1080p60 Camera, RAW, cheap (<200€/$)

[HeartOfGermany]

 

 

 

(OT)Before writing the title, I have to say one thing:

I was thinking of the topic above and was searching "fotographic forum". Than I thought, what would be best for tech? Propably LTT forum. I love this place. This can really help dudes out there, because the membership is just huge. Love it. Thank you linus, even just for that, you earned a big place in my heart, thought you'll never read that. Thanks dude!

 

BACK on topic:

 

I'll likely make it short, if you think about my requirements:

 

I would love a camera below 200€/$. Required features:

- A good dynamic range in video mode (no over and/or under exposure when filming in a garage, sun coming in on a hot and bright day, someone talking in the shadow, somewhere in the garage. My camera points not directly into the sun (hidden by roof). This is a very difficult scene for almost every camera <1000 bucks. I want to clearly see the details of his clothes (like a saturated, lightly dark blue) and yet see the or at least quite some details on the bright grey (freshly cleaned, smooth) concrete. If you understand the difficulty of this requirement, you are the man to possibly help me

- 1080p60 is absolutely required. I want to shoot some nice stock footage to earn some extra money, when I go to school this year for IT education. If I want some 1/2 speed slow mition, it should look good.

- RAW would be nice. This would help to (1) correct some slightly wrong exposed video and (2) get even greater dynamic range. *not required*

- Big sensore would be great (because I want clean image if you think of the next requirement which is:)

- Possibility to change lenses for some very high aperture lenses later

- if not RAW at least a high bitrate recording like .264 compression >50mbit/s or .265 >20mbit/s. It of course it very likely will not be in my budget, to get a .265 encoding camera.

- included lense has a wheel to focus and zoom (non of this button or software rubbish. would dave jones from the EEVblog say it like that?

- Many cameras cannot catch the violet/purple tones when sun goes up or down. This absolutely is required. Without that many videos will look like garbage. Just imagine seeing a purple flower, which looks totally blue on camera!

 

AAND:

- CAN be a smidge more expensive, if it totally is worth it

- you can consider me buying *used*, if you can recommend it (no recommendation for a 2 year old camera, that only lasts 2 years. )

 

What I thought of:

Sony NEX 5N

But at 10 years on the market (i think) it sounds like it will have to many drawbacks. I looked at some footage on video with low light and some dynamic scenes. I mean, I love the colors and the accuracy with a custom profile in a nature scene. And at least through the horrible compression of the video (Youtube as always...) it seems, that it is not that bad in noise. But I think in video mode, especially with the 24mbit/s old AVC/MP4 to keep in mind, it will lack to much dynamics. Complex scenes will likely loose detail in the bright and dark spots. But realy, sometimes the colors are absolutely astonishing! I saw a red purple sky when sun goes down. On mobile I never can catch thos violet/purple tones at all. This camera does that. It looks so good for its age and price! It could almost (!) be the one.

 

 

Okay, this was kinda long as always

 

Can you possibly recomment something with this specific requirements?

 

Thank you.

 

 

Edit: I added some lines for social distancing as required on april first. Nice one!

 

 

 

[harryk]

To be blunt you're not going to satisfy those requirements on your budget.

 

What've you've described is a digital cinema camera. The cheapest of which would be an older Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera which still go for $400-500 on eBay for just the body. However, the camera itself is only a small piece of a video rig. You will also need lenses, battery/power solution, support rigs, ND filters, external monitors, focus rigs... the list goes on. All in all expect to pay at least $1000 just to get started with a cinema camera.

 

Cinema cameras are also not easy to use and have a steep learning curve. I do not recommend them for beginners. 

 

I would recommend looking into an entry or mid level DSLR or mirrorless camera, or even a camcorder. Rather than the quality and specs of your camera, focus on improving your shooting and editing skills. You can get amazing video out of surprisingly cheap cameras, if you know what you're doing and spend the time and effort on optimizing the lighting and setup.

 

Check out Potato Jet on Youtube for lots of video-focused camera reviews and technical knowledge.

[HeartOfGermany]

6 hours ago, harryk said:

To be blunt you're not going to satisfy those requirements on your budget.

 

What've you've described is a digital cinema camera. The cheapest of which would be an older Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera which still go for $400-500 on eBay for just the body. However, the camera itself is only a small piece of a video rig. You will also need lenses, battery/power solution, support rigs, ND filters, external monitors, focus rigs... the list goes on. All in all expect to pay at least $1000 just to get started with a cinema camera.

 

Cinema cameras are also not easy to use and have a steep learning curve. I do not recommend them for beginners. 

 

I would recommend looking into an entry or mid level DSLR or mirrorless camera, or even a camcorder. Rather than the quality and specs of your camera, focus on improving your shooting and editing skills. You can get amazing video out of surprisingly cheap cameras, if you know what you're doing and spend the time and effort on optimizing the lighting and setup.

 

Check out Potato Jet on Youtube for lots of video-focused camera reviews and technical knowledge.

 

 

Well, the camera I mentioned at the end seems to be promising. However the Video quality on youtube sucks, so I cannot actually tell, if it realy is good or not. I am realy thinking of buying this one. Used for 160€. And I was hoping, by pumping the price a bit, there might be 1 or 2 cams that are a bit better and only cost a bit more. The Sony NEX 5N is quire promising. If no one knows a better choice, this will be the one. Maybe I can dial down contrast and saturation a bit, to get more dynamic range. That is, what a youtuber recommendet. But he dialed it down by 3, which is a lot - who knows, if stuff still looks good than...

If PCs where 100 times faster, I would just use this cam and throw the videos trough an AI for enhancing dynamics and removing noise. (Yes, there are some solutions for this out already, but I would call them "Alpha development" (Gigapixel AI and JPEGtoRAW both from Topaz). Thos 2 programs infact can enhance a ton of images - though just a few look horrible after that. Main problem is time: Resizing something by 2 to 1080p on a 1060 takes between 15-30 sec. per picture. And JPEGtoRAW takes 2x to 3x longer per foto. Now imagine, I start with 1080p content. This will take absolutely forever.

 

 

So anything better than Sony NEX 5N  for less then... say 300€?

[harryk]

4 hours ago, HeartOfGermany said:

So anything better than Sony NEX 5N  for less then... say 300€?

I don't have any experience with the NEX series cameras though they appear decent for what they are. They use the E-mount lenses so you could upgrade to a newer Sony camera in the future and keep all your lenses. The Sony cameras (particularly the newer ones) are very good for video so if you could afford something a little newer, like an α6000 series camera I think that'd serve better in the long run. Look for cameras that can shoot in log profiles, it's the closest you're going to get to RAW without getting a cinema camera. 

[GDRRiley]

16 hours ago, HeartOfGermany said:

So anything better than Sony NEX 5N  for less then... say 300€?

body only maybe a blackmagic camera.

I see some pocket cinema cameras here in the US working for under 300$

ones with lenses and batteries around 350$

 

the OG are still good

you don't get 60 fps but you get a good image with raw and a flexible mount. your going to want a wide to fiseye lens in most cases due to its sensor size which is super 16. Small yes bad no

Edited April 3, 2020 by GDRRiley

[HeartOfGermany]

7 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

body only maybe a blackmagic camera.

I see some pocket cinema cameras here in the US working for under 300$

ones with lenses and batteries around 350$

 

 

Unfortunately the cheapes one is 500€ without lenses.

I now bought the Sony NEX 5N.

I hope it will work great. It was VERY cheap. I payd 160€ with a nice 15-55mm F3.5/5.6 lense. It has both a smooth Focus and a smooth Zoom wheel. That is already very very great. It is not recording raw, it cannot shoot very high bitrates. But .h264 at 24mbit/s is quite okay. Yesterday I did some comparision renders from a real 8k down to 1080p (so I can be sure, that the source image is *at least* 4 times more detailed). I rendered it with:

2mbit/s - Like a bad 1080p youtube video

5mbit/s - better than almost any 1080p youtube video

10mbit/s - almost crisp image - like 1440p youtube video

24mbit/s - very crisp image. Like a 4k render, "lossless" (bitrate wise) rendered down to 1080p

Note, that:

- I compared with 200% zoom, to really see the differences (10mbit/s for Youtube is more than enough in most cases)

- The video was with slow movement only. Of course it looks a bit cleaner than fast moving images

- The camera might encode in a different way

 

But: If the image comes close to my 24mbit render, I am absolutely sattisfied. It will likely look still great, when moving the camera very fast. I should be worried more about ISO>Noise etc., lens distortion (yes, the lens it includes is supposed to have some distortion - but honestly, I did not notice it at all in the videos. This 1% difference is waaaay out of my budget.

 

Also, thanks to the EU I have a 1 year warranty and can return it. Yes, those 160€ where from commercial seller. So if the camera sucks or has defects I can return it. So that should be okay.

Other things to note:

- My Lense has F3.5-5.6 (Maybe upgrade to a low Aperture lense for some "workloads". I saw some for only 50€ with warranty

- High apeprture lense maybe worth a thought very late (like next year or later)

- Let camera arrive than there is more to say.

Thanks for your time!

[Joshlikescola]

Yeah, you don't wanna work with RAW just starting out with video, the file sizes are absolutely insane and the workflow can be convoluted!

24mb/s files are quite workable, for flexibility I'd recommend recording with that.

Recording settings wise, looking at the specs 1080 50p or 1080 25p would be your best bet. Avoid 50i at all costs...