Used Varicam 35 & LT kits selling (relatively) cheap? Crazy to buy one in 2023?

[drboffa]

That's the part I'm actually interested in. Which of the above can produce a perfectly useable image at, let's say, 5000 ISO? The Varicams do show a certain amount of noise there (it's not directly comparable to the native 800 mode in that regard), but I've always been able to knock it out using NR without any penalty. It's been a long time since I've used a Canon so I don't know where they stand. I thought I'd long heard the Blackmagics don't stand up in the high ISO category. So I'd love to learn how the other manufacturers stack up in this regard!

The FX6 is, in my view, pretty clean at the higher base ISO of 12,800 in Cine EI mode. Generally I'm treating the camera like it's at ISO 6400 when I shoot in High base ISO (which makes it even cleaner), and I find the image looks great. It's not as clean as the low base of 800 but it's perfectly usable.

That said, I don't have personal experience with a Varicam so I can't comment on how it compares.

 

[CharlesPapert]

The way I mostly use high ISO is generally not for low-light shooting as I'm mostly in controlled environments, it's for flexbility. I described the stage work at 2000 above, but also it will allow me to regulate depth of field on a shot-by-shot basis, as well as not having to think ahead about high speed or skinny shutter shooting where I'd normally have to light a set to a higher level to accommodate the stop loss in those scenarios. On last week's job I had a couple of instances of needing to hold focus on characters that were on slightly different planes, so it was super useful to be able to chunk in two extra stops just by switching from 800 to 3200. Similarly, shooting action on multiple cameras with one on a longer lens and the AC having some focus issues, I could do the same and make things easier for them. In these scenarios it is important to have the image remain consistent as possible since you are cutting between the standard ISO and the higher one (vs an entire scene or segment that is shot night exterior where every shot will be at that higher ISO), so it does help to have the similar native ISO's to keep the dynamic range in a similar place vs gaining up which shifts the range.

 

[Tom Roper]

In the case of the U12K, there is only one native ISO, 800 but because the sensor is ISO invariant, the dynamic range is exactly the same at 3200 as at 400 (or 800). There is no gain so noise is not added, it's the same everywhere. It could still feel like there is more at 3200 but it's observationally more visible because exposure is often darker during the times you would use it, but not always. For example, if you shoot at 800, you have 6 stops of latitude over middle gray, but if you shoot at 3200 there are 8 stops of latitude over middle gray. So if you were shooting bright snow scenes and wanted extended highlight detail, you could use 3200 and ND. And you could go the other way with it as well for extended shadow detail. The ISO invariance also means that pushing exposure in post is the same as doing it in-camera. The small pixels have concerned shooters but half of the total are clear, no RGB filtration. The other half of the total pixels are evenly split between R,G and B. I agree you are exposing, lighting and managing DOF intelligently. Similarly for DOF as you mentioned, you could stop down 2 stops for actors on different planes while not affecting image consistency because you are not actually changing ISO, just indexing exposure. The U12k does not have dual stage ISO.

 

[Tom Roper]

Just to follow on the points about DOF and EI, (this video which popped up for me) I ran two of the angles, (the tighter shots):

1.) House Left (stage right) - Sony F55 (pictured below)
2.) House Right (stage left) - Panasonic GH5s

The DP was a meddler and spoiled his own shots from House Center by overexposing his highlights and mis-focusing. He also meddled with mine but not on these particular segments of the show thankfully. He did do a post zoom on my shot from the F55 which was alright, since I was shooting 4K, (the only one). But on my F55 angle, as described by Charles I used EI to mange DOF to keep the guitar strings in focus with a soft blur on the background print.

 

[Run&Gun]

I've only ever recorded to the P2 cards. I have Atomos recorders in case I ever need to go that route, but have had no reason yet to do so.

Run&Gun...yikes, that's a pretty damning review! I think it's reasonably fair to suggest that the ability to meet a "true 4K" mandate was indeed part of the reason they got some attention, but the dual ISO feature was really quite huge for a number of users, including me. I shot my first series on the V35 in 2016 and was able to light a stage with less than half the wattage I would have with Alexas, which significantly stretched our lighting budget.For the next few years I alternated between Varicam and Alexas depending on the requirements of the job, but having the Alexa top out at 1250 ISO represented a two stop functional difference and that was significant to me. To date I've shot something like seven seasons of episodic television spread out acrosss multiple shows, and a number of commercials and short films. As a point of reference, I can only remember using the original 2/3" Varicams a few times, I used the F900's much more in those days. And even though I owned a DVX100 for a couple of years, I was never much of a fan of the Panasonic "look" through those years, was more of a Sony guy. To me the Varicam was a big step up in noise management and color science, and much better than Sony's offerings at the time (F55, F5). So, interestingly enough, we had exactly the opposite experience!

Below are a few frame grabs from my first series on the V35 as mentioned above. The bottom two are from the apartment set on stage. Shooting at 2000 ISO I could use a 5k instead of 10K as the sun source and smaller instruments to light the translight backdrop outside the windows.

Don't get me wrong Charles, I don't like "beating up" on the VariCam's. I own three of the earlier models(a 27H and 2x 2700's) and loved them(still use the 2700's). But from where I sat, the 3rd gens just didn't take off. None of my clients, that were previously heavy into VariCam/Pansonic, wanted them, with grumblings in the grapevine, that some were "dissuading" their use(the V35/LT). And from an operator perspective, I just didn't like the re-design. I know part of Panasonics motivation was to get away from ENG styled bodies to help separate them from the previous 2/3" models, but as an op, I really did not like them as much. I actually liked the V35 better than the LT, though. They did have some cool and unique feature, at least at the time. I also really liked the control panel, but it's integration/implementation on the LT was just really bad.

Yeah, Arri's definitely are not 'low-light' cameras, for sure. Well, I haven't gotten my A35, yet, but you can say that anything with an ALEV III sensor is going to look it's best at 800 and below. 1250 is as high as I wanna push it. 1600 is noise-eee. I don't even like using it in "doc" situations.

If it had had client acceptance in my world, I would have gotten one, for sure.

 

[CharlesPapert]

In the case of the U12K, there is only one native ISO, 800 but because the sensor is ISO invariant, the dynamic range is exactly the same at 3200 as at 400 (or 800). There is no gain so noise is not added, it's the same everywhere.

Thanks for this info Tom, I haven't used a Blackmagic since the earliest gen's so I am not familiar with all this. Appreciated.

 

[CharlesPapert]

For sure, the IQ is the primary draw. I was just thinking that my love for Panasonic cams over the years (having shot with dvx, hvx, hmc150, af100, gh1 gh2 gh4 gh5mkii) might make me especially susceptible to being drawn to their aging flagships models now.

Interestingly, I had little interest in the Panasonics prior to the Varicam models. I owned a DVX100 for a couple of years (when I first joined this board, back in 2004!) but I had owned a couple of Canon XL series prior to that and generally preferred their picture. Did a few shoots with the HVX owned by the director some years later, and once or twice with the SDX and HDX900's. My usual complaint with the 1/3" Panasonics were that they seemed noisier than their counterparts, and this of course before we had easy access to good noise management software. I recall the day I "met" the V35 for the first time at Abel Cine, I had mild curiousity but the dual ISO feature was really interesting to me. A round of testing later, I was sold. I feel like the Varicam sensor and processing was a total departure from their previous cameras (hence why I don't really feel like they are a spiritual sibling to the earlier Varicams other than the badge). But, that's just me! Below is a still of my operators with the V35's on the first show I used them on, in 2016 --looks pretty chunky by today's standards!

 

[norvan5]

Below is a still of my operators with the V35's on the first show I used them on, in 2016 --looks pretty chunky by today's standards!

Beast of a rig! Looks well balanced on the shoulder though, so do-able! What was the show? Thanks for sharing.

As a small business/owner op casually eyeing up the occasional cheap(ish) Varicam 35 deals that crop up, this thread has been most helpful. There are compelling real world reasons not to bite, well ventilated here already. I can summarize the cons for me as:

1. Still an expensive cam at my level even if you get a steal of a deal at less than 5k.
2. It’s getting long in the tooth, so eventual malfunction would be a concern.
3. The PL mount - I have mostly ZF.2 nikon mount glass and rarely have the budget to rent a PL prime set. I could swap out the PL mount for Nikon (mtf make an adapter) but that’s adding €500.
4. The advice here that producers generally don’t rate/know much about the cam is well taken.
5. I don’t own P2 Express cards, just regular P2 cards for my HVX (love that 720p!). I have a blackmagic video assist that could handle 4k from the varicam, so there’s a workaround. P2 Express cards themselves are relatively expensive media that I couldn’t re-use in other cams, so not a great investment.

The IQ and dual iso are still very attractive as is the overall ‘wow’ factor for me of such a cinema cam form factor, but I’m parking my GAS for now on grounds that the cons outweigh the pros.

Thanks to you all for all the great advice and input here.

 

[CharlesPapert]

Beast of a rig! Looks well balanced on the shoulder though, so do-able! What was the show? Thanks for sharing.

"Mary + Jane", same show as the frame grabs I put in post #7. After that show got canceled by MTV, I took Varicams on S1 of Cassandra French's Finishing School (Audience Network), S1 and S2 of Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television (Youtube Premium), pilot for Barbarian and the Troll (NIckleodeon), and S5 and S6 of Crank Yankers. The latter was interesting as the showrunner dictated the camera choice to me in my interview, he had been working with them on the pre-tapes for Jimmy Kimmel Live, and I was more than happy to oblige. It was when the show came back for the last season that I decided to purchase mine, and after 16 weeks of rental the camera paid for itself at least twice! Panasonic's cinema division asked me to give a talk about Crank Yankers at their now-defunct Studio City headquarters, and I made this clip to show at that talk which was a pretty fun behind the scenes of the show.

Note: for some reason the link below won't work as a clickthrough. I've tried using the link feature here, and changing settings on the video itself but it won't play nicely so you'd have to cut and paste to view this (can anyone help?)

https://vimeo.com/papert/crankyankers?share=copy

 

[NorBro]

There's no video there even if you copy/paste it (or use the Vimeo video code)...maybe it's not public on your end?

 

[Run&Gun]

Beast of a rig! Looks well balanced on the shoulder though, so do-able! What was the show? Thanks for sharing.

As a small business/owner op casually eyeing up the occasional cheap(ish) Varicam 35 deals that crop up, this thread has been most helpful. There are compelling real world reasons not to bite, well ventilated here already. I can summarize the cons for me as:

1. Still an expensive cam at my level even if you get a steal of a deal at less than 5k.
2. It’s getting long in the tooth, so eventual malfunction would be a concern.
3. The PL mount - I have mostly ZF.2 nikon mount glass and rarely have the budget to rent a PL prime set. I could swap out the PL mount for Nikon (mtf make an adapter) but that’s adding €500.
4. The advice here that producers generally don’t rate/know much about the cam is well taken.
5. I don’t own P2 Express cards, just regular P2 cards for my HVX (love that 720p!). I have a blackmagic video assist that could handle 4k from the varicam, so there’s a workaround. P2 Express cards themselves are relatively expensive media that I couldn’t re-use in other cams, so not a great investment.

The IQ and dual iso are still very attractive as is the overall ‘wow’ factor for me of such a cinema cam form factor, but I’m parking my GAS for now on grounds that the cons outweigh the pros.

Thanks to you all for all the great advice and input here.

If I recall, you can use regular P2 cards for some shooting/recording scenarios.

 

[DustinSchmidt]

There's no video there even if you copy/paste it (or use the Vimeo video code)...maybe it's not public on your end?

If you go to Vimeo and type "Charles Papert" into the search bar then you should see the Panasonic video in the first 3 items. Or you can also search more specifically for "DP Charles Papert on shooting on VariCam"

 

[NorBro]

Yeah, I've seen many of his - but that doesn't solve the link question he asked as sometimes they are unlisted videos that are shared which aren't public so a Vimeo search wouldn't find any specific example that's trying to be shared.

And sometimes the forum is just breaking links or redirecting randomly, ha.

 

[CharlesPapert]

If you go to Vimeo and type "Charles Papert" into the search bar then you should see the Panasonic video in the first 3 items. Or you can also search more specifically for "DP Charles Papert on shooting on VariCam"

Appreciated, but that's a different video than the one I was trying to post. I've made that video public (it was unlisted but should have been viewable and embeddable with link) and it's still not working. Baffling.

 

[norvan5]

If I recall, you can use regular P2 cards for some shooting/recording scenarios.

I assumed you couldn’t because the physical thickness of a P2 Express card is different to a regular P2 card, but you are indeed correct! The Varicam 35 will take all kinds of P2 cards, with the downside to using regular P2 cards according to Panny being the following restrictions:

• The P2 memory card cannot be used with the 4K format, ProRes format, [AVC-Intra2K 444] format, [AVC-Intra444] format, or when the variable frame rate function is enabled.
  
  However, if [MAIN PIXEL] is set to [1920×1080] and [MAIN CODEC] is set to [AVC-Intra100], the F series P2 memory card can be used even if the variable frame rate function is enabled.
• P2 memory cards of 2 GB cannot be used.
• R, A, and E series P2 memory cards cannot be used for 1080/59.94p and 1080/50p.
  
  However, they can be used when [MAIN CODEC] is set to [AVC-LongG25].