The Cameras I've Owned ;)

[Grug]

Interesting thread. I've used a hell of a lot of different cameras over the years, but here's the sequential list of ones that I've owned (if I'm remembering right):

• Sony F3 + Element Technica Armour
• Sony F5 + R5 Raw Recorder
• Sony F35
• Sony F3 + Element Technica Armour (again)
• Arri Alexa Studio
• 2x Fuji X-T3 (used twice for filming, then never again)
• Sony F55 + R5 Raw Recorder
• Sony FX6
• Sony FX3
• Arri Alexa 35 (pending finance-approval as of yesterday )

 

[El Director]

A Sears VHS Camcorder (the model number is just numbers, but it's one that rests on your shoulder)
JVC GR-DVL120u
Canon ZR800
Canon Rebel T2i (x2)
BMD Ursa Mini 4K

plus two GoPros over the years, a few cheap Handycams for BTS, and my phones (currently iPhone 14 Pro)

 

[morgan_moore]

Why have people felt the need to change? What did the new cameras delivered? Did any client care?

 

[cyvideo]

OK, OK! I'll bite as well. Looking back, this list looks crazy, and I know there are some missing. Mainly smaller three chip prosumer camcorders from Sony and Panasonic. Do drones count? But they are the cameras that earned me a living. Some good memories go along with some of them. :cheesy:

Film cameras

ARRI 16ST Three lens turret (Still have it)
B&H DR-70s (Still have three of them)
Eclair with Angenieux 12-120mm T2.8 and Angenieux 9.5-57mm T1.9 (Awesome kit. Really kicked off my journey in the industry.)

Cameras recording to various tape formats. U-Matic, BVU, Betacam and Betacam SP, DVCam, DVC Pro25 and DVC Pro50

Tube cameras recording to Porta Pacs

Sony BVP-30
Panasonic WV-555
Panasonic WV-777
JVC KY-2000

CCD cameras recording to dockable backs or Porta Pacs. S-VHS, Betacam and Betacam SP

JVC KY-25 (CCD)
JVC KY-D29 (CCD)
Sony DXC-3000 (First CCD)
Sony BVP-70
Hitachi Z1A
Hitachi Z1B
Hitachi Z1C
Hitachi Z1D (1st 13-bit AD Digital Processing camera head on the market)
Panasonic WV-F700 docked to Sony BVV5 SP back (Digital Peltier cooled CCDs. Amazing images back then)
Sony DXC-537 (DVCam)
Sony DXC 637 (SP Beta)
Sony BVW-400
Sony PD-150
Sony HVR-Z1U
Panasonic AJD-700
Panasonic AJD-900
Panasonic AJD-910
Sony DVW-790

Cameras recording to XDCam Optical Disc

Sony PDW-F350
Sony PDW-F700
Sony PDW-F800

Cameras recording to cards
Sony PMW-EX3
Sony PMW-300
Sony FS700
Sony PXW-FS7
Sony A7iv

In some cases up to four of each model above as I used to do a lot of multicam shoots.

Chris Young

 

[Grug]

Why have people felt the need to change? What did the new cameras delivered? Did any client care?

I find this a really interesting question, as people have such wildly different responses every time.

My journey with purchasing cameras started in 2012, after I’d grown fed up with never being able to make a decent income from the paid shoots I was doing, after paying for the gear rentals (this is back in the earliest days when I was producing the shoots I was doing, and evidently not doing a very good job of securing sufficient budgets).

Back then, in the “affordable” large-sensor camera market, the options were basically the Sony F3 (with it’s 10-bit 1080p SLOG with 13(!) stops of dynamic range), or the Red Scarlet (with its 4k sensor, but only 11.5 stops of DR).

I opted for the Sony back then because the HMIs you needed to keep highlights from blowing out with the Scarlet, were too expensive. So the superior latitude of the F3 let me make the better looking images.



I came close to buying a used F35 back then (which had collapsed in value to something like $20k at that point) but ultimately I couldn’t afford a heavy-duty tripod and all the expensive v-mount batteries required to run it. So Sony F3 it was.

That camera was a bit of a mess, and I ended up ripping off the entire exterior body, top handle and EVF in order to replace them with the Element Technica “Body Armour” kit. But it made lovely pictures, and allowed me to start building a real reel.



Pretty quickly though, maybe 18-24 months in, I ran up against the issue of constantly needing to be able to shoot slow-motion footage (for music videos mostly). And I was faced with a conundrum. Spend $5,000 and buy a more capable external recorder (the Odyssey 7Q) that could capture 50p from the F3 (my recorder topped out at 30p), or sell the F3, and spend an extra $10,000 to upgrade to the new F5 (which offered internally-recorded 2k up to 120fps, and down the road, could be upgraded to 4k raw(!)). For the sake of just $5000 in additional outlay, it was a no-brainer. So I upgraded to the F5 (and eventually added an R5 to it).



That was such an incredibly capable camera, and the priceerformance king of the world, that it should have been a roaring success… sadly though, it turned out to be a terrible investment.

NO ONE wanted to use the F5 for narrative work, music videos or commercials (which was all of the work I was doing at the time). It seemed to exist only in the corporate and ENG/reality/tv worlds. Alexa dominated the top end of my world and Red dominated the low end, and so my F5 (capable though it was) was actively keeping me from winning jobs.

So around 2015-16 I abandoned the F5, sold it off, and planned to pickup a used Alexa (now known as the “Classic” since the Mini had just come out). And I came very close to doing that until a big job came up, that required me to have two cameras. And while purchasing a second camera body wouldn’t have broken the bank - adding a full set of secondary peripherals (professional tripod, matte box, follow focus, monitor, EVF, additional batteries and charger) would. This created a conundrum - get two decent cameras, and some crummy accessories for the second one? Or get decent support gear (so both cameras could be operated professionally) and two older camera bodies?

Being ever the practical type, I decided being able to operate the cameras properly, was more important than having the latest sensor tech. So I abandoned the Alexa dream, and picked up a used F35 of my own +(I’d been a part of that camera’s “revival”, which kicked off here on DVXuser) and another Element Technica’d F3 to be its B-camera.





After that job was finished, I returned to Australia, and yet again (in spite of the lovely pictures that they made) I found myself left with TWO cameras that no one wanted to hire.

So I sold the F35 while it still had some internet underground hype (rationalising that the F3 was worth so little, it was worth keeping as a cheap option for jobs with low budgets) and finally bought my first Alexa, the big daddy of them all - the Alexa Studio.




I loved that camera, it was a beast in every sense of the word. And although it was so heavy you’d have to lift it like a barbell every time (with careful form), and keep it constantly plugged into mains power to fight its insatiable thirst for batteries. I finally had a camera that helped (rather than hindered) me in getting jobs.

We had a good few years together, but in the last 12-months or so of owning the Studio, I found that while I was shooting almost exclusively on Arri cameras, I was almost never shooting on MY Arri camera. Everything had moved to Minis or Amiras, so (with a heavy heart) I put mine up for sale.

That left me at somewhat of an awkward crossroads camera-wise. The Mini and Amira were half-a-decade old at this point, and it seemed like (surely) Arri would update them soon. The Venice was very impressive, but I resented that you had to build it up with additional boxes that made it as large as my Alexa Studio, if you wanted power outputs and raw recording. The FX9 didn’t appeal with its limitations in LUT output, and horrendous v-mount and raw recording requirements. The C500ii was the only (somewhat) appealing mid-range option at the time, but Canons haven’t been popular in my local market since the original C300 came out. So there didn’t seem to be a sensible option to invest in. So I decided (for the second time) to look backwards rather than forwards with a camera. And settled on buying a used (and heavily customised) F55 from Otto Nemenz in US.



The prices had dropped so much on F55s by this point (late 2019), that it was a low cost way to have a camera capable of serious production (whilst also being able to be stripped down for smaller doco-style shoots, something the Alexa Studio could never do). This was very consciously a “stop-gap” decision. Something not too expensive, that could tide me by until a more attractive option came along.

Mostly I was waiting for the Alexa Mini’s replacement (as I really mucked up by never investing in one of those), but then when the Mini LF was released shortly after I got the F55, it still had the stupid external battery plate from the original Mini (something I HATE), had very limited frame rates, required a too-heavy cage to be usable, featured a disappointing internal ND system (compared to the Venice) and just generally felt like a half-way upgrade. Too much money to spend on something that would have so many intrinsic annoyances for me.

Then the FX6 was announced. Having spent a year constantly having to convince producers that my F55 would be a “perfectly fine” alternative to an FS7 on corporate/content/doco shoots, it seemed (from the specs) that the FX6 would take over the local market here the same way the FS7 had taken over everything but Drama and Commercials. So I decided to quickly offload the F55 (I suspect I might have been the very last person to get a decent price for theirs), and picked up the 3rd FX6 to land in Australia (before they instantly went into severe shortage).

I then spent more time, energy and money rigging up the FX6 for conventional production, than any camera I’ve ever owned. It was a nightmare. Even with additional support brackets, any PL-mount you fitted to the camera would flex when using FIZ motors (unless you braced it at the front with rod-mounted matte box as well). And finding the space for a monitor, wireless transmitters and timecode boxes was a genuinely difficult challenge.




I got there in the end, and even managed to shoot a low-budget feature with it. But I deeply resented how unpleasant the experience was.

And fair enough, in hindsight it’s obviously not a camera that was designed with conventional production in-mind. But I still didn’t like it.

It was then that the internet started to become swamped with all of this information about the autofocus capabilities of these new Sony cameras, and because I needed to upgrade my stills cameras as well. I decided to swap to Sony for stills, so that I could try the autofocus glass on my video cameras (by this point I’d also picked up an FX3 to do gimbal/b-cam duties) so it made sense to go all-in on the one brand.

And voila! Plonk autofocus lenses on the FX6 and all of a sudden I understood it as a camera. That’s how it’s supposed to be used. And with the touchscreen autofocus tracking, I could now do certain shoots without an AC pulling focus, and still feel comfortable that I’d get the shots.

As it stands now, I’m very happy with the FX6/FX3 combo for anything run’n’gun or requiring sit-down interviews. They take so much stress out of that kind of work.

However that’s not the majority of the work I do, so I’ve found myself hurting for a proper production camera again.

Enter three of the most appealing motion picture cameras ever made - The Alexa 35, the Venice 2 and the upcoming Burano. All with rigid lens mounts, high-quality internal recording and internal NDs (Alexa35’s more limited NDs being made more palatable by the ability to lower ISO with little impact to DR). We’ve never been so spoilt for choice on cameras with so few operational compromises.

Now on the surface, with my current (rather hefty) investment in Sony gear and lenses, the Burano would seem like an obvious choice for someone like me. Since I already have all of the peripherals I’d need for it, and it would give me Venice 2 image quality, in a package that could be used (with much less pain than the FX6) for conventional production. And it would happily match in with the pictures from my FX6 and FX3 as B and C cameras.

But, as appealing as the Burano’s feature set and price point is, it has some wildly frustrating compromises to operational ergonomics. Compromises that Sony already knows how to do better with (if the Venice 2 and FX6 are any example). And so after a lot of internal back and forth (and some considerable spreadsheeting), I’ve decided I’m getting too old to deal with these sorts of operational compromises. And given how badly I was burnt by the last “mid-range” camera that I bought (the F5), I came to a decision and have just put in a financing application for the Alexa 35.

If that fails (and it might) then I suppose I’ll probably begrudgingly pick up a Burano next year. But I’m hopeful. The Alexa 35 is lovely, and rarely does anything to annoy you as an operator (so long as you use enormous onboard batteries with it).

 

[morgan_moore]

See - Ive never wanted a new camera. Why waste the money on a camera when there is beer and steak and other things to buy?

But I have wanted specific things to ease my job.... large sensor (5d) XLR (fs100) ND (F3) smaller-lighter-onbord 10 bit (FS7) and finally AF (C200)

It seems you have a 'similar' journey of logically moving camera when the market/specs needed it or delivered a lower mass product.

Personally im with the C200 as 'the camera I can afford even if it never rents' - clients can pay for anything else.

Personally I would not go with the A35 - I get the client to pay if that is what they want. (if you have a client and it will pay off.. then great)

Also I think non AF is dead really.

 

[morgan_moore]

As a side note.. i bought a miller arrow 25 in 2009. And still use it.

It looks like you (grug) may be in the same boat.

 

[Grug]

See - Ive never wanted a new camera. Why waste the money on a camera when there is beer and steak and other things to buy?

But I have wanted specific things to ease my job.... large sensor (5d) XLR (fs100) ND (F3) smaller-lighter-onbord 10 bit (FS7) and finally AF (C200)

It seems you have a 'similar' journey of logically moving camera when the market/specs needed it or delivered a lower mass product.

Personally im with the C200 as 'the camera I can afford even if it never rents' - clients can pay for anything else.

Personally I would not go with the A35 - I get the client to pay if that is what they want. (if you have a client and it will pay off.. then great)

Also I think non AF is dead really.

I feel like you've found a better sense of zen towards the issue than I have Sam, but yeah, to me they've always just been tools. If a camera can't earn its keep, I've never got too sentimental about moving it on. It's hard making money in this business, so I want the money I do invest to work for me (whether that's in direct income, or in making my life easier on set).

I've had a multiple moments where I've thought "this camera is good enough for any job that can't afford better, and the ones that want better can pay for it!"... but alas, it's never held for very long - I just invariably start losing too many jobs when I don't have the hot new thing available, so the upgrade cycle feels kinda painfully inevitable.

I'm not sure that I'd agree that non-AF is dead yet. There's still plenty of work where AF is a complete non-starter, as it simply doesn't offer the kind of precision we often need to cover complex blocking. And no amount of programming is going to be able make a camera understand that someone is going to emerge from around a particular corner at a particular point in time, and then move to wherever they're going to move. So until someone can figure out a way to get precise manual control into AF lenses a full transition isn't going to happen. Realistically I think it'll have to be AF lenses with a wireless FIZ controller like the HI-5 that allows for exact, repeatable manual focus pulls, paired with instant AF activation and manual overide (as from the first few versions we've seen, manual lenses with hybrid auto features, just can't seem to get where they need to).

But once we do get that level of control, it'll be pretty amazing - dolly push-ins that are perfect every time without rehearsal, actors eyes staying 100% sharp as they talk and move in place in dialogue scenes, even at extremely shallow DOFs, with seemless manual override when and where you need it to draw the audiences eyes to whatever you need.

Actually now that I think about it, that probably won't be the end of manual lenses anyway, since people will complain they don't have enough choice in optical aesthetics.

I'm not sure if I'll get approval for the A35 financing, it's an outrageous amount of money for a camera. But it's looking like it'll become the new standard for the kind of work I prefer to be doing, and (if recent history is any metric) will likely continue to be so for at least the next five years. So it feels like it'll be about as safe of an investment as a camera can be.

The biggest thing to me, is the lack of compromises. Easy controls, the best EVF setup in the business, a truly compact size when built (something neither the Mini or Mini LF could manage due to their cages/battery plates), built-in power distribution, spherical/anamorphic without limitations, HFR without cropping, monitoring without compromises, internal NDs, and enough latitude that I can light faster and easier. There's just so little to complain about - and that's something I really love, on-set I really don't want to have to think about the camera. I don't want to have to troubleshoots it, I don't want to have to work around its limitations. I just want it to give me the images I'm trying to create and get out of the way - so that I can focus on the interesting parts: the blocking, the lighting and the composition.

And my Arrow 25 is still going strong! My Arrow 55 too. I just recently upgraded my original solo sticks to the new Sachtler Flowtechs (which are nice and fast), but my Miller heads are still silky smooth a decade on (if only cameras could be so reliable!)

 

[Run&Gun]

The Alexa 35 is lovely, and rarely does anything to annoy you as an operator (so long as you use enormous onboard batteries with it).

Go with the Corew Helix Max 360’s. They’re big and heavy, but you should get around four hours of run time, possibly more. But just depends on how much stuff you’re running off of it, too.

 

[Run&Gun]

See - Ive never wanted a new camera. Why waste the money on a camera when there is beer and steak and other things to buy?

But I have wanted specific things to ease my job.... large sensor (5d) XLR (fs100) ND (F3) smaller-lighter-onbord 10 bit (FS7) and finally AF (C200)

It seems you have a 'similar' journey of logically moving camera when the market/specs needed it or delivered a lower mass product.

Personally im with the C200 as 'the camera I can afford even if it never rents' - clients can pay for anything else.

Personally I would not go with the A35 - I get the client to pay if that is what they want. (if you have a client and it will pay off.. then great)

Also I think non AF is dead really.

It does depend on the market segment you serve, but why work for just a labor rate, when you can get the whole ball of wax? Or at least a large chunk of it.

I don’t want to shoot without my camera. And the gear rate is generally more than just a labor rate. Historically, at least on the TV side of things, it’s been roughly double. Although the gap is closing, as most people have continually upped their labor rates every year since Covid.

 

[morgan_moore]

I feel like you've found a better sense of zen towards the issue than I have Sam, but yeah, to me they've always just been tools.

I'm not sure that I'd agree that non-AF is dead yet.

I started in stills on an FM2.. the idea of changing cameras was a no no.. uprade cycle was not a language in the 1990s
I guess the same camera ran the latest film stock so it self upgraded!

--

Focus... if you are dull enough to follow my career you might know ive recently been in feature world.

Here on the features there is a a first a/,c remote monitor, WCU arri focus, 'horns' FIZ, the whole banjo on the camera. And a 2nd for marks and a trainee to keep it all charged.

I guess my feeling is that manual focus without a dedicated first with $25k of toys three crew and two prep days might be dead.

If im on those bigger jobs it will be a rental package.. so id personally top out at personally owning the C200 (more ideally fx6?) and want AF.

So no MF is not dead per se. Its dead for my UK business model.

--

Recently I did a small feature FX6 (Ross on A) and me B on a7s (not mine). We did both manual and AF. For sure the talent approaching the cam at 200mm AF is the winner.
With the A7 I was using AF glass and my manual nikkors - I never tried to pull on the plastic lenses. Interesting to see how the film works. I think its quite unusual to have that much AF on a 'semi serious' feature.

 

[Grug]

Recently I did a small feature FX6 (Ross on A) and me B on a7s. We did both manual and AF. For sure the talent approaching the cam at 200mm AF is the winner.
With the A7 I was using AF glass and my manual nikkors - I never tried to pull on the plastic lenses. Interesting to see how the film works. I think its quite unusual to have that much AF on a 'semi serious' feature.

There's certainly more of it coming. Heck on lower budget narrative, I can see a lot of use for it. It's becoming disconcertingly common for me to get a 2nd camera and an operator, but not an AC to pull focus for them - which leads to focus being an absolute crapshoot on the B-cam.

Something like a Burano, with Sony's AF lenses on it (that the B-cam could use to cover closeups), and simply tap on their screen to guarantee good focus, would go a long way to making that BIG problem a pretty minor one.

 

[morgan_moore]

It does depend on the market segment you serve, but why work for just a labor rate, when you can get the whole ball of wax? Or at least a large chunk of it.

I don’t want to shoot without my camera. And the gear rate is generally more than just a labor rate. Historically, at least on the TV side of things, it’s been roughly double. Although the gap is closing, as most people have continually upped their labor rates every year since Covid.

I think owner op is a TV thing coming from those $50g 2/3 cams. (UK too)

Here UK feature films the package (2 arri, 2 sets cook anamorphic, multiple monitors transmitters FIZ, chapman dolly, ocon, ronford, GFM, five lorries, many HMI) is only owned by rental houses or very very rich children.

If I were a producer I would not get an owner op Arri becuse if it goes into the soup you cannot bike a spare over the next hour unlike the hire house.

I did a 5 week show on an FS7 hired (as one of six) by the prodco. My fs7 gathered dust.

 

[drboffa]

I find this a really interesting question, as people have such wildly different responses every time.

My journey with purchasing cameras started in 2012 [...]

This is such a great response and overview of your camera (and DP!) journey—thanks for taking the time to write this up and share!

 

[Eric Coughlin]

If I were a producer I would not get an owner op Arri becuse if it goes into the soup you cannot bike a spare over the next hour unlike the hire house.

I often bring my second Arri Amira to single camera Arri shoots so I have a backup camera. In general I always bring at least one backup camera to all shoots. Last week's Arri shoot I brought a backup Amira and a backup C300. The backup C300 was in case say for example I forgot to pack enough Arri media, or had PL mount attached, was missing the mount wrench, and only had EF lenses with me. Sometimes the little things can mess you up such that having another camera system ready to go could save you. Not likely scenarios, but better safe than sorry.

Doesn't really cost me money or wear and tear on the camera to bring a backup, the client is not charged for the backup, so from their point of view, better to hire me and have the backup actually at the set than to have to have a rental house take at least an hour to drive in a new camera at the last minute should one go down.

I do so many multi-cam shoots I generally have at least two of each camera type, though I don't always have a third of the same camera body as a backup for multi-cam shoots (so would use a different camera body type as a backup, then).

 

[scorsesefan]

Why have people felt the need to change? What did the new cameras delivered? Did any client care?

Mostly have bought new cameras based on my needs, but occasionally I get bored and want to play with the latest and greatest. When I was doing more broadcast/corporate work clients wanted name brands (mostly Sony), but now that I do mostly personal work it doesn't matter as much.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Why have people felt the need to change? What did the new cameras delivered? Did any client care?

Unlike Grug I don't feel like uploading photos, so you get just a wall of text.

I graduated college with a film-related communications degree during the recession in 2009 and got a job at a sandwich shop, then also as a crew member at Home Shopping Network (most boring job ever, sandwich delivery was more fun), making about $20k-$25k per year and living with my parents at 23-24. Eventually I started doing weddings and was able to save up $2,000 to buy my first camera. DSLR shooting was starting up around the time but I decided to stay traditional and bought a Canon XH-A1s video camera. I recall being wary of digital recording media like the HMC150 at the time as tape felt safer. I later bought a Canon HV30, another tape camera with I think has the same or a similar sensor but in a handycam form, as a B-camera.

I used the XH-A1s a fair amount but a lot of the wedding shooters then were using DSLRs and the DSLRs did tend to have a better look, so eventually I got a Canon 60D with a single Canon 35mm f/1.2 prime and was using that moreso for wedding work. The 60D was not good in low light so needed a faster lens, plus the soft image of early DSLRs benefits from shallow depth of field which made the image that was in focus appear sharper. I was also borrowing or renting a Canon 5D Mark II or Canon 7D a good amount during the time for multi-cam DSLR shoots.

When the Canon C300 Mark I came out, it looked amazing, but $16k was way beyond what I could afford as a wedding filmmaker making $200 to $500 to shoot (not edit) weddings. A year or so later though the Canon C100 Mark I came out at $6500, which while a lot of money for me at the time, was affordable to me, so I was able to buy one, which felt like my first actually good and featured video camera since the XH-A1s wasn't that great in terms of image quality. At some point around then I wasn't using the XH-A1s much so eventually sold it. I also bought a GH2 which was considerably sharper than the Canon 60D, so matched up better with my C100 for multi-cam interviews.

I started getting into church media and corporate work as a C100 shooter and was charging around $650 per day with a basic lighting and audio kit, along with a few church media projects I was also producing, shooting, and editing for around $1500-$5000, making around $45k per year at 25-26. The often self-started church media content I was producing and editing worked well to help me build a good portfolio of interviews and b-roll, the bread and butter of corporate and doc work, that later enabled me to land corporate and doc jobs. The 24-105 came with the C100 which coming from my one 35mm prime, I thought I would not use much, but upon seeing the better low light capabilities of the C100, the 24-105 ended up becoming by go to lens for a lot of my work, to the extent I later sold my Canon 35mm prime.

As I was doing lots of mulit-cam weddings and could use a second angle for interviews, eventually I bought a second C100, and then later a third C100 Mark II. My rates then were around $850 per day for corporate shoots, as well as getting some better freelance wedding filming pay around $500-$800.

Then the C300 Mark II was announced and I bought it for $16K when it first came out, excited by a new camera and being able to raise my rates, doing around $1200-$1500 day rate with it, though since I still had my C100s and still offered a tiered C100 rate at $850, the majority of my clients were still choosing the cheaper C100 option. I was making about $85K per year from 27-29.

I later bought a second C300 Mark II, at $16k again, and 27 days later Canon lowered the price of the camera by $4,000 to $12,000, which, fortunately B&H will honor price reductions and give refunds if it's within 30 days of purchase, so B&H refunded me $4,000 after a simple phone call.

Then a friend I worked for was renting an Arri Amira for a corporate shoot that I was DPing, so with our first chance to shoot on Arri, we decided to co-produce and co-direct a short film while we had the camera to put it to the test. When we first saw the shoddy log footage in VLC player, it was like, "Is this camera worth $50k?" But once we got it into Premiere, the LUT automatically applied, and the footage looked gorgeous, the answer was, "Yes." We didn't have the money to buy one quite yet, so we had discussed buying one together, which buying a camera with another person can have a variety of complications. Gladly, we did not go that route and both of us were able to save up enough to buy our own Arri cameras a few months later, he ended up opting for the Alexa Mini for about $10K more and I bought a new Amira for about $50k after paying for accessories. I paid about half of it in cash and the rest on credit card, and in the past and even now I just about always pay off my credit cards before interest is due so I never pay credit card interest, but in that one case it was the one time I ended up paying credit card interest since I didn't pay it off in time, which amounted to around $3,000. However, my first job with the Amira, for BMW, I charged them $3,000 as my new Arri day rate, which covered the cost of the interest I had paid.

Around this time I decided to move from Tampa, Florida where I was living to Atlanta, as I liked the cheap housing there, less hot weather, had some friends living there, and was starting to get some work up there, such as a feature film I had been booked to DP around there. I then started getting work in several different states, so became a traveling DP who owned a good amount of cameras. My house got burglarized at one point and my three C100s and C300 Mark II got stolen (the thieves were later caught and arrested and I got some of the gear back, but not the camears), so after getting a $27k insurance check (about $30k of gear was stolen), I then bought two more C300 Mark IIs (so had three) instead of buying more C100s, and now no longer offered my $850 C100 rate, and was just doing a C300 Mark II rate, around $1800-$2200 per day. I was staying busy, traveling a lot, doing about 130 shoot days per year, along with 50 or so days of traveling, and making around $200k per year, from age 31-33. It was mostly C300 shoots, but some clients would go for my $4K Arri day rate.

Since I do a lot of multi-cam shoots, I later bought two more Arri Amiras, used for about $17k-$23K each, probably around $50K for both after getting accessories. One of the Amiras the fan noise was loud, so I shipped it off to Arri NY repair for the fan repair which would cost $400, but when they got the camera they said the ND filter wheel was malfunctioning, the sensor needed to be replaced, the CFast slot was not working, and quoted me $17K for a repair, about the cost I'd paid for the camera. I don't know if UPS busted up the camera when it was shipped, although that seems unlikely that a rough shipping ride could have caused that type of damage, so I theorize either Arri repair accidentally switched my camera with someone else's, or they intentionally tried to scam me by damaging my camera and trying to get me to pay way more than the $400 for a basic fan repair. While I had gotten some well paid two Amira shoots, I hadn't actually booked any three Amira shoots, so it kind of worked out to me and after collecting a $16K insurance check, I had the broken camera shipped back to me unrepaired and then spent the money elsewhere instead of replacing the camera.

I was considering buying an Alexa Mini LF and perhaps Signature primes around then, but also wanted to buy a house as I was renting a house at the time (the classic DP conundrum of house or camera), and decided to buy a house instead of a Mini LF, which was the best decision ever, as this was 2019 before the housing market went up and I was able to buy a good quality 5400 sq ft house for pretty cheap ($410K).

A few months after buying my house, 2020 came later and Covid hit, which for 2-3 months was mostly no work, or taking whatever I could get, doing $800-$1500 jobs, which was low compared to the $2500 (C300) to $4000 (Amira) I had been doing at the time. But then after the initial Covid surge, three months in work began exploding, some things like remote interviews that would not have existed previously, clients wanting local crew instead of flying out their L.A. DP's, some DP's still choosing to not work for fear of getting Covid which left more work for those like me who wanted to work, so I got so busy I raised all of my rates, basically doubling them, doing $5,000 as my starting C300 rate, and $6000 as my starting Amira rate (these rates came with lighting, lenses, and basic audio equipment (no crew, which I often made extra money crewing and upcharging)). At that point my income at 34-35 went from the previous $200k to around $350k per year, it seemed largely due to Covid. But I had so much work from the Covid surge, that while I had enjoyed my job for the past 10 years, I was starting to get burned out by freelancing and the constant traveling, especially since I now had a nice house to go home to.

Covid also had people unloading film equipment so since work was going well for me I was able to snag some good deals, getting a five lens set of Arri Ultra primes for $27k and a 6 lens set of Canon cinema primes for $12k.

The C300 Mark III and C70 came out around then, but I was not in a particular hurry to upgrade, and the C300 Mark II's were still quite good, so it was kind of an annoying thing of feeling I'd eventually need to spend a bunch of money upgrading in order to stay current. I was tempted to buy an Alexa Mini used for around $35K, but about a year after the C300 Mark III came out I bought one used from a friend, later added a C70, and then perhaps 6-9 months later, a second C300 Mark III, and used those instead of the Mark IIs which got less and less work.

The FS7 was an often requested camera which I never liked and a lot the clients who insisted on it were lower budget reality TV clients offering around $1000-$2000 for 12 hour days, which wasn't enough incentive for me to buy one. Eventually I did buy two FS7s in 2021 as I heard a friend had gotten some better jobs with them, but after having them for several months I hadn't booked a single job with them, until eventually I got one job filming an interview with Morgan Freeman that paid $10K (the price I paid for the two cameras with accessories) that insisted on FS7, so after that job I had broken even on them, and haven't used them for another client job since then.

The Alexa 35 was announced last year and I immediately pre-ordered it, it looked great, and I figured instead of the $1500 per day I'm charging for the Amira, media, tripod, and batteries (not including myself or other gear), I could double it and charge $3,000 per day for a $100k camera. Then I was also thinking to get a higher end set of lenses, Master Primes, Supreme Primes, Master Anamorphics, or Leitz Hugo, and charge an additional $1k for those over Ultra Primes, and have an Alexa 35 day rate with say Master Primes starting around $10k per day, more if booking additional gear and crew upcharges. Doesn't sound so difficult to pay off a $100k camera at those rates, and I'd already been getting a fair amount of $10k+ day rates on two cam Amira jobs when booked with other gear and crew upcharges.


Being tired of the freelance traveling life, I began building a studio space and focusing on producing and directing more, investing a few hundred thousand dollars into the studio building and studio equipment, which enabled me to work locally more and not have to work for other people as I produce my own projects, and getting back to enjoying my work again and the feeling of making my own projects as opposed to freelance DPing which involves getting paid to make images for other people's projects.

This year the freelance corporate work slowed down a lot, I guess as a result of the economy and perhaps the strikes, so at times I was back to negotiating with clients more, asking their budgets, and doing jobs in the $1500-$3000 range. Also, my $5,000-$6,000 starting rates had not gone up over the past three years since the Covid surge, which, $5,000 in 2023 when accounting for inflation is about $4300 in 2020 money, so my rates had actually gone down over time due to inflation, and when I tried raising them to $6000 and $7000, I wasn't booking enough work, particularly since this year has been slow for corporate work in general, and many clients weren't even going for my $5,000 rate. The projects I was producing started bringing in some money and now it's gotten up to about $10k per month, so I'm working on increasing my revenue from my company projects to surpass my freelance DP work and then quit freelance DPing entirely. Focusing on my production company has also taken time away from freelance DPing, so I've had less time to respond to clients or do those jobs. This year I've had a reduction of income, probably making around $200-$250k for the year, down from $350k last year, but as my production company income is growing pretty rapidly, freelance DP work seems to be picking up this month and next with more high paying jobs again, and the strikes will hopefully be over by next year, so I am expecting next year to be very good financially.

Since I run a lot of multi-cam setups at my studio, this year I bought seven Sony FX30's, an additional Canon C300 Mark III and Canon C70, a Canon C200, and now that the Sony FX9 has become so popular and requested by corporate clients, I finally caved in and just bought two Sony FX9s this month, so I've now got over 20 cameras in use at my studio and for freelance DPing.

The Alexa 35 I had pre-ordered, AbelCine told me that I could keep my original pre-order price if I purchased it around this month, but I've been investing so much into my studio space, and my own projects don't really need a camera of that caliber, along with this year not having many freelance corporate clients who wanted to pay $10k+ day rates for freelance work, so I've found I was no longer in a position to justify a $100k camera purchase, and a week or two ago, AbelCine cancelled my order as Arri would no longer honor the introductory price, raising the price of the camera fairly significantly by around $15k or so. I've also seen the Alexa 35 rental market is not doing well (probably due to a lot of people including inexperienced DPs financing the camera and then renting it out for cheap, along with the strikes which I've heard has resulted in many rental houses having A35s collecting dust on their shelves), seeing the cameras on Sharegrid (at least in L.A.) for as low as $800-$1000, which is a low rental rate for a now $120K camera package, so I'll be curious to hear how Grug and Run&Gun do financially and with rentals with the A35, while also envying that they can still justify buying the best camera there is. AbelCine did offer me financing and it really tempted me, as well as me considering doing consignment as well, but freelance DPing just isn't what I want to be doing anymore, so investing in my studio makes more sense for where I'm at now.

The Sony Burano seems to have various limitations as an A-cam for freelance DP work, but if my business keeps growing I'm considering adding five or six Sony Buranos (not much different cost than one A35) to do 8K mulit-cam studio production, since I don't like Red or Blackmagic and the Burano is the only currently available non-Red and non-Blackmagic featured 8K video camera at its price point, and in an indoor studio mostly on tripods, dollies, or jibs, the lack of a proper viewfinder is not that important. It will be interesting to see what Canon's next line of cameras is and if they are 8K.

I'm also hoping to invest around $300,000 into adding a 2300 sq ft white cyc studio space, and dream to add a 23 ft technocrane to it for $200k, as owning a TechnoCrane has always been a dream of mine because those things and the shots they can do are so cool (I wonder if anyone here knows how the Scorpio compares to a TechnoCrane). I did buy a 16 ft ProAim Scissor Crane for $3500 which is a poorman's TechnoCrane, but it doesn't work nearly as well.

 

[Doug Jensen]

Let me know when the Cliff's Notes version is available.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Let me know when the Cliff's Notes version is available.

• Bought cameras
• Made money
• Bought more cameras
• Made more money
• Bought studio
• Made more money

 

[Doug Jensen]

Now that's a story with a happy ending!
Sounds quite similar to my own story. One camera buys the next, and so forth.