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Should I buy now or wait?
I’m starting out shooting weddings and events. I’m using the Canon 7D for most of the day with a variety of lenses. I shoot the ceremony, speeches, cutting the cake and dancing with the Canon XL2. All I need are SD DVDs – there’s no interest in Blu-Ray discs right now.
I absolutely can’t shoot a full wedding with a DSLR because of sound limitations etc. I understand I can use my Zoom H4 to record audio etc, but when you’re just one man shooting a wedding, that’s an awful lot to do. I absolutely need to use the DSLR alongside a proper video camera.
I am thinking of replacing the XL2 with a Sony EX3. However, I’m thinking that there’s going to be a major video camera announcement soon and that I should wait. The EX3 is after all an old camera now (well, if you call two years old, and I do).
Do you think the Red Scarlet will come out this year? Are there any cameras coming out that are better than the Sony EX3 for around the same price range? Any advice? What would you do?
Thanks.
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4 Replies
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I did wedding videos for about 4 years and never owned the camera. I just rented what I specifically needed when I needed it and passed that cost on to the customer. All I owned was the tripod and wireless mic.
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Thanks. I understand that way of thinking, and it makes sense, but I absolutely need to own cameras that I operate. I need to have a back-up on every shoot I do, and with weddings alone, I could shoot anywhere from 60 – 80 or more weddings in a year. I also have many other projects that require a deep knowledge of the cameras that I operate. I also don’t want to be going back and forth between rental houses.
I bought the EX3 anyway, but thanks.
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Sounds like the Sony you picked should pay for itself after a few gigs, and if not, it can only be because you’re not charging enough, based on the volume of gigs you are claiming. So don’t sweat it about the march of obsolescence. The only guy that hasn’t made a behind-the-times gear purchase is the one that has never actually pulled the trigger on ANY such purchase. You can’t beat yourself up about it. The question to ask is, will this pay it’s way right now or in the very near future? After it pays it’s way, you consider every day you use it after that to be a free bonus. I would. I must be different from most COW’s here, in that I really don’t fetishize the camera and it’s ownership. To me, it is just a means to my storytelling goal, and not an end in itself. Cameras WILL become obsolescent. No getting pastthat. Then again, people get obsolete too, but we still keep showing up! 😉
And I resist being the first guy on the block to have something new; not because I’m a luddite, but I feel like I don’t want to be the guy spending his own money to beta-test a shaky new product. I always hang back a version or so on software updates until I know what everybody else has come up against with things breaking or needing patches.
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If you always wait, you’ll never buy.
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