Video equal, will you sell your 7D for a T2i?

Video equal, will you sell your 7D for a T2i?

  • Yes will sell 7D

    Votes: 30 13.8%

  • No, im keeping 7D

    Votes: 123 56.7%

  • Dont have a 7D

    Votes: 64 29.5%
  • Total voters
    217
shaocaholica said:
just that a new market for cheap(er) vDSLRs is growing and many of its members may want RED but won't be able to afford it so all they have left to count on are the vDSLR makers.
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This is very, very true. The only frustration here is when those who do have to settle for the low-cost product then turn around and try to insist that it's on par with or even better than the purpose-built, superior-in-every-way product.

There's no question that the DSLR makers have caught the eye and wallet of the indie film crowd. They've definitely delivered products that many of us think are "close enough" or "good enough." I guess what drives many of us batty is the "ostrich" mentality of many folks to simply not see, or not WANT to see, what the differences are. It's somehow that if we point out that a DSLR has aliasing, that's somehow taking away mr. indie filmmaker's dreams and his career.

The simple fact of the matter is, the DSLRs are compromises. They're incredibly cheap, and they're cheap for many valid reasons. We should all be okay with that.
 
shaocaholica said:
I never said in the present. Look around you at how much technology is progressing.
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But -- what's the point in talking about the future? It's not like everyone else is going to just stand still. Five years from now you might have an iPhone with a 2/3" chip and no rolling shutter. Five years from now POV-cams might be all the rage. Five years from now a Scarlet might go for $499. And within five years you can almost bet your house that Panasonic, Canon, and Sony will all have properly-engineered large-sensor video cameras on the market.

So, fine -- the future will change, okay. But what we should be concerned with is: what can we do NOW? And now, the GH1 and 7D and T2i are fine for the budget shooter.

While we're on (or trailing off) the subject that yes, we've got a GH1 film in SXSW, did you guys also know that a film we did was the short film that screened in the opening-night red-carpet gala at Slamdance? Slamdance is another of the top-10 films in the world. And what was that film shot on? An HVX200. Not even a 200A, the original 200. How many folks here, in the DSLR thread, would consider a 200 "beneath" them? We took an HVX200 film to Slamdance, an HPX170 film to Tribeca* (another of the top-10 fests in America), and a GH1 film to SXSW.

The products are good enough. Just buy whichever one you like and go shoot!

*"Cold Calls" was in the Delta Fly-In Movies program at Tribeca
 
From a DSLR 'brain' standpoint, it seems to me that the ideal D-Cine camera would be S35 or APS-C sized sensor at around 6 or 8 MP (can you imagine the low light capabilities?), running at 24fps - ideally variable. This doesn't seem too far out of the realm of possibility in terms of computing power, since the 7D is pulling off 8fps with 18MP. The data throughput should be around the same.

There are at least a couple of problems, none of which are really technical in nature:
1) This makes no sense as a still camera
2) The D-Cine market is comparatively small, so what manufacturer would take the R&D money to do something like this other than Red?

I think all the talk about convergence is basically rubbish (are stills guys REALLY going to use a Scarlet as their primary stills camera...REALLY?), I think DIvergence is far more likely. D-Cine has different needs than does ENG, but ENG is a much larger market. Obviously, D-Cine has different needs than stills camera, but maybe more in common with stills than ENG. So you basically end up with D-Cine capabilities always stuck in a compromised situation: an ENG camera with no lens choices and a small sensor, or a stills camera with compromised video quality and lacking other necessary features.

The general trend in photography, which is where D-Cine really hails from, is towards less quality and more convenience. How many people shoot 8X10 film? 70mm motion pictures? S35 has LESS resolution than a roll of 35mm you can pick up at WalMart, but for the convenience aspect of hauling around a heavy mag, it makes sense - and it's good enough. And maybe that's where we are at today with the GH1 and 7D - they are good enough for many circumstances...

Just my .02
 
Yeah Barry but those films you mentioned had nothing to do with the cameras used... It had everything to do with the script, the quality acting, the art direction, the attention to detail, the..... wait.... what's my point again..????


Ok... I get it. Point taken.
 
Great! While I was typing out my diatribe, Barry came in and made my main point - twice! :) So I'll say it again, just to catch up: For many situations, these cameras are good enough.

SIGH...nonlinear conversations. :)
 
Barry_Green said:
So, fine -- the future will change, okay. But what we should be concerned with is: what can we do NOW? And now, the GH1 and 7D and T2i are fine for the budget shooter.
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Totally agree that you can't just sit around waiting for the 2nd coming. If you can only afford a vDSLR, then get something now and hope for the best in the future. My biggest gripe is when people insist that vDSLRs have peaked and will never better than what they are now even though they have been getting better since day 1.
 
Honestly, to me, it seems like in a round about kind of way we are all coming to the same conclusions or end up saying the same things over and over. Makes me wonder what we are arguing (discussing) about. I think it just boils down to some are more frustrated than others...maybe.
 
Hey Barry,

Not sure if this is the place to put this question or not, but can you talk about your camera choices for each of the films a bit? It seems like budget would not be a limiting factor here, so I'm especially interested in your choice of the GH1. Especially since I am getting one, and you seemed to refer to it more as a 'personal camera' in your 7D vs. GH1 article, as well as saying that the 7D was better for D-Cine usage?
 
It seems like budget would not be a limiting factor here, so I'm especially interested in your choice of the GH1. Especially since I am getting one, and you seemed to refer to it more as a 'personal camera' in your 7D vs. GH1 article, as well as saying that the 7D was better for D-Cine usage?
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Budget is always an issue. These are short films, you don't want to go spending tens of thousands of dollars on them (although, when I look back on how much I've spent on them... yep, cumulatively, it's tens of thousands of dollars. Sigh.)

Anyway, why the GH1 instead of the 7D? Probably the simplest answer is: the 7D wasn't out yet when we made "Depth of Phil". We did that last July, the GH1 was the hottest/newest thing, so we wanted to give it a try.

When we made "Little Mouth To Feed" (Slamdance '09) we actually shot that back in 2007, on an HVX200 with the brand new prototype Letus Extreme. We did two films that week, LMTF and also "Unawakening", which we shot on an HPX500. Very different visual signatures for those two; LMTF was more traditional cinema, whereas Unawakening had more of a live/urgent "24" kind of feel to it. Cold Calls we did in 2008 (I think?) and by that time I'd sold my HVX200 and bought an HPX170, so we used that, with the Letus Ultimate.

If we were making Depth of Phil today, I don't know whether I'd go with the 7D over the GH1... we actually made two pics that week, and for the second one, unquestionably the GH1 was the right choice, but for Phil... it could just as easily have been a 7D as a GH1.
 
To extend further on what Barry said. I think if you are making short films, music videos or anything for yourself - get a GH1. The features on that cam outshine canon.
(histos, articulated lcd, flange length for FD's etc)
If you are getting odd paid gigs or regular paid gigs, get a 7D, because your client is not going to want to deal with pulldown removal in post.
(for fun, go to craigslist > gigs in any large US city and do a search for 'GH1' and another search for '7D' and compare, here in NYC there are no gigs for gh1, plenty for 7D)
 
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