Super cheap cameras as they age

EndCredits

EndCredits

Well-known member
Having seen the F35 and Arri D21 sell for 10 grand a few months back, cameras that were once more than $280,000 and even recently seen Sony EX350 (or what ever its actual product number is) go for 8 grand, it makes me think how far and how fast that trend can go.

AF100s are selling for a few grand and F3s are selling super cheep as well, all of these cameras are great. And all this stuff is getting better and cheaper by the minute. It makes me really excited. The idea that this gear is so affordable now, new. And the stuff that might be far out of your price range now could well be easily accessible in a few years is super cool.

That said the quality of some of these cameras is at a point where better cameras are not overwhelmingly more useful in many situations.

Do you guys recon we will see Arri Alexas for around 10 grand in a few years or Red Epics selling for 4 grand battle tested like the Red one?
Or even better Phantom Flex going for super cheap at some point?

I was raving about this to a friend and he commented that it must be annoying to those that buy new. He has a point I have seen many people get quite angry at the speculated price of a camera that they own. Even people selling gear online get both ends, buyers telling them its way over priced and others telling them they are devaluing their own camera by selling a similar one at such a price.

I can understand but that said every thing marches on and camera tech and the 2nd hand market are no different.

But for some reason I cant imagine the Alexa going for so cheap even in 4 more years as they just seem so usable., Its almost like film cameras they held their value for ages. But then again the BM 4K camera at 4 grand indicates that we may see comparable cameras being produced at a fraction of the cost. Maybe the F35 was just the right amount of tech and quality at just the right amount of devaluation that it was still a viable purchase for some. Maybe the Alexa will hold its value so that when it does drop enough to be affordable its no longer such a worthwhile buy as cheaper cameras are more than capable. I don't know but was thinking about it the other day. The future looks super exciting though :)

Any thoughts?
What would you pick up at this imaginary future camera house garage sale?
 
Moore's Law has been controlling the fate of the price of electronic devices for years. I've always thought at some point they would hit some point of diminishing returns, but it continues. There's no reason to think any electronic device will hold its value as long as vendors can continue to develop more features at less cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

"The capabilities of many digital electronic devices are strongly linked to Moore's law: processing speed, memory capacity, sensors and even the number and size of pixels in digital cameras.[SUP][7][/SUP] All of these are improving at (roughly) exponential rates as well (see Other formulations and similar laws). This exponential improvement has dramatically enhanced the impact of digital electronics in nearly every segment of the world economy."
 
EndCredits said:
Its almost like film cameras they held their value for ages. But then again the BM 4K camera at 4 grand indicates that we may see comparable cameras being produced at a fraction of the cost.
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I totally think Moore's Law (exponential obsolescence) applies to film, as well. Granted, the cameras held their value for a long time, but "bang", when technology passed it by, the bottom fell out of film cameras. Check out eBay - people can't get rid of them fast enough. $100,000 film rigs are losing value with each passing day and owners are scrambling to get whatever they can. Film tools are getting cheaper and cheaper, faster and faster, as predicted. Did you get a chance to read the quotes from Lucas and Spielberg at the USC conference on the future of filmmaking this week? Spielberg said that the bottom is about to fall out of the established paradigm at any moment. He is shell-shocked because even he can't be guaranteed that his films will get a theatrical release anymore. And with the tools now in everyone's hands, hold on tight, we are in for quite a roller coaster ride!
 
That's scary if even Spielberg cant be guaranteed a theatrical release. I think Moore's law is quite relevant but surely at some point, not to far from now, there will be a cameras that are good enough for what they deliver that we wont be too fussed about the better model? Or am I being a bit naive :)

I mean even now I sometimes think my AF100 is past it and I wont use it that much but it still gets pulled out even when the budget could fit a better camera simply because it is good enough for the job. A better camera would add little to nothing to the production values of some of our productions. It does get out classed some times and for those jobs we hire, but its still a very usable tool. With that in mind a better camera should stick around even longer, right?
 
Before buying a camera, any camera, and we have many, we ask ourself the question can get a 145% ROI in 18 months. If the answer is no we pass.
 
Coming from stills I think I see the 'future'

In 2005 I bought a hasselblad H1, with a sinar 22mp digital back - I guess the rig was, for simplicity, £16000

At 22mp it hit a mark of basically having enough res to replace the film that magazine clients desired at the time.

Hasselblad and Sinar are the Arri of the stills world most likely.

The thing still works and shooting 16bit at 5k is still produces good enough images for any application, but it has low ISO topping out at 200 max, the AF is centrepoint only the liveview slow and low res, the parts and service slow and expensive.

Roll on last month I bought a nikon D600 stills camera £1600 - 24mp, good af, nice live view, solid firmware, established service route.

So what is my 'Blad' worth today? - well it cant be much more than £1600 can it?

I think this is the future, basically those motion cameras will still function but have almost no value

And the economics? Yep my Blad got a lot of work (mainly because I got a tech leap by being able to shoot 'glossy digital') and was paid off, the thing was good for my business at the time and its all good. But basically its piece of junk now!


S
 
While I invest in lighting, grip gear and lenses I am hanging on to the AF100. With decent lenses, for the stuff I'm doing it's easily good enough. I'm the kind of buyer who drives cars into the ground.

From what I've heard and read here, producers will sometimes be lured in by a particular camera or platform and insist on it. If you work for producers like this then until they stop that, you're stuck one upping the next guy.

If an Alexa ever showed up for an affordable price, I'd grab it. Hell, I look at the Red Ones out there and the F3s and I think that for someone like me, that's a lot of camera.

I think that this high turnover in the value of cameras makes buying a new camera body very difficult. I just got some track from a local DP who doesn't even own a body.
 
What I find interesting is as the cost of gear goes down, the cost of human resources doesn't. That's the real cost of production, the wardrobe, make up, DP, camera operator, grips, electrics, talent, and so on. Those resources are the most important in making a quality production and to get loyal talented people you need to be able to pay them. That's a cost that is going to remain constant or go up no matter how much the cost of gear goes down.

As you get more sensitive cameras that use fewer lights you might see some savings in needing fewer grips and electrics, but you get the added costs of more talented colorists needed in post, a DIT, and so forth.

Even if you give me an Alexa for free and I know how to operate it I'm going to need a lot of talented people to make a high quality production. Or a lot of time and we all know time is money.
 
Gillvane said:
.. more sensitive cameras that use fewer lights you might see some savings in needing fewer grips and electrics, but you get the added costs of more talented colorists needed in post, a DIT, and so forth.
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Exactly how stills has gone - my Blad was lights lights lights - and we tended to shoot everything on set - the faster cameras and HDR mean there is less work on set, but a lot more work in post..

S
 
The whip was whipped, but we haven't heard it crack yet. On the interwebs people sometimes talk about the BMCC as it's already old news.
Partly probably because BMC keeps announcing cameras faster than they can saturate the market with their first model.
But it might take until late 2014 to see what this 3000$ RAW recording camera did to our market.
And then, maybe we can buy used Alexas for 10K ;)
 
EndCredits said:
That's scary if even Spielberg cant be guaranteed a theatrical release. I think Moore's law is quite relevant but surely at some point, not to far from now, there will be a cameras that are good enough for what they deliver that we wont be too fussed about the better model? Or am I being a bit naive :)
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You would think we can predict that things would become good enough and no further improvements would make a thing better. It's very difficult to predict that event. Sure 4k might be good enough. But perhaps you could have 100k, 1000fps and ISO 100,000 for the cost of your current camera and no additional cost to your workflow.
 
Paul F said:
You would think we can predict that things would become good enough and no further improvements would make a thing better. It's very difficult to predict that event. Sure 4k might be good enough. But perhaps you could have 100k, 1000fps and ISO 100,000 for the cost of your current camera and no additional cost to your workflow.
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Yes and no. Of course we all want more FPS, more res - but my experience with still images is that really 4/5/6k is enough for basically any viewing distance and most crops in post. with stills all the digital cameras were just crap compared to film until about 2008

That era has passed. I personally happy with devices that are as good as film, or have a bit more ISO

S
 
Regarding good enough, we deliver much of our stuff at 720p and much of it has a web release that's just as important as any TV or other release. Not only that but we hardly ever shoot off speed stuff. We are shooting a commercial this next week that we want high speed so we are hiring and epic.

So as much as I want 4k and high frame rates its not a need at any stretch at the moment. Still if the price was right :)

THe other thing to think about is that every thing has some intrinsic value. If some super amazing cameras came out tomorrow for a fantastic price then the value of other cameras would drop but surely they don't become worth nothing. AN alexa will always be a good camera that can produce nice images. SO how low can the value drop considering they still work?

The red one is selling around 5-6 grand as far as I can see but they seem like such a hassle to use. Last shoot we used it on it took ages to boot up then had all sorts of little gremlins that gave us the shits. So I can see it being a camera that people pass over just due to usability. Especially if things like the 4k BM camera turn up. But the alexa is so usable its never going to be less usable so how low can it drop in value? I guess the answer is in what comes out next.
 
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