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Just spotted this - good point on recording time. All mirrorless/compact and DSLR 'style' cameras that shoot video and that are sold in the EU have a cut off of about 29 minutes. There's no getting around it unless you have something like this:
That's actually not a bad shout:
Flog Tascam + 7D - should get a few hundred quid
1 x second hand A6300 (about 600)
1 x BMD Video Assist (about 350 - second hand maybe 250)
1 X k2m (399 new at Park - cheaper second hand etc)That would allow you to record for longer lengths, no chance of camera overheating, record audio internally via XLR and best of all - monitor your footage on something more appropriate than just a 3.5" flip out screen. With that particular recorder you would be limited to 1080p though (they do a 4k one for a couple of hundred more). However the quality will be significantly better in 10 bit 4:2:2 than the internal codec on the A6300 which while decent is quite heavily compressed.
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5 minutes spare for a reply...
That all makes sense - I've no particular reason to hang onto the 7d. I've even still got my old nikon stuff in a cupboard should I want to use an old fashioned dslr for photography.
Gives me a good gradual upgrade path as well - for the moment I could just get one Sony 6300, sell the 7D and then the other stuff could come in time - I do like the idea of the video assist thing - I've been so used to just making do with a tiny camera screen. I guess the plug in XLR input thing would be nice, but is also non-essential as long as I don't mind using the Tascam separately. Which is also sometimes useful - I filmed an event the other day where the sound mixer was in another room way beyond cable length, so was able just to plug it in and leave it running. So I'd probably hang onto that anyway. A second Sony would also be great, but whether it'd pay for itself in work for a while, I'm not sure.
Shooting 4k and being able to crop in would be really useful. I'm not quite sure whether my video card would be happy when it came to editing, but it would be really good as an option. I prefer editing to filming (most of my work is editing) and have been doing quite a bit of instagram sized stuff lately which gives me a lot of freedom to play around with zooming and cropping. So that but with HD video would be great.
Which leaves me with one question - lenses... I presume I could buy a Sony-Canon adapter thing, but am guessing when all I've got is a relatively cheap Canon prime lens, I'd be better just to get a dedicated Sony lens?
The problem with having mostly nice, non-demanding clients is that it hasn't given me very much reason to offer anything fancier than what I've been doing up to now... but for my own long term sake I feel I need to modernise a bit.
Yes, it's fine for moment and I could get away with using it a while longer. But I would particularly like something that re-focuses automatically while filming + while I don't often run into problems with the 7d overheating or recording time being too long, it has happened and it's a pain.