dilemma about what B camera to go for- camcorder or another sony mirrorless

[domart]

at the moment I have this weekly slot shooting video and stills for a comedy club, it started off just one camera on a tripod in the centre of the room with camera mic, then it progressed to external mic hooked up to the camera, now it's audio recorders taking a feed from the mixer and multiple mic's and recorders recording the room noise, and now we're also adding in a 2nd angle off axis, which is doubling the amount of cameras, lenses, and tripods I have to take with me- so, since I dont drive, so turning up via public transport for the purposes of shaving off as much carry weight as possible.

I switched from a 5d3 with 70-200 2.8, to a sony a7ii and a manual focus 70-200 f4, I was blown away at the increase in clarity but also the noise wasn't great at iso 3200 so the image was simultaneously better and worse. I did a shoot out between all my cameras at f4 iso 3200 and the a7s takes the crown, looking amazing, a7rii looks great in 4k mode but not as good in 1080p, so would have to downsample in post because I cant keep hours of 4k footage, a7ii looks ok but only at lower iso's and the canon looks the worst, and also looks noticably different to the others (all the sony cameras are shooting the same picture profile), so it's not great to cut between the 2 angles

since i'm taking stills too i'm doing that with the 5d3 and the a7rii, leaving the a7ii and the a7s doing video, but, i'm wanting to sell my a7ii possibly for the a7iii, but that's a long way away, so as an interim since i'm not really using the a7ii for stills much, i was thinking about getting something either affordable enough to use only for this specific job, or something multi-functional enough to use for other jobs/projects too- but it definitely needs to have higher quality than the a7ii in low light (and tbh, even in good light the a7ii isn't fantastic), and i need to get a smaller lens than the 70-200 2.8, maybe just another old school manual focus lens

I was either thinking a6300/a6000, or something with a built in lens, like a camcorder or bridge camera, which would also solve my battery life problem recording for 2 hours at a time, or I was looking at the sony rx10- I need quite a lot of reach, about 150mm-200mm on full frame, and the footage has to look good at around iso 3200- i'm really not sure how the rx10 or the camcorder would look at such a high iso- i'm sure the 6300 would look fantastic at 4k, but i'm wondering how good the a6000 looks compared to the a7ii it would be replacing because I don't mind shooting 4k and down-sampling, but, it's an extra step i'd rather not do tbh

 

[domart]

i'm also throwing the black magic pocket cinema camera into the mix, as well as the gh4

basically anything that is fairly compact when using a lens that is capable of approx 200mm in crop mode, has an image that wont fall apart in high-ish iso, and will cut in nicely with the other sony camera (that's probably the biggest requirement tbh)

 

[Justin Case]

i'm also throwing the black magic pocket cinema camera into the mix, as well as the gh4

basically anything that is fairly compact when using a lens that is capable of approx 200mm in crop mode, has an image that wont fall apart in high-ish iso, and will cut in nicely with the other sony camera (that's probably the biggest requirement tbh)

I have used the GH4 for a long time and, while it is an astonishing piece of kit for video, its weak point is low light performance (it gives very poor results even at ISO 800). So I don't think it would be the good choice for what you are doing.
Have you tought about using a lens that gather more light? At f1.8 or f1.4 you could use a much lower ISO and probably get better results (Although I understand that you probably need depth of field.
Finally I would suggest to fim in 4k: you will get much better quality downsampling to HD and also it will give you room for stabilising and cropping

 

[garryknight]

You might already know this but the A6000 can only record 30 minutes at a time unless you install an available hack which removes the limit. But you then have the problem of the camera overheating. You can open the battery door to cool it a little but that's unlikely to make much difference in a club, and fanning it with your hand almost as unlikely. Oh, and the hack might void your warranty.

I haven't used my A6000 long enough to get around to doing video so I can't be of any more help, I'm afraid.

 

[realspeed]

I have a panasonic HC-X900M camcorder and as shown below is fantastic. This model has now been updated as everything is. All I can say is his make is well worth considering I have added a Sennheiser mke 400 mike which complements it perfectly.. fits into trouser pocket if in dodgy places like Egypt

Time only limited by card size and battery unless mains powered. Mine has been to many countries over the years and only went back once for a new top selector switch.after 6 years of constant use, and still works as well as new Does great stills as well

In addition i also added
a pistol grip

and spacers to lift the mike up away from the lens

too finish off also a Guttman dead cat that has the longest hairs for wind resistance. Can't fault the sound reproduction either.

awkward lighting in auto mode, manual control might have been better

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_osAMgGfo

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzSdaVmv9Q8

panasonic link
https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/cameras-camcorders/camcorders.html

 

[domart]

I have a panasonic HC-X900M camcorder and as shown below is fantastic. This model has now been updated as everything is. All I can say is his make is well worth considering I have added a Sennheiser mke 400 mike which complements it perfectly.. fits into trouser pocket if in dodgy places like Egypt

i'll definitely check it out, have been thinking more and more about camcorders instead of cameras to film with

You might already know this but the A6000 can only record 30 minutes at a time unless you install an available hack which removes the limit. But you then have the problem of the camera overheating. You can open the battery door to cool it a little but that's unlikely to make much difference in a club, and fanning it with your hand almost as unlikely. Oh, and the hack might void your warranty.

[/QUOTE]

i'm running that hack on all my sony bodies, no problems so far, been filming for about 2 hours with the a7s and the a7ii, no overheating yet, I heard the a6000 series is worse for overheating though? I wonder whether using a dummy battery attached to a pack might help the overheating- also having the screen away from the body

I have used the GH4 for a long time and, while it is an astonishing piece of kit for video, its weak point is low light performance (it gives very poor results even at ISO 800). So I don't think it would be the good choice for what you are doing.
Have you tought about using a lens that gather more light? At f1.8 or f1.4 you could use a much lower ISO and probably get better results (Although I understand that you probably need depth of field.
Finally I would suggest to fim in 4k: you will get much better quality downsampling to HD and also it will give you room for stabilising and cropping

i have thought about faster lenses, but the issue is framing- if I was definitely using the same spot every week and I knew that one focal length was perfect at that spot, then I could get away with a prime lens, but I do like the versatility of a zoom- I was shooting f4 on the a7s and put the 2.8 on the a7ii, and that extra stop did make a huge difference- i think something like the 135 f2 would be amazing, but i think iso 6400 at f4 on the a7s still looks cleaner than say, 1600 at f2 on the a7ii

I matched all my sony bodies to the same picture profile, and under the same white balance settings they all do match up really well (other than quality), so i'm still a bit nervous to throw in another brand as I think visually matching the clips would be a hassle, but I suppose you make it a preset in your editing suite and then one click and you're done




in the end I actually had a discussion with my client, suggesting that the production value had gone up dramatically since I started, but the pay stayed the same and was approaching the limit of acceptability since i'm doing stills as well- so, now we've cut it back to just one camera for now, and maybe in the future if there's extra budget we'll add a B camera in, I guess if there's a problem with the footage, as long as the problem isn't caused by me (shot OOF, accidentally delete a clip etc) then I cant really be blamed- if someone stands in front of the tripod and blocks the shot, that's just a good reason for why we should be shooting with 2 angles, and I suppose I need to be paid appropriately for that

I do love using the a7s as my main camera, but, i'd also like to keep doing stills with it, so if I could get a camera that was as good as it (in this specific use case) for a reasonable price I might still go for it