C200: Upgrades in the current climate?

K

Kubicixfactor

Active member
So, looking for some views while I deliberate buying some kit or standing firm and keeping my hand out of my pocket! I’m a photographer by trade, but do some video work as well - mainly corporate stuff, some green screen interviews and events. Video accounts for about 30% of my total (pre lockdown) workload, my main work is commercial advertising photography. Video has been increasing though over the past year and for the last three months that’s been most of my work.

I shoot OMB with a C100 mkii with a Ninja Blade and it’s been brilliant. I’ve got a lot of Canon L glass and that’s been fine as well. I was seriously considering upgrading the C100 to a C200, mainly to get the better AF and also the CRL which will make green screen keying better. I was also considering an 18-80 CNE, none of my Canon zooms are particularly smooth and the servo looks like it would be a nice addition, plus it will be less kit to carry.

Because of the uncertainty now, I really can’t justify both (or either to be honest, at least until I can see how things pan out). But there are perhaps going to be some good deals emerging and I’ve already seen one come and go with a C200, ninja V and 2x 256gb Angelbird cards for almost the same price as a C200 was six weeks ago in the UK. So I’m leaning towards the c200 but there’s a big part of me (that I’m listening to) that says don’t do anything just yet and live with what I’ve got. The C100 has been great so far but I really wouldn’t want to miss a good deal. Perhaps isolation has made me indecisive or over cautious :) Any thoughts at all? C200, 18-80, both, or do nothing?
 
If you don't anticipate moving up to something else that may come along (psuedo NAB announcements in week or two?) it is a great time to buy used. As you've seen, people are offering items on ebay for almost half the price they were going for two months ago and they are not even getting bids. With them not getting bids (I've been watching the FS7, not the C200), I expect there may be room for them to go lower. Maybe not. People can only stand to take so much of a hit on their equipment before they decide to just keep it.
 
Thanks Paul, I’ve always stayed away from unnecessary upgrading with stills gear and I bought a lot of that used which still holds up just fine- most of my glass was bought used. Definitely worth considering.
 
I think making any gear purchases in the current situation is a risky move (unless you have a particular kind of work lined up, that can still happen, and therefore pay for it).

I got caught out with a hefty investment in a new set of cine lenses just before everything collapsed, and now all of the income that was going to pay off that outlay in the next few months is gone. I'd just be renting as-needed for the timebeing. Keep your cash reserves as liquid as possible.
 
Kubicixfactor said:
... Because of the uncertainty now, I really can’t justify both (or either to be honest, at least until I can see how things pan out). But there are perhaps going to be some good deals emerging and I’ve already seen one come and go with a C200, ninja V and 2x 256gb Angelbird cards for almost the same price as a C200 was six weeks ago ...
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I hadn't considered that you're going to sell the C100 if you move to the C200. Keep in mind that great deals on the C200 also mean really bad sales opportunity for you C100. You may not be able to swing the deal you want, unless you can afford to buy the C200 now and sell the C100 when the market picks back up, whenever that may be.
 
It's possible that some crazy deal on something could drop out of the sky that's too good to pass up, but right now I've locked down all gear purchases. While not on the same level as Grug, I did drop several grand on some new lights right before all of this happened and they haven't seen a lick of action.
 
It’s not a new rule since corona that you should buy gear only when you have the chance that your investment will pay off. Are you in this situation? I am not. I only shot two short CEO speeches in the last 30 days. Actually I hold my breath and I hold my money. I was considering a C500II and I’m quite relieved that I didn’t spend that money yet. I’d at least wait for the virtual NAB. A C300iii might be an option too.
Why would you consider the ninjaV for the C200? C200 output in 10bit is only 1080, 4K is 8bit.
 
To be honest I wasn't that bothered about the NinjaV, it was just packaged in the deal and virtually free. Yes do get the point about making the investment pay off and that's why I'm becoming more and more inclined to wait, or buy used. As a rule I don't buy the very latest gear but curious to see what's going to be announced in the coming weeks.
 
It all depends on your financial situation. If you have enough to pay your bills for the next six months and extra cash beyond that, sure, go for it.
If not, I don't think a lot of people are understanding the worldwide financial repercussions that we will experience over the next year from this event
and what that will do to many of us economically.

For me, I have all of the gear I need to do my job luckily and really don't need anything. It sounds as if you WANT to upgrade but you don't NEED to.
I have the C200 and I love it, it's great camera for the money. But from a client perspective, few of our clients want 4K and even fewer want to deal
with RAW (two of them do, amazingly). We had the C300 MKI and the C100 MKI before the C200 and 80% of our work we could still be doing on either
of those cameras.

Fasten your seatbelts, many people in our business may no longer be in our business in a month or two. Things are never going to be the same as they were,
the world has changed in the past two months. Don't buy any gear unless it will make your investment back and then profit, quickly.
 
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puredrifting said:
It all depends on your financial situation. If you have enough to pay your bills for the next six months and extra cash beyond that, sure, go for it.
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I was told that fort *any* one man business you need ,at least, a 6 month buffer. Easier said than done in the early days but we can do that now. Though I think this disruption my be a bit longer than 6 months overall re business.

puredrifting said:
If not, I don't think a lot of people are understanding the worldwide financial repurcussions that we will experience over the next year from this event and what that will do to many of us economically.
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Absolutely there will be knock on effects for some time and companies dissapearing, So the network is going to change as well as new ways of working.

puredrifting said:
For me, I have all of the gear I need to do my job luckily and really don't need anything. It sounds as if you WANT to upgrade but you don't NEED to.

Fasten your seatbelts, many people in our business may no longer be in our business in a month or two. Things are never going to be the same as they were,
the world has changed in the past two months. Don't buy any gear unless it will make your investment back and then profit, quickly.
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That is the key the difference between need and want. Also as things are rapidly changing as well as companies changing (dissapearing?) there will be lot of 2nd hand kit about in 3-6 months time. So spend this time thinking what you realy need and if you can pick up inexpensive 2nd had kit saving a lot of money. So I would say now is not the time to rush in to buying.
 
I saw two used c200 today. One was sold on eBay at 4,310€ with some accessories. 18 months and stilll under warranty. At least I would not buy new. But I’d still would wait. 1st how all goes on. It’s not very likely that when the lock down is over we get flooded with work. 2nd on more offers we will see in some weeks or months.
 
Clermond said:
I saw two used c200 today. One was sold on eBay at 4,310€ with some accessories. 18 months and stilll under warranty. At least I would not buy new. But I’d still would wait. 1st how all goes on. It’s not very likely that when the lock down is over we get flooded with work. 2nd on more offers we will see in some weeks or months.
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I've seen a lot of people who have, what is probably, a very overly optimistic view along those lines and think it's going to be non-stop to somehow make-up for months of nothing being done. There may be some things that kick into overdrive to make up for lost time to try to meet deadlines, but there is a lot of other stuff that is just gone forever, because the events were cancelled, not merely postponed. I mean I'd love to be wrong and hit the ground running and work 5-6 days a week from June until Christmas, but my chances of hitting the lottery are probably better.
 
Run&Gun said:
I've seen a lot of people who have, what is probably, a very overly optimistic view along those lines and think it's going to be non-stop to somehow make-up for months of nothing being done. There may be some things that kick into overdrive to make up for lost time to try to meet deadlines, but there is a lot of other stuff that is just gone forever, because the events were cancelled, not merely postponed. I mean I'd love to be wrong and hit the ground running and work 5-6 days a week from June until Christmas, but my chances of hitting the lottery are probably better.
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I agree. I personally have lost close to $20k from work that is not coming back because it was time sensitive and lost about $5k of work that has a good chance of coming back because it's for a delayed studio release for a film that is already in the can, just waiting to be released.
The upside is that this worldwide disruption will hopefully weed a lot of low end "noise" who just dabble in production, don't really have a client base and needlessly cause the market to bottom out because they "dabble" and don't bid out projects properly. I really think that right now
is the time to innovate and the few that truly can innovate and combine live streaming, traditional production and more remote production with footage shot by clients will prosper.

Example: I just finished editing a project this week I was slated to shoot the first week that quarantine was implemented. The shoot canceled and I lost that but the clients still had a desperate need for the actual video as their live buyers show/tour they normally do for their product was canceled due to the virus.
With some coaching from me, they got a hold of DSLR and shot footage of their products. It wasn't good footage, it wasn't well shot but luckily the products exist outdoor so they did have soft, indirect lighting as it was cloudy the day they shot so I had them mainly shoot lockoffs. They also had file still photographs of their products.
Together, we crafted a script, they sent me the footage, stills and VOs I had them record on their iPhones. Adding in some compression, leveling and Izotop RX, the VOs sound ok, not great but usable in a pinch.

Originally it was just supposed to be a day or two to edit but with the clients being so inimately involved, I ended up doing five full edit days. They are happy with the videos which are mostly just moving shot slide shows with VO and some simple animated graphics I came up with. The videos to the average person, are boring,
but to their buyers, the videos are gold. The client will land many hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of orders and it will largely be from a not very well done video that they shot and I edited. Sometimes well shot and lit with perfect sound just doesn't matter. They spent a few thousand bucks with me to put the whole thing together, it was
money well spent for them even though it stressed them out to try to do a semi-professional shoot on their own. The added benefit is they now know how difficult it can be to get professional results from something as simple sounding as stationary objects. They complained that the area around the products was super noisy,
they only had one battery so they had to keep stopping and recharging, it was hard to tell if the camera was in focus, etc. Next time I shoot for them, they will appreciate what we do even nore than they have in the past because they've now tried it on their own.

It wasn't a lot of money but since UI, PPP and EIDL hasn't came through yet and savings are dwindling, I found a way to make some money even in these crappy conditions. It's going to continue to be crappy in our business for the foreseeable future so thinking outside the box is going to become the new norm, just to survive. A lot of people aren't going
to be willing to work their butts off, innovate, reinvent the wheel, use their imagination and provide services and skills that clients just can't put together on their own. They will hopefully drop out of the business, making a bit more room for those who have what it takes when things get tough.
 
Agreed and really good advice here, so thanks everyone. I’ve had a good talk to myself tonight and decided to tighten my grip on my wallet and I’ll get by with what I’ve got (even if offers do fall out of the sky). I’ve shot some great footage with my C100 so I’ll stick with that, it doesn’t owe me anything but it’s not a good idea to buy anything at the moment with so little video work in the schedule. On the plus side I’m getting a lot of demand for studio product photography so grateful for that. Let’s hope we all come out of the other side of this ok, there’s much bigger things to focus on than kit at the moment to be honest.
 
It’s off topic but one upside is that I enjoy being with my wife all the time. We never do exciting holidays and mostly just airbnb somewhere nice not too far. Just now it feels a bit like that. You cannot change the situation but change the perspective. Happy Easter!
 
puredrifting said:
I agree. I personally have lost close to $20k from work that is not coming back because it was time sensitive and lost about $5k of work that has a good chance of coming back because it's for a delayed studio release for a film that is already in the can, just waiting to be released.
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That’s bad. Like you my loss is about 20k. April- June is big for me. I’ve had Proms cancelled - for the first time I had a full ten days booked for still photography plus private shoots during the day, also had some big events scheduled in June and July that won’t be rescheduled and to top it all I heard today (after chasing an unpaid invoice) that one of my main commercial clients look like they’re going under. So a big reality check for me :( Things aren’t going to be the same for a long time. On the plus side I’ve picked up some graphic design work for a company who are delivering corporate training online rather than face to face so focusing on pushing that hard as a service.

Still love to get my hands on a C200, it’s been on my list for a long time but it’s just not going to happen now.
 
There is the long and fine tradition of renting- more flexible with online services like LensPro and Sharegrid/Kitsplit.
I just happened to sell my C300M2 Feb 27 this year. Thought of replacing it, sorta- but I really sold it because most of my corp clients have equipment (multiple studios of gear), and larger projects rent other cameras. In other words, not really getting the kit rental I used to get because many jobs are Sony or Arri shoots.

I've had some shoots- directly related to/because of the virus. Rented a C200 from a local shop- still open for curbside pickup/drop-offs. Worked out fine.

On renting: the bodies can be pretty cheap to rent. All the accessories are killer. If you have camera support, glass, base plates, matte boxes, filters, follow focus, MONITORS, etc etc, renting really isn't a bad way to go these days, if the local rental market is large enough to support your work.

If anything I"ll pickup some new lenses (full frame), lens adapters, and probably a mirrorless camera for "other" shoots. FWIT I live an hour away from Manhattan- but still find renting viable- for now. (also it does become a producer problem when I'm hired to just dp.)
 
FWIW, the march sales figures are out for Japan and they're ~ 50% off. And the kicker here was that Japan wasn't even on lockdown in March. Connecting the dots, there's a ton of all sorts of gear laying around in warehouses and store shelves.

Car industry is more public with their numbers. The sales were down 35% in March but a lot of production plants were shut down as well. Total sales are expected to be down about 12% for the year but this doesn't mean a huge excess of inventory.
 
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