Trading gear... your simple guage?

[mcbob]

So....... what's your rough limit on conversations justifying your gear as "just as good" to prospective clients before you just break the fudge down and sell whatever tryhard camera you have in exchange for whatever system will avoid those conversations for at least the next few years?

(and yes, FS5, you should look worried over there on my shelf)

 

[puredrifting]

So....... what's your rough limit on conversations justifying your gear as "just as good" to prospective clients before you just break the fudge down and sell whatever tryhard camera you have in exchange for whatever system will avoid those conversations for at least the next few years?

(and yes, FS5, you should look worried over there on my shelf)

Honestly, in the years I've been in the business, this is a losing conversation. Clients, if they know anything or care about the equipment you use, seem to ONLY accept what they learned or what someone brainwashed them into thinking as "good". Trying to convince them otherwise is counterproductive.
We had a viable PC alternative to ProTools called Soundscape, back when PT was Mac only. No matter what we did, how we proved it, clients only wanted to hire us for post sound work if we bought ProTools. Used to be that way with AVID too, FCP, Premiere used to both be considered toys by clients so we rented them AVIDs,
back when buying an AVID cost more than $100k. Recently have gone through this with the C300 MKII and FS7 and soon people will go through it with the FX-9 and C500 MKII. We have the C200, which actually is capable of better images than the C300 MKII, plus 4K 60p, internal RAW, etc. But if a client thinks that HAVE to have
a C300 MKII to hire us, we get a C300 MKII. Or an FS7. Or whatever they want. We have a pretty large corporate client who thinks everything but RED is a joke. So we occasionally rent a RED package when we shoot for them.

We like rental days for our C200, but we're not a camera rental house, we're a production company. We make a little more when we can rent out our package but we still make good money off of grip, lighting, sound package too and sometimes post if the client wants us to handle that. We're going to probably pick up a used C300 MKII and
an FX-9 this year, if we start renting them too much and I have a feeling the FX-9 is going to be huge with lower end clients. That's the key. If you have just a few clients asking for a specific camera, rent it. If it becomes a regular thing, buy it because then your chances of paying it off quickly and going into profit every day that you shoot with it
are very good. We did that with our C200 package. One project paid for it. Now every day we get hired with it means $400.00 to $600.00 profit, depending on lenses and accessories they need.

Don't lose sleep over this, approach it like a business person, not an artiste!