Just curious what others typical life cycle for cameras and equipment is?

I recently sold some of my old HD cameras (one 10 years old) and was surprised at how little they were worth (on ebay). In order to have newish worry free equipment, what's your turn around time for getting new equipment?

With 4K becoming the norm soon, I would think that there would be clients who would ask if we are shooting in 4K. Its going to be expected, especially from production companies. Time to sell the old! HD cameras seem to be cheaper then ever!

Cameras, 5 years or so. I actually know folks who buy and sell every 12-18 months and don't lose any more value than I lose after 5 years (and they get a new gizmo every 12-18 months).

The rest of the gear... tripods, mics, cables, lights, stands, grip gear, etc... that stuff lasts forever.

The cameras I'm buying (I'm on a Sony FS5 right now)... $6k new... in 5 years, even if I just throw it away... the hard cost on that camera will have been $1250/year. I'm charging almost that much a day. And if history serves, it will last much longer than 5 years (but will be a B-cam by then).

I just don't sweat the loss that much.

I think the time to replace your cameras is when they no longer do what you require, either through wear or reliability or because your requirements have moved on.

I am still using 3 Panasonic HD cams that are 7-8 years old, battered and scratched, basically B cams now, but have never let me down. On the other hand, I also have two 4K cams as they give me greater editing options, great stills from video and the ability to supply in 4K for future clients if asked. At the moment my delivery is always HD and usually with a DVD requirement aswell.

The sale value to me is irrelevant as the cameras have all earned many times over what they cost and will probably be worth nothing when I finish with them.

Roger

If you choose wisely cameras while expensive and depreciate greatly pay for themselves. Its all the other extas and special equipment that might get used on only one job or never. I have room full of this stuff I'm trying to get rid of.

Camera cost is a big factor obviously too. You don't want to spend $10K on a camera and then have to make a loss of $5K selling it after a year to get the latest model. The wisest move is to speak to your accountant NOT the local camera shop. See what your gear will depreciate by each year and then you can work out when it's worth zero (on paper) and replace it. It's a bit like buying a car which loses huge value as you drive it out the showroom. I used to take advantage of the tax breaks on my cameras due to depreciation and value loss after selling them but prices are coming down for 4K cameras and you can make a decent amount of money with a reasonably priced camera and basically just write it off anyway. For me (like Roger) I can pay for a camera with one wedding gig and then it's a money making tool after that so the capital cost is way smaller than the income it produces. In the old days when we had to look at $15K to $25K per camera for weddings and make back a tiny percentage of the capital cost each month we had to keep them longer ..nowdays you can shoot a wedding on a 4K sub $2K camera so IF a new model comes out it's far easier to upgrade and not lose any money.

As long as my cams are running well I work them hard and really only replace when I feel I might start having a reliability issue as they paid for themselves a long time ago.

Some camera decisions are easier than others. Often a client isn't asking for a specific equipment but you want to add a new technique or increase the quality of your video. For instance I'm researching adding fluid steady cam motion but the cost and equipment can escalate quickly. I believe in exploring new technology that can lead you to new opportunities while trying not to break the bank. Many times you can't tell what purchases were bad business until later.

I have a very sober attitude about this. My gear lust days are long gone. It is 100% ROI for me. I work exclusively in the corporate market. They do not even know what 4K is and have no use for it. They leave it up to me to provide a quality product and i do just that. I disagree that "4K will be the norm soon". At least in my market. That is video guy hype. Yes it is here, but HD still has a self life left in it.

So to answer your time line question I replace cameras when my clients have a need for it. So far not even one has asked me about 4K at all.

Kind Regards,

Steve

Great input guys!

I work mainly in the corporate market and have not had anyone ask for 4K I just figured it would become the norm. Like HD did. Trying to plan ahead.

Hi Silas,

Think of it this way - if you have produced a high-quality 1080p video and someone is viewing it on a 4K screen, will they even know whether the video source is 4K or HD? The average person would never know the difference. So in that regard, I don't see any big demand for 4K with customers.

Rather, the benefit I see in shooting 4K material is that it allows a lot of latitude when editing as HD which allows for cropping (pan/zoom) in post. For instance, shoot an interview on a medium shot and then while editing, cut between original shot and close-ups created in post, great way to hide jump cuts. I've faked multi-camera shoots for stage events using a single 4K camera on wide angle the whole time.

I was an early-adopter of HDV, jumping in before the competition, and turned out my customers just didn't care. Tried to offer them Blu-ray and saw little interest, they were perfectly happy with DVD and still are to this day for the most part. So I invested in HD cameras and HD editing gear, only to continue delivering the same SD DVDs I always had...well, they are 16:9 now but that's the only difference really.

So no, I'm not worried about delivering 4K ;-)

Thanks

Jeff

Jeff, I totally agree! I actually did the same thing. Unfortunately I used to have people ask me if I was shooting HD or not. Even when the final product was on DVD. They don't know the difference, they just felt better if I was using the latest and greatest technology.

I am hoping to get a feel for when to sell my HD stuff since it will get outdated eventually. Editing system that will edit 4k when the time comes. Cameras that will put out good quality 4k footage. Etc.

I dumped a lot of money into gear when I started out and now I have sold all but the main stuff I use now. Keeping it simple and light weight. The truth is 4k cameras will probably be better in a few years anyways. So its hard to know when to jump on board with 4k. Hard to predict the future though!

I have the same feeling about 4k. No need for it plus it hurts low light capability if thats important to you. It seems like manufacturers feel compelled to include 4K on their new models to be competitive. For the most part I film and edit in hd and down sample to Sd for dvd delivery. I don't want the added time and expense of editing 4k.

The comments on 4K are interesting and I largely agree with most regarding delivery. I have never been asked for 4K delivery, but wedding clients are becoming aware of it through ads for 4k TV. They don't understand at all what it is, but are usually very impressed when I tell them I film in 4K.

I do think that filming and editing 4K footage has speeded up my editing workflow, as I cut to my backup cams far less often than previously. I have also recently filmed a school production with one 4K camera and a safety camera. All editing was done from the single 4K camera and was far quicker than cutting between the 4xHD cameras that I would usually use. That included pans, zooms and action following.

So I feel that 4K is a great tool for filming and editing, but we are a long way from delivery in 4K becoming the norm. As has been said, viewing in 4K or HD on a typical domestic size tv is going to show little noticeable difference to most people.

Roger

Roger,

This is off topic but I am curious......When you have a 4K time line and you manipulate the entire thing into crops, pans zooms etc aren't you creating a processing monster? Do you edit with a proxy file and then render out to HD from 4K? Or do you have a smoking hot editing system that can handle a long 4K time line (what is long 4 U?) with all of those effects in real time? Sounds like a great way to edit but I'm wondering about all of those effects in 4K dragging down real time?

Steve

Roger,

This is off topic but I am curious......When you have a 4K time line and you manipulate the entire thing into crops, pans zooms etc aren't you creating a processing monster? Do you edit with a proxy file and then render out to HD from 4K? Or do you have a smoking hot editing system that can handle a long 4K time line (what is long 4 U?) with all of those effects in real time? Sounds like a great way to edit but I'm wondering about all of those effects in 4K dragging down real time?

Steve

HI Steve,

It's all relevent to new equipment and exactly the sort of thing I was wondering before getting into 4K.

I didn't use the 4k video for the fist few months with the cameras as my editing system was getting a bit long in the tooth. I had a new pc built a couple of months back with an Intel i7 four core eight thread 3.4 Ghz cpu and 16gb of dd4 ram. This was to enable me to work with the 4k video and I use Magix Video ProX7 for editing. I use the 4k files straight from the camera to edit with no proxy files.

As I am shooting mainly weddings and school productions, my clips are frequently to the maximum 30 minute limit. The camera breaks each 30 mins into shorter clips of around 6 minutes, which seamlessly slot together. I simply join them all together on the time line, then cut wherever I need to zoom in, or start and finish a pan etc. Typically I would cut the clip, crop the new section to the closeup I want, then drag the edge back over the previous and following clips for a cross fade. Everything runs in real time on the timeline and I am able to use a couple of 4k tracks if needed or sometimes a main 4k stream and a couple of HD alternative streams from locked off cameras.

When the edit is complete, I split the timeline into highlighted sections of around 30-40 minutes at convenient points and render each section to mp4 files. As my finished edits are usually 1-2 hours long, I rejoin the rendered mp4 sections if I am rendering out to dvd and add chapter ponts and menu. If delivering on usb, I just copy to a thumb drive after numbering them consecutively. 4k renders to mp4 in real time if simple editing, or up to twice real time if recoloured or stabilised etc. DVD from the joined mp4 is usuall 50% real time.

Hope that helps,

Roger

Hi Steve

Some people will do a wedding edit (as an example) in one massive 100 minute timeline which would be a nightmare to edit. I tend to render by event so there is one clip for bridal prep, one for arrival etc etc ..I even will break down the ceremony into 2 or 3 parts so even in 4K it's quite manageable. Should we use 4K ?? I'm very impressed with 4K BUT I get brides who talk about 4K (mainly the groom trying to be clever) and then when it comes to delivery, all they want is DVD's so technically I can shoot in SD !! I don't think the bride would know the difference and edits would be lightning fast too. The only valid reason to do a 4K shoot is because you might need to crop or you might want to use the Chroma Sub Sampling effect you get with 4K downsized to 1080 which makes your footage 4:2:2 ...Personally most have no idea so I still tend to shoot in 1080 although my cams will do a very nice UHD ! I really cannot see the point of struggling with 4K timelines if your delivery will be SD !! Corporate clients who specific 4K are a different story of course.

Thank you for the detailed response gentlemen. Having the luxury of a crop factor means very little to me. As I have said before I have no need for 4K yet as far as my clientele go. I am going to wait until I have a justifiable reason to upgrade.

And Rodger....you hit it on the head when you said it is a "system upgrade". I have been through this too many times before to think it is just about cameras. A change like this touches your entire work flow.

I am glad to hear your working in real time with your new system. Thanks again for the details.

Steve

I remember well when I changed from SD to HD cameras ..it goes way beyond just buying new cameras and quite often your new computer system will easily be the price of a camera.

To be honest I have never used 4K for cropping anyway ,,that's what camera framing is all about so until 1080 becomes "obsolete" I really cannot see any huge advantages in shooting 4K unless specifically requested to deliver in a 4K format.

Your EA-50's are good for quite a few years to come Steve!!

I have a i7 4790k processor and a nvidia gt610 which actually is only there to make my 21:9 monitor work as the gpu on the processor didn't support the resolution of the monitor.

Working with 4k "feels" the same as working with hd on my system as long as you don't do any crazy stuff, for weddings I start with trowing all footage (HD and 4K) onto a 1080p timeline, sync all multicam video and audio, I cut out all bad stuff so that I have a about 2 hour long timeline left with usable video.

I then copy that timeline (sequence) 6 or more times depending on how many speeches etc and name each sequence to a particular part of the day, like trailer, highlight, ceremony, speeches and so on. Then for each sequence I just delete what I don't need and make the final edit with colorcorrection and add music.

I then export each sequence to the formats I need for my dvd, blu-ray or just as separate files to place on a usb stick. I use tmpgenc authoringworks for my dvd and blu-ray rendering.

If I want a 4k master I can just switch my 1080p project where I did all my editing in into a 4K project and render a 4K master out, the main benefit is that my processor can handle a HD project (even if it included 4k) footage with more ease then when I would edit a 4K project, I only switch to a 4K project if I need a 4K master rendered out.

I use edius 8WG and as long as I use the basic editing tools which include colorcorrecting everything is realtime, even my multicam edits with 3 to 4 camera's, I do crop on 4K footage if needed and then only in ceremony footage on unmanned camera's and it's still all in realtime even with edius basic 3 way collorcorrection applied.

Edius uses the gpu help with the realtime performance but als for rendering the footage out, one minute of 4K ax100 footage with colorcorrection rendered out from a 1080p timeline takes only 17 seconds.

I"m just giving this as a example that you don't need a expensive pc and that you don't need to take detours to have a pleasant editing experience, with the right workflow and teh right tools editing 4K is not much different to working with HD + you can benefit from the advantages 4K can give you.

To be honest I have never used 4K for cropping anyway ,,that's what camera framing is all about so until 1080 becomes "obsolete" I really cannot see any huge advantages in shooting 4K unless specifically requested to deliver in a 4K format.

I have seen people saying that cropping in post is just being lazy and that the only right way is to frame the camera right while you are shooting video.

While I do agree with the fact that you need to do it right from the start for specific applications cropping in 4K can have major advantages, specifically when doing weddings as a soloshooter and on unmanned camera's at ceremonies.

Often time is limited to set up camera's and once they are running you can't always access them again during the ceremony while you are operating your own camera during keymoments like the vows. Being able to reframe footage from a unmanned 4k to get it exactly right has been a lifesaver, it often happens I get into the frame of those camera's but with cropping I can take myself out without any visual loss in IQ. It's like being on location and reframe the camera depending on the situation.

Another example and I think some shooters of danceperformances can agree is that a single locked off 4K camera that has the entire stage in view can be used as a multicam camera in the edit. You can zoom in and follow dancers with a much higher precision then you could do from a tripod while shooting. You don't need to anticipate moves and always be a few millisecond late following the dancers while they move all over the stage, you can follow them with surgical precision in post, as if you are the choreographer of the play.

That's my take on cropping into 4K footage.

I see how that can be a lifesaver Noa ... we actually use cropping all the time when we do a live broadcast as we have two unmanned cameras feeding the vision mixer software so you can reposition a camera in the software using pan and crop which is very useful instead of jumping up from your chair every time you need to reposition a camera and being live you can easily have someone shift position while you are away from the computer so by the time you get back the problem could have re-instated itself.

Sadly my i72600 struggles with 4K footage so to use it in my recorded footage I would have to upgrade my computer again ... I guess if you are going to upgrade then going to the max is a good idea if you are thinking about using 4K in the future.

I completely agree with Noa on the cropping. I often have a ceremony locked off camera and it is great to be able to reframe in post. Sometimes the couple will end up off centre of where they were expected to be and reframing in post saves the frame and loses nothing. It's also nice to be able to zoom in slowly from a wide angle to a big close up or a slow pan from a locked off cam.

I also agree with Noa on stage productions. We regularly film school productions and have previously used 2 locked off cameras on full stage and centre stage plus 2 manned cameras. The problem is that dialogue can jump rapidly from speaker to speaker, often widely separated and the close up manned cams can't always follow quickly enough. With one 4K cam on full stage, every part of the dialogue can be followed as can all movement, smoothly and accurately. We have filmed a couple of productions these last two weeks and done the whole edit from the whole stage 4K cam.

We are hopeful that we will be able to film most productions with one 4K and one safety cam, which means that Claire and I will be able to take on a school production each on the same day. As they typically end up in the same term week, we will be able to double the bookings and of course the income from them :-)

Most of the wedding work is still filmed in HD on the same camera, but switching to 4K during ceremony and speeches gives so many framing options that aren't otherwise available. One example would be using the same clip for a cropped close up during the speeches of the main speaker and the couple at the same time, or being able to cut to a reaction shot from someone that even 2 or 3 camera coverage may have missed.

We needed to upgrade our editing system anyway and as Chris said, putting in a system that can handle 4k as easily as HD is sensible when upgrading. We will continue to work in 4K and HD in parallel for a long time I am sure, certainly until 4K delivery becomes the norm, but I love the options that we now have.

Roger

It's true! if you have stuff a long time it's resale value tends to be very small, I tried recently to sell a Canon XL1 on behalf of an organisation I sometimes help out. I didn't get any offers, they were also trying to offload two old Apple eMacs, nobody was interested even for free.

So I guess you need to make sure that the item will pay for itself during the period of use as you wont recoup any extra due to the apparently sharp depreciation of electrical goods.

I think anyone who denies that 4K has benefits other than 4K delivery is kidding themselves. Whether you're cropping, down-converting, doing motion-graphics, etc there are plenty of reasons to think about upgrading to 4K now rather than waiting until it is "mainstream" (which I think could still be a decade away for everything other than big-budget films or Netflix exclusives).

Having said that, I've always avoided the cutting edge of technology and kept my camera purchases a generation behind. Right now, for example, I'm using an FS700 which I bought around about when the FS7 was launched and everyone else was upgrading. This is a great money saver, but also works for me because a lot of my work is end-to-end production where the client is fairly clueless to cameras. If you are a gun-for-hire freelancing for Tech-savvy producers, you'll need to have the latest and greatest buzz camera in your local market, such as the FS7, or the C300 before that.

I don't think too much about resale value. If it's not a tool that can make me more money, or help me earn that money more efficiently, I won't buy it. My FS700 paid for itself after a few months, and since then has been my most profitable camera to date. I just added a 4k recorder (at the same time as everyone else is upgrading again to the FS7mkII!) so it's got plenty of life left in it. Having said that I wouldn't be too stressed if it fell over the side of a boat tomorrow (hope that doesn't jinx me!) because it's already paid for itself many times over.

In summary: Invest when something can make you more money; sell it when it's not making you any money. And if possible, learn something from any bad purchase decisions!

Roger,

This is off topic but I am curious......When you have a 4K time line and you manipulate the entire thing into crops, pans zooms etc aren't you creating a processing monster? Do you edit with a proxy file and then render out to HD from 4K? Or do you have a smoking hot editing system that can handle a long 4K time line (what is long 4 U?) with all of those effects in real time? Sounds like a great way to edit but I'm wondering about all of those effects in 4K dragging down real time?

Steve

I built my editing PC six years ago now, though at the time it was the best PC I could possibly put together. It uses an Intel i7 3970k processor, 64gigs of DDR3 memory, 16TB RAID, and dual Quadro cards in SLI with a combined 8 gigs of DDR5 video memory.

Using Adobe Premier CC I have no problem with 4K material, even uncompressed. I mix with with HD, pan, zoom, even color grade, all in real time. The key is to have enough video memory and fast enough drives. The pans, zooms, and effects should all be handled by the GPU, and any modern GPU should be more than capable of handling 4K material.

I built my editing PC six years ago now, though at the time it was the best PC I could possibly put together. It uses an Intel i7 3970k processor, 64gigs of DDR3 memory, 16TB RAID, and dual Quadro cards in SLI with a combined 8 gigs of DDR5 video memory.

Important note is that a pc should always be build around the NLE specifications, while Premiere would benefit from a lot of system memory and very fast videocards a program like Edius does not require that, my previous editing system only had 8gb of memory and no videocard and I also got real time performance with 4K material. a 3970k would give me a slower render performance then a 4790k just because Edius uses the onboard gpu of the processor which can handle this task faster then a 6core cpu.

I have been shooting all of my interviews lately in 4K on the FS5 and then I down convert them to 1080 in AVID or Premier. This allows me to zoom in during an interview or do a pan or cut between individuals in a 2-shot. It is very handy. As for shooting b-roll in 4K, I don't find it as useful. While corporate clients don't talk 4K, they appreciate the extras I can do because I use it.