Hey everyone! Well, I have been shooting with my GH3 for a while now but my recording studio is diversifying and we have begun shooting videos of concerts, bands in clubs and at other venues etc. As you all know the GH3 is not great in low light situations. With that said I am looking to take the next step and move into a dedicated video camera. However, I am pretty clueless on where to even start looking since there are so many options out there.
The camera needs to be pretty diverse. I will be shooting low light venues, interviews, short documentaries and maybe a few commercials. Price: $3k -$4k. Closer to $3k is best.
That raises the 1st question: do I get a camcorder with a fixed zoom lens such as Panasonic/JVC/Sony or go with an interchangeable lens camera such as the Blackmagic Ursa Mini with EF mount.
Here is what I am noticing between these cameras as far as usability etc. The Ursa Mini's interchangeable lenses allows for greater creativity (shallow depth of field), it has a super 35mm sensor (low light shouldn't be an issue), easy to accessorize to fit needs (lights, rig and XLR etc), ergonomics (viewfinder location & shoulder mount), packaged with Davinci Resolve... The negatives: storage is expensive and requires support gear greatly adding to the investment. Viewfinder is an additional $1500. Ouch! Fixed lens cameras: Ready to go out of the box, zoom lens to quickly adapt to various shooting positions, storage is much cheaper (SD variants), built in ND filters. The negatives: Fixed lens (no depth of field), hard to shoulder mount due to viewfinder location (less stable hand held), many under $3500 are smaller sensors (bad low light compared to Blackmagic?).
These are just some very preliminary observations. I would love to hear more about which way you think I should go and why...
Thanks!
Greg
The camera needs to be pretty diverse. I will be shooting low light venues, interviews, short documentaries and maybe a few commercials. Price: $3k -$4k. Closer to $3k is best.
That raises the 1st question: do I get a camcorder with a fixed zoom lens such as Panasonic/JVC/Sony or go with an interchangeable lens camera such as the Blackmagic Ursa Mini with EF mount.
Here is what I am noticing between these cameras as far as usability etc. The Ursa Mini's interchangeable lenses allows for greater creativity (shallow depth of field), it has a super 35mm sensor (low light shouldn't be an issue), easy to accessorize to fit needs (lights, rig and XLR etc), ergonomics (viewfinder location & shoulder mount), packaged with Davinci Resolve... The negatives: storage is expensive and requires support gear greatly adding to the investment. Viewfinder is an additional $1500. Ouch! Fixed lens cameras: Ready to go out of the box, zoom lens to quickly adapt to various shooting positions, storage is much cheaper (SD variants), built in ND filters. The negatives: Fixed lens (no depth of field), hard to shoulder mount due to viewfinder location (less stable hand held), many under $3500 are smaller sensors (bad low light compared to Blackmagic?).
These are just some very preliminary observations. I would love to hear more about which way you think I should go and why...
Thanks!
Greg
