What I Look For in a Camera

This article is piggy backing off a blog post I wrote a couple weeks ago titled, “What Camera Should I Get?” In that article I go through some tips and suggestions for people who are new to videography or no nothing about cameras. In this article, I’ll go through what I look for in a camera when I’m looking for an upgrade. This is definitely more technical, but if you're still interested in what a professional looks for, welcome!

One of the primary considerations in upgrading a camera is what kind of videos you make. If you do weddings, you don’t have a lot of control over the lighting of the venue, so you might want a camera that has great low-light performance, like the A7SIII. For me, I want to do more corporate, promotional type videos which will involve more interviews in controlled environments. 

Resolution isn’t everything, yet it’s the biggest spec that everyone first looks at. I normally deliver videos in HD and clients have been perfectly fine with that. Shooting in 4K is nice because it’ll give me a little extra latitude in editing to crop in if I need to. But, I hardly ever worry about my framing so I will often shoot in HD. And that’s another point that needs to be made, 4K doesn’t mean extra quality, it just means more pixels. The kind of pixels matters more than the amount. Everyone would take a 2K image from an ARRI Alexa over a 4K iPhone image. Having a camera that shoots 4K would be nice but it’s not a deal breaker for me. Anything that shoots beyond 4K like 6K or 8K is overkill in my opinion. 

An iPhone on the lefts with an Arri Alexa LF and Arri Amira on the right.

One feature that is also really important to me is having a reliable autofocus system. Most of the time I’m shooting the video alone and sometimes that can make it difficult to manually focus during a shoot. For higher budget productions, where they shoot on RED or ARRI cameras, they normally have the budget to hire people that can pull focus for them. Autofocus systems have come a long way and are very reliable. In fact, the whole Teen Dating Violence PSA was shot using Canon’s Dual Pixel Autofocus system.

Built in ND filters is something that I’ve been covering for a while now. ND filters are basically sunglasses for your camera when you're shooting outdoors or in super bright areas. On mirrorless or DSLR cameras, you have to screw on an ND filter on the front of the lens. With higher end camcorders and cinema cameras, all it takes is a flip of a switch to put on an ND filter instead of taking the time to get out an ND filter from your camera bag and killing precious shooting time.

One other feature that I’m looking for in a new camera is audio inputs. Most or all mirrorless cameras have a 35mm microphone input to record audio straight into the camera. While that’s fine for social media and smaller projects, I prefer using microphones that use XLR connectors. I’m sure there’s a technical explanation, but they just seem to have more of a full sound to them than a 35mm connector. Of course I’m able to use XLR cables now and record audio separately, but how sweet would it be to record XLR audio straight into the camera and not have to sync up the audio in post.

The Canon C100 MkII and MkI

With all of these features in mind, you may be wondering what camera fits all these criteria. There are a lot of cameras that do such as the Sony FX6 or the Canon C500 mkII. But for me, the Canon C100 mkII is the best fit for me. It is an older camera, but it’s the most affordable cinema camera that has the features I’m looking for. While cameras like the Blackmagic Pocket cinema camera are in that same price range, it doesn’t have the autofocus or built in XLR inputs that I want.

While the C100 might be the right fit for me, it isn’t going to work for everyone. Finding the right camera comes down to what you typically shoot, how you like to shoot, and finding the best value without breaking the bank for all the trendy bells and whistles. Just remember, at the end of the day you will rely on your skill and creativity to produce the best possible video - the camera is just a tool to help you get there.