Suggest any good budget camera for making feature film

Joe Calabrese said:
1080p is great for blowup to 35mm, but 720 will do just fine. Many movies have been filmed with the tape Varicam (720p) and looked just fine blown up to 35mm for projection.
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Michael Winterbottom has done a number of movies that have made it to various fests, including Cannes, using for some filming a DVX100. I think "9 Songs"(2004) was mostly or entirely a DVX100 made film. I recall reading that it was 'transfered to film' by projecting the DVX100 images on a screen, and then shooting the screen with a 35mm camera... I pretty sure he shot with a PAL DVX100, so it was running at 25 fps... and I think the pixel aspect ratio is slightly different than the NTSC, as well as slightly more vertical lines...
 
Don't waste your time on 7d or any other VSLR for filmout..

jes, you get DOF..but for a feature film like a DP I would hundred times rather choose Camcorder + DOF adapter.. VSLR are only suitible like a tool for night shooting..

I am shooting music videos, and I would be first that would like to shoot with VSLRs..but the picture and colours just don't stand good enough.. You can only get the look like the picture is already heavy graded, and you can not stand back from that direction..

On the other hand.. at our last music video we tried to capture HD-SDI live-view thru BM HD-link extreme on PC, with Cineform codec.. I can not say that is like three times better than XDCAM EX codec..but it is worth of cost and efford.. It offers you a lot more data for postproduction..

If I would be for feature movie, I would be choose those five things: EX1 or EX3, DOF adapter, HD-SDI capture, ton of light and good DP..
 
I would not spend the money like you are on a camera. Spending it on a DP with their own camera. It seems like you have very little knowledge of any of the camera gear out there right now (judging from your original question) so there for having someone more experienced with their own gear would be worth the $4000. a DSLR/VSLR is not a good candidate for any type of actual production because of color grading issues and more... Especially if you want to try a film out.

lenniecq where are you located? New York? LA?

There are a lot of DP's who are struggling but very good at what they do, just for the simple fact that people keep diving into buying these DSLR/VSLR's and NOT hiring them instead. Depending on the film, you might very well find a really good DP for your project for that price range, or at the very least, and Owner/Op willing to rent you his camera just so long as he is on set to supervise his gear, and help with setting it up.
 
Joe Calabrese said:
1080p is great for blowup to 35mm, but 720 will do just fine. Many movies have been filmed with the tape Varicam (720p) and looked just fine blown up to 35mm for projection.

A 7d is great because if the sensor size, which results in shallower depth of field and better low-light sensitivity, but the compression isn't as great as something like the HPX170, which is almost 720p resolution sensor, and DVCPRO HD: intra-frame 100mbps compression. Plus, an HPX170 or HVX200A would look fine.

As someone suggested, hiring a DP would be great, because he can either bring his/her own lights and camera and camera grip, or he might be able to hook you up with a cheap rental. That's your best option because it would leave you free to worry about the acting, direction, and getting the actors to perform their best, and leave capturing the image to someone else.
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Actually i am a visual effects artist, but now concentrating in film making..
also very much interested in Cinematography.. i love it lot
now i wanted to a do a movie project with lots of visual effects stuff. that's why now i am searching for a good camera which is also good for visual effects..

i heard the resolution size of hvx200a is 1440x1080..( but not sure) it capture
at 1920x1080 and then down the size to 1440x1080..
and surely i knew canon 7d capture at 1920x1080p compare to hvx200a with 35mm adapter, Canon 7d gives better DOF, low light performance but i don't know about compression.. what it is?
i know 7d gives output as .MOV file with H.264 codec
But because of this codec the picture quality does affect?
 
For VFX work, it's going to depend. For green screen, I would recommend a camera that doesn't use any compression and has prime lenses fo you can easily and accurately reproduce the lens in 3d or if you are shooting plates. You want your green screen to be in focus if possible so that your tracking markers are visible, so DOF should be very deep, if you can.

If you are shooting plates for the BG, you can do that with 7D or 5D no problem, there are companies that are already doing that for HD TV shows, and it looks great.

7D and 5D definitely have limitations due to aliasing. If you can lock off backgrounds and shoot full res stills, then shoot video for just the moving bits you would be in good shape. There is a company called Stargate studios that does that trick with Canon 5Ds for their VFX work, and it's a very clever way to get around the aliasing issue.

Good luck!
 
http://www.syndicate.se/Default.aspx?Id=294

Press release 2009-11-03


David Kvart from Hobby Factory rents the Syndicate 7D BNR-R Cine HD system with the Matrox HDMI recorder and shoots green screen with DOP Martin Grafström. The production was later posted at Syndicate. The green screen was lit with simple lighting and the extreme low noise level in the images from the uncompressed matrox footage from the 7D sensor provides a key channel that beats competitors like RED or celluloid footage by far. This proves the theory that the HDMI 7D reconstructed source is optimal for chroma key shooting. It provides a far better picture source at a fraction of the cost of any other camera at this date.
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BNC-R 7D matrox at filmhuset green screen stage in stockholm.
7D_greenscreen_small.jpg
 
lenniecg said:
Cineforms's NeoHD removing 3:2 pulldown From canon 7d so the Chroma sub sampling 4:4:0 to 4:2:2.. also it able to convert 1080i to 1080p..

anybody know about this Cineform Products?

Some review:
http://www.freshdv.com/2007/10/review-of-cineform-neohd-for-hv20-pulldown-removal.html
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I tried Neoscene yesterday for my GH1 footage to take the MTS files from 1920x1080 24p encoded as 60i, into 23.97 footage... got it to crash several times. So I moved on to the JES tool... requires a log and transfer using my FC Express to transcode the AVCHD fills to AIC, but then JES did the inverse telecine operation with out error...

I would like to use the Cineform products at they are in my area, and I like to use 'local' products... but at the moment, their product hasn't worked...
 
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