Cameras you've used/owned...in order.

[R. Schorman]

Owned list:

VX-1000
VX-2000
VX-2100
DVX-100
DVX-100a
DVX-100b
Canon Auto Zoom 814 (super 8)
HVX-200
HVX-200a
Red One
t2i

I like the huge variations between people. Pretty interesting.

[Matthew Bennett]

Great thread! Works the memory. I can't remember the model names of any of the ones from my childhood.

Kid years:

VHS-C camcorder - owned
Super 8 camera - owned
Stills with a Pentax or Minolta SLR - film - owned

Amateur years:

VX-1000 (borrowed)
Canon GL1 - owned
DVX100a
then... my favorite camera still - DVX100a Andromeda Mod! (still loving those CCD's baby!!)

Professional years:

Some sort of shoulder mounted Panny DVCPro cam (this was around 2001)
Sony Z7U - (boy am I glad 29.97 is over now...)
S0ny EX1
Sony EX3
Canon 5d Mark 2 - owned
Canon 7d - owned
Canon T2i - borrowed
Sony f3 - demo'd
RED - M - borrowed

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Cameras Personally Owned:

1) Canon F1
2) Some Canon Advantix camera that I had until today forgotten about that I really liked.
3) A Polaroid I found, forgotten on a deserted beach under a log as a kid.
4) Mamiya 645 Pro
5) Smartphones
6) FF35 RED?

What can I say I really liked the F1 and 645 and never saw a need to switch for my personal stills. :D Nor have I had a compulsion to *own* a video/cinema camera. That's why God created rental houses.

[Jannard]

My list is pretty long... here is a short version.

Some highlights (non-RED):

1st camera- Keystone 8mm wind motor (given to me in 1958)
1st SLR- Minolta SRT 101 Black body (1973)
Most used studio camera for Oakley- Hasselblad ELM and ELX
Most used 35mm for Oakley- Nikon F2, Olympus OM-2, Canon F1,
DSLRs- every one.
Biggest boat anchor- Arri 535
Coolest 16mm movie camera- Arri S and Aaton A-Minima (tie).
Best 16mm movie camera- Arri SR HS.
Best collectibles- Leica O-105 (Oscar Barnack's camera), Hasselblad HEDC (Moon Mission)
Video cameras- Sony Betacam (Plumicon), Sony Digibeta, Sony 900/950, Panasonic Varicam

Other ones I really like- Leica MP, Nikon F black with F36 motor, Nikon F2H MD, Nikon F3 NASA, Leica 250GG, Photosonics 16mm, Canon F1 HSMD...

Too many others to comment about. I guess I love cameras... from Spy cameras to 8x10 stills, 8mm to S35mm movie.

Jim

[Jim Davis]

Jim
Good to see you back. Was a drag to see the "going dark" moment. Keep up the amazing things that you and your team are doing that are really changing an industry.

[Thomas Koch]

Sony trv-700 ( hi8 with time code!)
Vx1000
Canon xl-1
Hvx-200
5d mk II
Red one
Epic*

* coming soon

[Poi Boy]

Jim, I'm so disappointed.... no 20x24 Polaroid ? ;-)
-A

[Nick Gardner]

I'm not going to list still cameras -

First job I ever worked on, 14 years old, working with the family -
Arri SR

Arri S shooting Kinescopes off of a steinbeck for the mix (on reversal)

Many AC jobs on arri srs ,ses and Aatons

Started shooting on beta tube cameras when I was 18.

I remeber my first AC job on an arri 35 III, I had never seen one before. I stayed up all night reading John Fauer's arri 35 book.

Shot a short on a 35 III

Did a short on a BL4

Was an Ac on a job where we where shooting plates on a Fries Mitchell.

I was in a hotel in Cairo when we had camera issues. I called arri new york, they talked me through completely dissembling the entire camera to reset the belt timing for the shutter. They told me to take off the front of the camera. I said, can' t I fuck up the FFD if I do that? they said, only if you are a complete idiot.

Bought 3 Cinema products GSMOs. Great great camera.

Was using sony dockable beta sp cameras, 50 something?

DSR 500 dvc camera came out, shot many docs, and commercials on them. I think Graeme was the guy who made the CineLook software. I shot a 4 hour series for national TV and cinelooked the whole thing. took forever. looked great. Ran on TV agian last week.

SHot some stuff on a sony f900. hated it.

Panasonic Varicam came out. Fantastic camera. Bought one. Shot something like 30 hours of broadcast TV and countless commercials on it. Great camera. Sold it for $5k last month.

Panavision. episodic TV Millennium and XL.

Did a movie on the D-20, we all wanted to love it.It sucked. Although the first AC did drop it off of a dolly and it still worked. That was the same job where red was being talked about. Same time frame as That hand crank Kine whatever it was camera that never happened. I put my deposit down a month later.

Since then, i have worked with arris Panavison and the vast majority of Reds.

I bought a t2i for some specific shots on one show. I love it it's great. I built a custom RC multicopter so I can fly it through the air in ways I never imagined I could move a camera.

Red MX is the tits. Most people are pussies with the red. Rate it at 800 for a movie, 1600 no problem for TV. You can do amazing things. I have shot all over the world with my Red and it's never let me down. Africa, mid east, europe, and the most god awful environment on earth - the american south. Like south georgia in august. Works great.

Looking forward to epic.

Thanks to red for making a fantastic camera that genuinely frees a DP to do work that pushes the edge of the envelope. Because, honestly, if you aren't pushing it every day, whats the point.

[Michael Zeleny]

ФЭД-2
Nikon F2AS
Leica M4-2
Leica M6
3xGoPro Hero
Leica S2P
RED Scarlet-X "Bragmardo"

[Marc Wielage]

Hmmm, I've used a few.

RCA TK-42 (when I was still a teenager in the early 1970s.) GE PE-400. Norelco PC-70, Ikegami HL-32 and HL-35. RCA TK-76. RCA TK-44. Philips PC-100. That takes us up the 1980s.

Bolex H16-Rex, Arriflex M, and Arriflex 16ST 16mm cameras. Later, Arriflex SR1. (Never got to use the SR2 or SR3.)

Nikon F2 and F3 35mm cameras, frequently, through about 1990. I was always a "100% manual" guy, for both shutter speed and exposure. I distrust automatic anything, though I did like their metering.

More consumer video cameras than I can possibly remember, going back to the original Sony Betamovie. My partner and I were the first to write about and review the camera for Video magazine, right around 1981. I think between Video magazine and Video Review probably used and tested at least 100 cameras throughout the 1980s, through 1998 or so.

I loved the last of the Ikegami video cameras, the HL-79EAC, which was pretty much the end of the great tube cameras. Never got to use the last of the RCA tube cameras, the TK-47.

Played around somewhat with the Panavision "Elaine" 16mm camera. In most ways, I think the Arriflex 16SR3 and the later 416 were much better. Big fan of the Panavision Platinum Panaflex, which I only got to use in tests, but color-corrected images from for many years. Also really liked the Arriflex 435, particularly those that were well-maintained. Not a fan of the Movicams -- I found them to be noisy on the set and had a little too much jitter, but that's largely a case of individual maintenance and set up.

I liked what I saw at the initial Dalsa tests, but I don't think they were ever able to solve the practical problems of heat, reliability, storage, and other issues. I worked in post with numerous HD cameras, going back to early Panasonic Varicams, the original Panavision Genesis (and Sony F900 variants), which I thought were initially noisy and soft but got better over time. I thought the Sony F950 was considerably improved, but always preferred the Arri D21, judging by the post projects we did in the early-to-mid 2000s. The F35 was a major breakthrough, and I liked the look of this camera very much for TV.

I felt the Red One initially looked awful in its first release, due to lens issues and I think inexperience by DPs, but got much, much better over time. Our post facility was completely overwhelmed by data issues and the slowdown of using Scratch (which I believe was our only dailies-processing tool at the time), but like everybody else in LA, we eventually got it under control, and within a year or so, handled many Red projects in stride. With a good DP at the help, the pictures looked beautiful.

The Arri Alexa blew me away the first time I saw it, and I continue to be impressed with how it looks, both for theatrical projects and for TV. I think it's fast, efficient, and does the job for this specific market. I've only worked on three Epic projects so far, and all looked fantastic except in situations where we had to match them to lesser cameras; the sharpness and colorimetry of the Epic made the other cameras look so much worse, color matching was a nightmare.

I tolerate the Canon 5D and 7D, but the limitations of 8-bit color and the heavy data compression involved are enormous problems in post. For certain limited applications, they're OK from my perspective, especially for web videos, industrials, and modest-budget applications. In expert hands -- I'm thinking of somebody with the talent and experience of Shane Hurlbut -- the cameras can look very good, especially in dangerous situations where I would hesitate sending in a $40,000 camera.

No experience with the C300 or C500. My first Scarlet job starts next week -- looking forward to it.