hamurabi wrote:how bad is the fact that the camera doesnt have IBIS since i will use a gimbal?
i am still trying to be sure that it will be the right gear for me (travelling,landscapes,nightshots in cities) or maybe i should check GH5 LUMIX or something similar.
my total income can't stand many tests to find the gear i need so i am trying toi do the best research
These types of questions are why myself, and others, have commented that it took them several complete setups and many years to really understand what they shoot, how they shoot it, and what equipment is the best set of compromises.
I think there is a very high probability that your first setup will not work well for you.
I see a few potential strategies that you can use to minimise your financial losses as you experiment and learn:
- Buy everything second hand. This will ensure that if/when you discover the equipment doesn't work well for you then you won't take a large loss when re-selling it again.
- Work out what setup you want and hire it. If you're planning to shoot travel content then hire the setup for a day and do a test by doing a few tourist activities close to your own home and see how the setup works.
- Learn in stages - see more below.
I highly suggest that you learn in stages by doing lots of testing BEFORE you travel. Here's a potential approach, but there are other variations that could also work for you:
1) Take whatever camera you have (maybe your phone) and shoot an outing in your own town/city. Shoot anything and everything. Bring it home and edit it into a finished video. If you're anything like I was, this will be a failure as you probably didn't even get enough of the right shots to string together an edit, or you messed up the shots. When I first started filming I was moving the camera around non-stop, and this is extremely common, but it basically makes the footage unusable in the edit.
Keep doing little trips until you have worked out what type of shots you like, and can actually produce a finished edit. (Note: this has the lovely side effect of getting you out of the house with family/friends and gives you nice footage of them as a momento - not a bad outcome at all! I regularly shoot these types of things in order to practice so that when I am overseas I know what I'm doing already).
It's a good idea to watch BTS videos of travel films while you're in this phase, so that you can see what other people are doing and also imagine what it would be like to do things how they do them. For example, you don't need to own a gimbal to understand that having something huge and highly-conspicuous that you have to wield like a medieval sword isn't the easiest way to film in public.
2) Once you've figured out the shots you like (or the shots you wanted to get but couldn't get with your phone / existing-camera) then you can start to narrow things down and start buying equipment, but I'd suggest you buy very cautiously or rent it at this stage. For example, let's say you have decided on a Pocket 4K, a gimbal, and a 12-40mm lens. You might buy the camera and lens and take it out shooting and discover that the lens isn't wide enough, or isn't long enough, or doesn't let in enough light. You may discover that your editing setup isn't good enough, or that you can't get the look you want from the camera (colour grading is an art in itself and great colour looks easy but can be incredibly difficult to achieve).
3) Review what worked and what didn't work for you while you were actually shooting, then work out what is the next step from there.
I'll elaborate a little on the process that I went through, as I think your journey is likely to be just as long and with as many false starts.
Phase 1:
I used to shoot stills and had a Panasonic GF3 camera and 14-42kit lens and the 14mm F2.5 prime. I wanted nicer colour and so I bought a Canon 700D.
Phase 2:
I wanted to start with video, so I tested the 700D and found the 1080p video it shot was really soft. I thought that the softness was 1080p, so did my research (reading the "wisdom" from "experts" online - ha ha ha) and "learned" that I wanted 4K, a high bitrate, and that Canon colour science. I also knew from shooting video of my kids that I wanted a directional microphone. So I bought the Canon XC10 (4K at 300Mbps!) and the Rode Video Mic Pro Plus. It was a beautiful image, but it is designed to be used manually whereas I used it on full-auto and so the images were often soft (too much light and it would stop down and soften the image from diffraction and too little light and it would raise the ISO and noise would become a problem). I also exposed for the highlights so I didn't clip skies and when I tried to raise up the subjects in the image they'd be mush. The contrast-based autofocus was atrocious and I'd frequently miss shots. I also decided I wanted to have blurrier backgrounds.
Phase 3:
I decided to be smart and test a few things rather than just buying another camera system, so I went back to the Canon 700D and realised that the 1080p it shot was soft because Canon did a poor job on their compression and codec, not because there was anything wrong with 1080p. So I installed Magic Lantern (a hack that lets you shoot RAW video) and bought a Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 lens. This allowed me to get sharp RAW video with Canon colour science and the Sigma was SHARP and gave blurry backgrounds.
But the setup was heavy, the files were prohibitively large, difficult to colour grade (and required conversion before you could open them in Resolve) and neither the camera nor lens had any stabilisation at all, so the images were shaky as hell.
I did, however, discover that I was ok with manually focusing the lens. It's a different aesthetic to AF, but it sort of feels 'human' in some way that I don't mind.
Phase 4:
As I had worked out that I don't mind manually focusing, I bought the GH5 and the SLR Magic 8mm F4, the Voigtlander 17.5mm F0.95, and the Helios 58mm F2 vintage prime. I later upgraded to the Laowa 7.5mm F2 and the Voigtlander 42.5mm F0.95, and then later again to the TTartisans 50mm F1.2. I kept the Rode mic.
I found this setup to be functional, relatively easy to use, have images I really liked, but was large and attracted attention out in public. I had also swapped from shooting 4K back to shooting 1080p as the implementation in the GH5 has several advantages, and I worked out I didn't need 4K (and neither do most people - 4K is mostly hype).
I also bought a GX85 as a second / backup camera, which along with the 14-42mm and 14mm F2.5 lenses could suffice if the GH5 got stolen/dropped/etc and could also do timelapses or record a second angle of something.
Phase 5:
On my last trip earlier this year to Korea I discovered that I actually preferred shooting with the GX85 and 14mm F2.5 lens because it's smaller and I can get more shots I like because I'm able to shoot without attracting as much attention. Having fast AF (only AF-S, not continuous) is also really nice!
I am now contemplating buying the 12-32mm pancake zoom lens to give a bit of flexibility to the setup. I also discovered that my iPhone 12 mini now shoots in 10-bit HDR and the images actually look really good if you know how to colour grade them properly, so that's my super-wide angle and camera for quick shots.
You know the funny part? Because I now know what I shoot, how I shoot it, and how to edit and colour grade, I could use and be happy with any of these cameras. I also own the BM original BMPCC (the 1080p one) and the BM Micro Cinema Camera, and if I had to use one of those exclusively from now on I could get by ok with them too, although they're slower to work with of course.
If you don't know if you want a Pocket 4K and gimbal or a GH5, then you are still many years away from knowing what equipment will work best for you. I recommend choosing a path that costs the least money.