for a big movie a few years ago and we were shooting the green screen interviews 4K RAW on my F55. I had to bring in an R5 recorder and the rental house only had two cards(which are insanely expensive, too) available for it. Even though we had a dedicated data wrangler backing up and verifying everything to two drives, I was still uneasy about blowing the cards out on-set, multiple times throughout the day.

Sometimes it's not just about the recording space, it's about the cards being taken here and there and having others to shoot on.

And I despise external recorders like O7Q, etc. The only ones really worth a damn are the Sony R5/R7 and CODEX that are designed to integrate into/onto the camera.
 
Well, AFAIK I live and work in the real world and haven't needed more than two cards. I'm not saying that you specifically don't need more cards. If you're shooting wildlife in the middle of nowhere you might need 20, but as I said before it depends on the job. I rarely ever record more than 160 minutes when working a single day.
As for using the O7Q I would of course prefer if I could record raw internally but I can't. With the O7Q the image is very good and much better if shooting HFR compared to recording internally. Of course there's the option to use a Varicam Pure but it's a matter of budget. For the O7Q I can use SSD:s which are quite inexpensive these days.
 
Milan O. said:
Well, AFAIK I live and work in the real world and haven't needed more than two cards. I'm not saying that you specifically don't need more cards. If you're shooting wildlife in the middle of nowhere you might need 20, but as I said before it depends on the job. I rarely ever record more than 160 minutes when working a single day.
As for using the O7Q I would of course prefer if I could record raw internally but I can't. With the O7Q the image is very good and much better if shooting HFR compared to recording internally. Of course there's the option to use a Varicam Pure but it's a matter of budget. For the O7Q I can use SSD:s which are quite inexpensive these days.
Click to expand...

I agree that three hours is a lot of record time for most people. I certainly question needing five cards, but I guess it's possible.

I like pointing out just how great the RAW output quality is on the VariCam LT. It's uncompressed RAW in either 12-bit or 10-bit LOG structure depending on resolution and frame rate. At 2K240p, the RAW output is higher quality than any other camera can deliver with the exception of a dedicated high speed system like a Phantom. Cameras from all other manufacturers will compress the RAW output at such a frame rate, on some quite heavily. The VariCam LT stands alone in the image quality it can deliver here.
 
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