Shooting with hack on a very tight budget

Been doing similar research myself. I'd like to add a few points to OP's post:

Tripods

There is no real information on tripods, the technology behind them, or anything that is of objective value. After spending hours reading reviews of popular sub$300 systems (head+stix) and looking at manufacturer websites, the only way you can be sure your going to get smooth motion is to either spend at least a grand for "the best", or go to a NAB and try them out yourself. All i can say is, find a good retailer with no restocking fees.

Lenses
Micro 4/3's lack of a mirror box has opened the format up to almost any mount (and lens) out there, as long as you can find a micro 4/3's adapter for it, which seems to be well covered at the moment. Primes can be found for around $50-$400 depending on brand/length.

Sound
Take a look at this video comparison of shotgun's vs lavaliers (and camera audio vs external recorders) before deciding on what equipment to buy. If your recording speech then its fairly apparent that lavaliers are the only way to go, with a shotgun backup just in case. Unless you plan on always being within 3ft of your source your going to have to boom or lav it.

Kit/Body
The GH1 kit is $1200, the kit lens msrp is $850, though you can find it from bigbox retailers for as low as $800, which prices the body at $400 (minus accessories). I've not yet seen anyone offering a body for less than $600, or getting a bid at that price. As far as getting one without the panasonic powergrab firmware, just do what i did and ask for the first four characters of the serial #, which you will be looking for WE0(A-E) and WE9x, thats WE(western english?), 0 (2010), A - E (jan-may) or WE 9 (2009) and the fourth character doesnt matter. Dont bother with retailers, they generally wont give you the time of day and they push too much volume to give you a definite answer anyways.
 
Great resource idea.

I tried basic handheld initially and was shocked by the poor results.
So I agree, some kind of arm rest or external stability contraption is a bit of a must.
I'm getting good results with a photographic tripod, but I agree video is better, more versatile.
I've had great results with adapters. I have Leica M, C Mount and an Alpa mount adapter is on the way.
I also agree, wide lenses are a problem, especially fast wide lenses.
Lot's of 24 and 28mm f2.8 lenses out there.
The Pan 20mm and Olympus 17mm seem to be the most useful wides so far.
 
tonpole said:
Tripods
There is no real information on tripods, the technology behind them, or anything that is of objective value. After spending hours reading reviews of popular sub$300 systems (head+stix) and looking at manufacturer websites, the only way you can be sure your going to get smooth motion is to either spend at least a grand for "the best", or go to a NAB and try them out yourself. All i can say is, find a good retailer with no restocking fees.
Click to expand...

I know really good solution.
Buy Weifeng tripod and buy good Weifeng fluid head (even WF717A is more than enought for all indie projects).
Fluid head is very simple thing - this is two discs (for each plane) with concentric notches and very viscous lubrication
Today USA and Europe really no longer produce tripods suitable for tight budgets (they only rebrand them :) ).
Korean manufacturers are quite strong at photo only tripod thing (but they already struggle very hard to survive).

Sound
Take a look at this video comparison of shotgun's vs lavaliers (and camera audio vs external recorders) before deciding on what equipment to buy. If your recording speech then its fairly apparent that lavaliers are the only way to go, with a shotgun backup just in case. Unless you plan on always being within 3ft of your source your going to have to boom or lav it.
Click to expand...

Not always you can have lavalier on your target.
Problem here is not lavaliers or shotguns, but rather direction and distance.
 
Your comments about lenses are well taken. There is one thing I would add, though. True, Zeiss lenses are normally expensive, but they offer some advantages - like very low breathing, consistent color between lenses, and nice stiff focusing rings. I mention this because you can get very nice Zeiss lenses in a Contax mount for a good price. The Contax adapter is available from fotodiox for $30 these days - I have one and it's very nice too. When you can get Zeiss lenses for such a low price, and the adapter too, I think it's worth considering.

Chris
 
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Vitaliy Kiselev said:
Zooms.
Note that you need adapters with ability to control aperture for zooms!
Click to expand...
This is only the case with non-m43, gelded auto-focus lens that lack manual aperture rings (such as most modern Canon EF lens). All manual focus lens have aperture control rings and do not require the m43 adapter to provide an aperture "lock" ring. (The reason I say "lock" is because most of these adapters are so cheaply made that the most reliable way to lock down the adapter ring is to glue it with epoxy.) In addition to manual lens, all auto-focus Nikon lens except for the G series have built-in manual aperture rings.
 
cbrandin said:
Your comments about lenses are well taken. There is one thing I would add, though. True, Zeiss lenses are normally expensive, but they offer some advantages - like very low breathing, consistent color between lenses, and nice stiff focusing rings. I mention this because you can get very nice Zeiss lenses in a Contax mount for a good price. The Contax adapter is available from fotodiox for $30 these days - I have one and it's very nice too. When you can get Zeiss lenses for such a low price, and the adapter too, I think it's worth considering.
Click to expand...

Nice addition. But Zeiss 28mm + 50mm + 85mm will be around $900.
Color matching originates from coatings, normally.
Plus I do not still understand adaptor difference, as Contax G is much more pricey than Contax/yashika and they look different.
 
I love this thread, lets keep it so much down to earth. I come from music and have a dozend of very good mics. Mic placement is definalty the key to good recordings. If you have a recorder with phantom power a whole world of (also pretty cheap) good mics opens. Russian Oktavas are great and on the low budget side. Stereo is pretty easy to fake. If you have two mics, it might be wise not to use them as stereo pair. Place one close to the source and the other one to give some ambience, this gives you the possibillity to play with the distance. I shot some stuff with a canon d7 and a rhode mic. I think this mic sounds strange, I always had the feeling something was phasing. I wouldn't pay 150€ for it.

nicholas

nicholas
 
e.oelberg said:
Russian Oktavas are great and on the low budget side.
Click to expand...

I'll extend mike section soon, plus add few others.
If you ike Oktava, I suggest to look at Behringer B5. It is much cheaper with better quality.
I have this mike and love it. Despite that Behringer is also "crap brand" in pro audio world.
 
Looked into weifeng tripods and found this video review which basically makes a good point about the placement of knobs on tripods, which can be an issue for rails, sliders, or even wide DSLR's. A word of advice for anyone thinking about using a tiffen/david&sanford product (such as their economical FM18 heads), i've used their high end steadicam's before and all i can say is they have an excellent build quality and they do a very specific job well, but their designs are severely lacking, and product support is almost non-existent, (check their site and see for yourself), so if you need to use their products with anything other than a conventional camcorder in any way that defies convention, then look elsewhere.
 
The G lenses are rangefinder lenses so they have a shorter lens to plane distance. From what I've seen they don't work as well as the SLR lenses and are a pain to use. I have no idea why they cost more and the adapters are so expensive.

Actually, if you poke around a little, you can find the Contax lenses for less than that. It's funny, the nikon mount Zeiss lenses (because the cameras are still being made) are nearly identical and cost 3-4 times as much.

Somebody famous (I don't remember who) wrote a long review comparing the Zeiss SLR lenses with the Zeiss prime video lenses (which are astronomical) and the SLR lenses actually outperformed the primes in the breathing tests - which is a big issue for filmakers.

True, Zeiss lenses may be overkill - they certainly are if you pay the regular price. I don't know though, sometimes the Contax lenses show up at such a good price that the bang-for-the-buck seems pretty good. They come out costing less that 1/20th the price of a Zeiss prime set.

Chris
 
Vitaliy Kiselev said:
I'll extend mike section soon, plus add few others.
If you ike Oktava, I suggest to look at Behringer B5. It is much cheaper with better quality.
I have this mike and love it. Despite that Behringer is also "crap brand" in pro audio world.
Click to expand...

there are a lot of chinese manufactured small diaphragma mic which are ok like the behringer. If you want to spend monay gdr neumanns = gefell are very good and still cheap, but you need to get them modiifed to get the electronic on the level of te diaphragma. Also an sm58 placed ckose to the source can be great !!
 
I wrote this post to a "which SD card is better" thread in an attempt to clear up how to determine what cards to use, thought it would be useful here considering the nature of the hack.

SDHC Cards - Which one?

Take your hack bandwidth settings in Mb/s (just disregard the first six 0's) that you would like to shoot at (even experimentally), then divide by 8 to get your minimum write bandwidth in MB/s, then compare that to this SDHC benchmark chart, making sure to add a 10% error margin to the minimum you will need, and if any other issue arise from the hack, then you've hit the internal limits of the camera itself and not the card.

*note to newbies, if you ever need real comparative benchmarks on digital hardware, tomshardware.com is the place.
 
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As this post is about film making maybe you should expend its wide angle section, since it's a tough question (quality vs price) and crucial when trying to get that cinemascope feel.
 
cbrandin said:
Your comments about lenses are well taken. There is one thing I would add, though. True, Zeiss lenses are normally expensive, but they offer some advantages - like very low breathing, consistent color between lenses, and nice stiff focusing rings. I mention this because you can get very nice Zeiss lenses in a Contax mount for a good price. The Contax adapter is available from fotodiox for $30 these days - I have one and it's very nice too. When you can get Zeiss lenses for such a low price, and the adapter too, I think it's worth considering.

Chris
Click to expand...

Minolta does that too, you can use from a 8mm Rokkor to a 200mm Rokkor without any color mismatch, and also, they are know for very good bokeh.

Of course Zeiss is usually top-notch, but for the money, Minolta is unbeatable.
 
tonpole said:
I wrote this post to a "which SD card is better" thread in an attempt to clear up how to determine what cards to use, thought it would be useful here considering the nature of the hack.

SDHC Cards - Which one?

Take your hack bandwidth settings in Mb/s (just disregard the first six 0's) that you would like to shoot at (even experimentally), then divide by 8 to get your minimum write bandwidth in MB/s, then compare that to this SDHC benchmark chart, making sure to add a 10% error margin to the minimum you will need, and if any other issue arise from the hack, then you've hit the internal limits of the camera itself and not the card.

*note to newbies, if you ever need real comparative benchmarks on digital hardware, tomshardware.com is the place.
Click to expand...

anandtech is very good for benchmarks and reviews as well.
 
If anyone is visiting Japan, you will find that the GH1 is a lot cheaper. I picked up a new GH1 with 14-140mm lens in Tokyo for less than $800 USD. This is based on buying in smaller discount stores. A site called kakaku.com lists the cheapest prices in Japan, and the GH1 can be found here:
http://kakaku.com/camera/digital-slr-camera/ma_65/?lid=shop_pricemenu_makername

Try pasting into Google and hit translate. Look for the ones in Tokyo, and click on map symbol: 地図　　
Make sure you pick a few of these. The best bet is to find these at Akihabara (Electric Town)

The Japanese cameras have Japanese language only, so you need to load the Hack.

Also cheap is the GF1 (cheapest in Tokyo $550 USD with 20mm lens)

As for old manual focus lenses, Japan has to have the cheapest prices for second hand lenses (Japanese lenses) in the world!!

You can find excellent Minolta MC & MD lenses for $10-$40, Canon FD lenses, Konica, Pentax Takumar, Olympus lenses are all cheap. (and others)

I sometimes run shopping tours in Tokyo, so I know all of the best second hand camera & lens shops. Let me know if you're traveling to Tokyo, and you want a list of shops and location.
 
Dont forget CCTV c-mount lenses.
The only one to offer full coverage ultra wide lens is a 1000 USD Kinoptik Tegea (Tega ??) 9.8mm f1.8 lens. Available sometimes on ebay.
I was able to modify a Fujinon 12.5mm f1.4 CF12.5A lens for full coverage. Details here
http://www.mishra.tv/wordpress/?p=150
and here
http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18471
I will finish the listing with details and put more pictures so it is easier to modify.
I bought a Fujinon 12.5mm f1.4 CF12.5A for 50-100 usd on ebay.

I also have a Navitar 25mm f0.95 lens that worked with minor vignetting - 300 USD.
There is also the Navitar 50mm f0.95 I got for 650 USD. I had to remove the cmount and epoxy an adapter to the rear.
There are also tons of amazing 16mm film lenses. DONT pay more than 25-30 bucks per lens. Keep a good watch for bargains.
I found a Bell Howell Lumax 25mm f1.9 and a Cosmicar 25mm f1.9 that offer full sensor coverage. These are free as I bought them as a part of a package and will possibly make money on them.
So many choices - 25 USD for 25mm f1.4 or 35mm f1.7 on ebay - a chinese brand called Fujia (a Fujinon knockoff ??? ).
Kit lenses are a ripoff. Buy the kit and sell the lens on evilbay.

The Lumax lens offers the prized swirly bokeh
 
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Vitaliy Kiselev said:
I know really good solution.
Buy Weifeng tripod and buy good Weifeng fluid head (even WF717A is more than enought for all indie projects).
Fluid head is very simple thing - this is two discs (for each plane) with concentric notches and very viscous lubrication
Today USA and Europe really no longer produce tripods suitable for tight budgets (they only rebrand them :) ).
Korean manufacturers are quite strong at photo only tripod thing (but they already struggle very hard to survive).
Click to expand...

That's not really a fluid head, is it? More like friction...

I'm never pleased with Manfrotto heads, I can't make fluid enough movements and pans and tilts are constantly jerky. On the other hand heads like the Sachtler FSB-6 and Manfrotto 526 (takes a heavy-ish 16mm camera with no problems) are true fluid heads that really dampens your movement.

That's why I'm holding with my Manfrotto 501HDV and waiting to get something like a Cartoni F-100 or a 'coming soon' smaller version of the Vinten Vision 3 AS.

Skimping on the tripod is a no-no for me from now on.
 
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