Thanks all for the replies.
However, if Canon and Sony were the ONLY choices, which would you go with considering the overall offerings of each? (I have my reasons for being so specific.)
Hey Joe,
Since you mentioned the 5d mark iv and the Sony A7RIII, I can't give you an exact comparison, but can get close as I have a 1dx Mark II and a Sony A7sII.
First I find the Canon color much easier to control, especially on people, with the only downside is the mjpeg codec. It's actually a good codec, except it's very large, even on the 5d Mark IV which is 500mBytes a second and will fill up a Cfast 2 card quickly. Also the Mark IV has a 1.74 crop which is close to 4/3. There were rumors last year that Canon would offer a firmware that would change that to 4k 1.27 but that annoucement was in March 2017, and not a word since.
https://petapixel.com/2017/03/29/canon-5d-mark-iv-firmware-update-reduce-4k-crop-1-74x-1-27x/Also the Canon does not have internal stabilization, so you need stabilized lenses for hand held work, or a stabilizer and most Canon FF zoom lenses with stabilization are F4 constant, except the 70 to 200. I recently tested a 24 to 70 2.8 sigma but found the stabilization weak compared to the Canon 24 to 70. The sigma is a nice lens and well built, but I would only use it for tripod work. The excellent thing about all the pdaf Canons is the autofocus is amazing, especially the face detection and that's from the lowly 80d, then the 1dxII, c200, c300, c700.
I bought the Sony A7sII for it's low light capabilities and iBIS, but it has a weak bit rate of 100 mbs and will skew quickly on anything but slow pans and I have to be very careful with banding like on skies and maybe it's me but I find color grading skin tones in a lot of scenes very difficult to grade in resolve and the Sony batteries don't last long for filming. This may be that I'm very use to Canon color, so I use the 1dxII, though a lot of people love about the Sonys. But don't be scared off by Canon's c200 8 bit because it's a pretty rugged file.
And sorry for the long post, but I've done this and seen at with at least another dozen still photographers moving to or adding motion footage to their repertoire.
You want to get your feet wet first, but to relay my story, when my 5d2 had been out a few years I decided to try to make it a cinema camera. I think I spent around 5k or mounts, rails, cages, adapters, sound input, etc. Now it is still a good 2k camera in the semi dark and for short takes and newer software will upres to 3.7k without overly noticeable artifacts.
(this is a still image from a 5d2 motion grab that has been first graded in resolve then retouched in Photoshop).
But after using it, I realized I was chasing my own tail. It was obvious then it was going to become a 4k world and it has. So I bought my first RED 1, then a second one for a "round the world gig". I like RED, then bought a Scarlet MX then an Epic MX. Had a screen writer I know write approx 5 scenes and since we were going to Paris for a gig, I thought what a better way to learn than to shoot these scenes. I learned more in those 4 days than I would have learned reading every tube review and just testing in the studio.
Today (even though I still use them) I wouldn't buy an R1 simply because they're heavy, but todays cameras didn't exist then. Client expectations then were for good 2k, now good 4k, even though most AD's or even their production teams can't play a prores edit in 4k on their few years old iMacs, they all started asking for final edits in 2 and 4k (or uhd), so those now older R1's more than paid for themselves.
And btw, DPs and operators I know that came from the film world, all were saying how bad the R1's were, but REDs last firmware updates and improvements in resolve still make them useful and I've only had one bad clip out of thousands of clips.
As you know times change quickly in the digital world and there are many options, but taking a sony A7 series camera, or any dslr/mirrorless and turning them into something really useful, including sound recording can get expensive, even if it's for your own personal reel will easily drop you into the 7k range of expense and you'll find yourself back into the buy a bigger camera range.
In the last year and a half, I've had client's from direct to Ad agencies ask what type of cameras I work with and use Netflix's approved list as a guide.
https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/217237077-Production-and-Post-Production-Requirements which is kind of silly because Netflix probably has a thousand movies online that we're shot with the original and later Arri's which and only lately Arri hit a true 4k off the sensor. In fact Netflix only allows two Arri's. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that type of list I posted.
Now I'm not suggesting anything other than keep in mind the first dip your toe expense plus later adding more professional cameras.
An URSA mini pro may seem expensive, but if you look around through established dealers and rental houses, you can get one for probably close to the same cost of tricking out a 5d mark II or any small sony and have something you can use for a long time.
I'm also not saying that great content and story doesn't matter, because a great script and some time/budget makes a huge difference. In fact two years ago I viewed a jeans commercial that was the best I've seen, all shot with a 5d2.
But the one thing I DO strongly suggest is learning DiVinci Resolve. It's a kluge of a software but has a beautiful color engine, but learning it is the black hole of time.
just IMO
BC