"Un"Professional Camera Choices of 2011- Where did you draw the line?

J

J Bellari

Active member
In the heat of the November 3rd, 2011 Hollywood announcements, non-"4K" cameras are deemed
not "Professional" according to some on the internet recently.

Maybe the right sentiment for late 2012 or 2013, who knows,
but the Epic wedding and ski video shoots of 2011 had me thinking...

... I am a user of the right camera for the right job, and I rent instead of own bodies above $10K...
was I "unprofessional" in 2011 for using an AF100, EX-1 and GH2 frequently this year instead of renting
more often?

2012 will be an interesting year, especially when those tasty FF 1080p or 4-8K+ choices arrive with decent codecs...

But where did you "professionally" draw the line and say shoot 4K or not at all this year?
 
Well, the day that I judge whether what I am doing is professional, based on the opinion of "...Some on the internet..." ain't today!
 
In the heat of the November 3rd, 2011 Hollywood announcements, non-"4K" cameras are deemed
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It just makes you laugh at how so many people have to justify their inner ego and always be above the others in filmmaking. They do this so only the people using the more expensive technology are considered good enough. The others just wannabes. It is just an intrinsic part of the inner workings of the people dominating and monopolizing the industry. Also is a way for camera and equipment manufacturers to continually introduce products to stay alive in business.
 
I'm going the opposite direction:

Due to the fact that the "Narrative films" that I am making are ...pretty lame...I've decided to shoot with a camera that is COMPLETELY unprofessional....seeing as it matches the work that is being shot on it. I'm going to shoot that way, until my films (story telling) catch up with my imaging. I'm not going to dramatically present the cat, a flower, my kids, or landscapes anymore. I'm going to tell stories....and until they are on a professional level....I'm not going to kid anyone....including myself.

I have great cameras and lenses....and this is my way of WAKING UP my own planning and story telling: so...I'm shooting on a pocketable, consumer camera, that doesn't have manual control, or even 24P. Sadly....it's still better than the stories that I'm telling....so, it looks like I'd better get to work. Back to work I go!
 
It's not the camera, it's the hands that operate it. You'll hear this time and time again on this forum because it's true! I've seen absolute CRAP shot with the RED (yes, even the EPIC), and I've seen phenomenal works of art and engaging cinema shot with the GH1 and DVX100B, and vice versa. I don't care what the minds at REDuser say... I can make any camera do the job I need it to do without subscribing to their 4K mindset. The same should be true for all of us. Keep in mind that the enemy of art is the absence of limitations.
 
Well, the definition of a professional that I've always adhered to is one who engages in a profession for the purposes of making their living. Whether that profession is the profession of doctor, or dentist, or lawyer, or film/video producer. On the other hand, a "hobbyist" would be someone who has a job elsewhere, and engages in the production of film or video as a hobby or a sideline rather than as their main profession.

So -- in that context, whether any particular camera or recording format is "professional" or not really depends on what the professional himself/herself is attempting to do, and whether or not that product lives up to that professional's standards and meets their requirements.

I would dare say that there are many professional video/film producers, perhaps not only the majority but the overwhelmingly vast majority, who will find 1080p perfectly adequate for their purposes for the foreseeable future. There may be some to whom 4K would be a requirement or would make their job easier, but I would think that would be a minority of shooters. Certainly nobody in the live TV industry is thinking about or requiring 4K, nobody in the news business or sports or events or weddings or other comparable disciplines will be likely to require 4k. Worldwide there's a lot of professional work still being done on DV.

But where did you "professionally" draw the line and say shoot 4K or not at all this year?
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When all your clients demand 4k.
 
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I learned to shoot on film, there was a range of format choices for different jobs and budgets -- 35mm, 16mm, Super 8 -- and I worked with all of them at different times and to different degrees (35mm, not really so much). In the still photography world, you could have been using anything from a 9.5mm Minox to an 8x10 view camera (or even beyond), again depending on the quality/time/conditions/budget requirements of a particular project. In the art department where I taught, you would start with super 8 film or a 35mm still camera, and "graduate" to 16mm or 4x5 as you advanced through the classes.

Today, electronic movie cameras range from 1/6" sensors through VistaVision and maybe beyond, and you can shoot at SD, 720, 1080 or 4K depending on your needs (and also a variety of codecs and recording media at each of those points -- the number of total combinations is bewildering).

A professional, I think, aside from being someone who makes money from his activities, is also one who knows how to choose the most efficient tool for the job and do that job well enough to keep the clients coming back. Some may do action photography with GoPros and others might want, need and be able to afford 4K Reds for some or all of their work. Some may choose to specialize in working at one end or the other of this spectrum or somewhere in the middle, and others may encounter the whole range of cameras, formats and budgets during their careers as they work on a variety of jobs. All these tools are "professional" in the right hands, and to be honest, as I look over new camera introductions, I don't really see that one end is growing any faster than the other. Quality is improving across the spectrum, but there are just as many small-sensor cameras coming on the market as large ones -- witness, for example, the Panasonic AC130/160 or Nikon's latest mirrorless still camera announcement. All of these are exciting and useful in their own way and address a particular group of users and their specific needs.

In the end, we're judged by the quality of our workmanship, not the tools in our chest.

- Greg
 
is also one who knows how to choose the most efficient tool for the job and do that job well enough to keep the clients coming back.
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Agreed, of course... I mean, any hack can hang out a shingle proclaiming that they're in business, but a professional is one who makes a self-sustaining business out of it.
 
Also, I'd add, a professional is someone who works to know their tools inside and out, and how to get the best result with them, rather than someone who expects new tools to be the primary road to better results. A professional won't show up for work with an unfamiliar and/or unproven tool because it's "better"; s/he prefers tools that are known and reliable; and chooses new tools based on experienced deficiencies and known needs rather than hype and novelty.

And, I agree with the strict definition of professional above - that a professional is someone who is doing something as a profession - but I've run onto many such professionals who are not professional, if you know what I mean…
 
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welcome to the video ghetto

. . .when the wind is right you can catch a whiff of old rotting 3/4" tapes
 
We all have our own standards, set by the work we do or hope to do. Some may have eye's bigger than their stomachs, others may have more confidence in their equipment than they do in their own skills. All that matters is you are doing what you want, and are happy with the product you are making. No person on the internet should be able to change that. We are living in great times no need for fighting over anything really, everything is great(in the world of cameras). Though some will find a reason to be mad or upset with another person or group no matter what, that is inevitable. Let's just remember that for the most part we are here to share, to learn, and to help each other out. Have a good one! it will be an interesting day no matter what!
 
J Bellari said:
but the Epic wedding and ski video shoots of 2011 had me thinking...
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Do you think that even wedding videographers will soon abandon their current camcorders and DSLR's for new hardware?

If so, then there should be a wealth of good used camcorders coming on the market soon. Perhaps I should wait for this impact on the market, and then get a steal on a used camcorder, even though it will no longer be considered "professional" grade.

.
 
Met a guy a couple of weeks ago who had bought a RED Epic… He boasted about how much better his cam was than my two AF100's.
So far his cam isn't fully functional - he doesn't have a project to shoot with it - he's trying to rent it out (but can't because it isn't fully functional), and has only shot some 'test' vids featuring his cat. --> He's a 'Real Pro'

In his eyes I'm not using a pro camera, but I shoot non-stop for paying ad agency clients (on Canada National campaigns) and (I think) I'm well respected amongst most of my peers.

In the end I don't give a C**P about what anyone but my paying clients think. I will be adding an F3 in the next few weeks because it will give *some* of my clients a little bit more of what they are looking for.

To me a 'Pro' camera is whatever gets the job at hand in the can.

G.
 
J Bellari said:
non-"4K" cameras are deemed not "Professional"
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Easy. These people just aren't thinking, because if they had really thought about it, they would have realized that it's groundless.

K ain't like MHz. Higher and higher, year after year, is not the goal to seek. "Well, in 2012, everything will be 4K, and then by 2020, 8K, and 2050, I'm sure we'll all be shooting, like, 100K! That's what progress is all about."

It doesn't just keep getting better and better, because the human eye is the limit, and its resolution is not infinite.

After a certain K, the difference is invisible. You are wasting pixels. You are throwing money down the drain. You are throwing dynamic range and light sensitivity down the drain. You are needlessly burning storage space and rendering time.

In the movie theater, it arguable that a squinter will tell the difference between 2K and 4K, but I seriously doubt far beyond that. At some point the K has to stop. Stop the K!

At the same time, 2K has a lot to commend it:

- It is good enough. I've done tests. Put a full-resolution wallpaper on your computer desktop. Sit back so that the screen becomes a 30 degree angle of view. Ask yourself, would this be sharp enough, especially for a moving image? Yes? Well, guess what, 2K is even sharper, because chances are your laptop screen is 1366 x 768 or something.

- It is widespread. De facto standards carry a lot of convenience. 1920 x 1080 is in a lot of places. It's in the AVC codec. It's what TV sets max out at. It's what a lot of projectors max out at. It's also 1/4 the data of 4K, which means 1/4 the media cost and rendering time.

2K was decided on after a lot of testing. Do you think the perfectionists at Arri decided on 2K so that they could keep their camera's price down? Even the HD standard was decided based on testing what audiences could actually see.

You can use 4K or 8K or whatever-K if you want, but for me I would be just as happy if cameras never go beyond 2K and simply keep improving in dynamic range, light sensitivity, color space, frame rate, global shutter, media cheapness, compression artifactlessness, real-time post effects, and all the other things that are actually useful and that will improve faster if we stay at 2K.
 
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A good chunk of my clients still can't tell the difference between SD and HD until I blow the footage up for them.

There is so much more to producing 'professional' work then the resolution of the camera.
 
I draw the line at giving the camera industry anymore of my my hard earned cash until it's absolutely necessary. New cameras and gear are getting released at a stupidly frequent rate, making last years model obsolete in some peoples eyes, and I'm sorry but it's all a load of s**t. yes, if you're working on high end TV drama, commercials and feature films i can appreciate the advantages of using the latest and greatest cameras and codecs, but for the majority of us it really doesn't matter a whole lot. you can get good footage out any camera if you know what you're doing with it. I know plenty of people, and i count myself as one of them, still making a living using "outdated" workhorse cameras like DVX100''s, dsr500's and Z1's.

I'm starting to find it frustrating now, as producers and directors with limited technical skill and knowledge (here in the UK at least) are expecting operators to be familiar with all these new cameras the instant they're released. I've seen too many job listings recently under the general format of "experienced f3 / af100 / xf300 /fs100 operator required, only apply if you have a large amount of relevant experience with said camera and showreel to prove it" and we're talking about cameras that have only been out for a few months for Christ sake! hardly anyone has "extensive experience" on any of them. more to the point the people who write the paychecks are forgetting that it's the operator, not the camera that makes the pictures, and most operators worth their salt adapt and change to whatever equipment they're handed, they don't need extensive experience on a camera that was released yesterday to be able to get good footage out of it, the fundamentals are the same no matter what you use.

This has turned into a right rant, but what I'm trying to say is it would just be nice if the manufaturers chilled the f**k out for a while, picked a format and stuck with it for more than a couple of years. rant over.
 
Joshbalti said:
"experienced f3 / af100 / xf300 /fs100 operator required, only apply if you have a large amount of relevant experience with said camera
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That's even dumber than in my day job (computer programming) where they ask for lots of experience in a certain language. You wouldn't have guessed if you're not a programmer, but once you learn one, it takes about two weeks to learn another.
 
androbot2084 said:
But if you could get 4K for the same price as 1080p wouldn't you want to go for 4K?
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No, because dollars are not the only price you pay. As I said:

dynamic range, light sensitivity, color space, frame rate, global shutter, media cheapness, compression artifactlessness, real-time post effects, and all the other things that are actually useful
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When all of those things are the same as 2K, then maybe I would consider it. But I don't see how many of them ever would be, because whatever you achieve at 4K, you can always use the same technology to get four times as much at 2K (frame rate or dynamic range, for example) and those things I can actually see.
 
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