Do I Need to Own Film Gear?
Do I need to own my own kit and does it need to be the latest tech? This is the question DoPs and camera operators wrestle with endlessly, after all we are in an equipment-based profession, so surely everyone needs to have the kit they need to do their job? Not necessarily……maybe. There are pros and cons to having your own kit and it doesn’t really matter what level you’re working at, it comes with it’s own set of challenges, so in this blog let’s run through some of them.
During my second year at university my parents bought me a Canon 60D for my birthday. At the time, most university students had access to nothing more than the Sony PMW-EX1 (which was brand new at the time) or mini dv tape camcorders like the Sony PD170. Now, not to slag off the EX1, it was a phenomenal camera for the time, but considering I was trying to create cinematic masterpieces with the typical film student avant-garde expressionist approach, the camcorder-y image of the EX1 didn’t quite give me the look I wanted; enter the 60D. I started taking the camera everywhere I went and got used to shooting video with it. The results blew me away. For the first time in my life I was looking at a 1920x1080 progressive image, 24fps, from a APS-C sensor through a prime canon lens. This was the most cinematic image I had ever created. Suddenly I was able to create images that had all the hallmarks of the films that had inspired me to pursue a career in filmmaking.
Shooting on my first cinema camera, the Canon C100 back in 2014.
I started using the 60D more and more in my studies and eventually reached the point where my professors thought I had given up on the assignments as I wasn’t booking anything out of the university’s kit room, other than the odd bit of lighting equipment. Having a camera as capable as the 60D as a student filmmaker was liberating and allowed me to shoot at my own pace, whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted. It was then that I was convinced I needed to own everything. I hadn’t yet realised how frustrating the reality would turn out to be.
How much!?
The first thing that immediately bites you about film equipment is how horrendously expensive it all is. It doesn’t matter what it is, it could be a cheeseplate, a chunk of metal with screwholes drilled through it, but because it’s film gear it will cost you £50. Putting together a full camera package with a decent tripod, quality lenses, microphones and media cards can easily cost upwards of £10,000 and I haven’t even included external monitors, gimbals, follow focus systems or lighting yet. My golden rule before I buy anything is can I afford it twice? Not within all the money I have, but solely within the savings I put aside to buy equipment. If I can’t afford it twice, I don’t buy it. You can easily get into difficult debt if you buy kit on finance or on a credit card and as a freelancer that can spell disaster so always consider whether you absolutely need to buy something before you spend that hard earned cash and always ensure you can pay for it through whatever method you use without burdening yourself unnecessarily.
If you are considering buying film equipment you really want to be thinking long term. A tripod should ideally last you at least 20 years or more and a camera if treated right could easily give you 5-10 years of life before you need to think about upgrading it. Probably the best purchase I ever made was the Canon 5D MKIII. For many people this camera and it’s predecessor the 5D MKII was the beginning of their filmmaking career and their first full frame video-capable camera. My 5D has been all over the world. It’s survived rough seas, desert sand, wind, rain, freezing temperatures and it hasn’t missed a beat. It’s still as good as the day I bought it and the image is just as spectacular. The resolution of the still images is around 5.6K meaning it’s still a viable camera for timelapse photography for 1080p or 4K delivery. When I bought it I paid £1500 for it, to date it’s earned me close to £15,000 in kit fees.
My 5D MKIII, still going strong 10 years after I bought it.
Another thing to consider when purchasing kit is insurance. If you own gear, you need to insure it and this can get pretty pricey. Depending on the work you do, you may need to get specific insurances or certificates if you’re going to be travelling abroad or working in certain environments such as construction sites. Always factor in how much extra a month buying some new gear will add to your premium.
Finally for every piece of gear you buy you’ll need somewhere to store it and that means pelicases. I don’t know how many budgets I’ve seen production companies put together for in-house kit purchases that haven’t included flight cases in the costs. The cost of equipment cases alone could run into the thousands of pounds and this is something you don’t want to skimp out on as that will cost you dearly in the long run.
2. But I need this to get work…
I hear people say something along these lines so often, and the thought has crossed my mind as well at times. The truth is……no you don’t. Of course, it depends upon the type of work that you are doing. If you are working for corporate clients, shooting interviews or whatever it may be, then you will be expected to provide gear, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to own it. You could rent, there’s plenty of rental houses in most countries these days and if you strike up a good relationship with them they may offer you some form of discount. How you square away the cost of renting gear is up to you. You could include it in your day rate as a kit fee, with a small markup. If your client trusts you to get good results and you’ve got a good rapport with them, they probably won’t even bat an eye at a larger kit fee on the estimate.
Now, owning kit does have it’s benefits such as you can be much more reactive. A job might come in that’s last minute and all you need to do is prep your gear and head to the location. The producers and directors you work with will know what you have and having kit helps you stay front of mind that little bit more. You also get to know your gear, you know what it can do, where its weaknesses are and you can advise productions around that. All these things help you look more professional.
If you’re working in film or television production, then you might not need to own any equipment whatsoever. The equipment used on properly funded films and TV shows is way out of reach of most people. An Arri Alexa 35 package could easily cost over £100,000 so most productions will rent from their preferred rental house, as they will with 90% of the stuff on set. For those people working in narrative film, the advice I would give is buy what makes your life easier. A 2nd AC should have plenty of expendables. A DoP will probably need a lightmeter so it makes sense to buy one, but there’s no need to go bankrupt buying gear if it won’t enhance your career. The exception here would be steadicam operators. The common expectation is that steadicam ops will provide their own rig, hence why rates are significantly hire than those for camera operators.
Another point to consider is if people are requiring you to own your own gear before they’ll hire you, it means they either don’t know how or can’t afford to rent gear in for themselves and have you operate it. This could be a red flag to watch out for. As filmmakers we’re always eager to work on new projects and expand our portfolios. You never know where the next job will take you so it’s easy to get manipulated into buying gear unnecessarily.
It’s fairly common to see job postings for DoPs asking for specific equipment or trending cameras. As I write this, the camera of the day is the Sony FX6 because…….I honestly couldn’t tell you. It’s an impressive camera, that’s small and very versatile but it isn’t superior to every other camera within it’s price bracket, it’s just Sony’s offering. Anyone who doesn’t have an FX6 isn’t going to struggle to get work simply because they don’t have one. The FX6 is simply the hyped up camera of the moment. This leads me onto a very important point - never buy gear because someone else says you need it. It can feel very deflating at times getting rejected because you don’t have a certain camera model, but it’s important to remember that people who are serious and experienced in film production won’t always expect you to provide gear and certainly not a specific camera model. Producers might want a certain standard of camera with broadcast features, but in most instances they’re thinking more about broadcast delivery specs. There will always be a way to satisfy the production. Usually once you’re onboard a project as a DoP you will have meetings with the director and producers to understand the project more and the budget they have to begin looking at camera packages you could rent that best fit the productions needs, it’s honestly one of my favourite parts of the job. Getting the camera team to a kit house and just playing with everything they have.
So many times in my career, I’ve held back from applying to jobs or reaching out to people because I didn’t feel my gear would meet expectations or I didn’t own the camera of the day. I’ve caved to the pressure before and rushed out to buy a camera simply because it’s currently popular and most of the time it hasn’t been the camera that has actually got me the work - it was me, my abilities and clients believing that I was the right person for the job. Peer pressure is the worst reason to buy anything, so the next time someone says you should spend thousands on something they might hire you for, take a deep breath and think about if it’s actually beneficial to you.
Camera Assistant, Fed, testing cameras on location in Paris.
3. I like shiny things.
Once you do buy gear, it’s very hard to stop and it’s easy to feel like you’re falling behind because you don’t have the latest camera. We all like playing with new toys and as adults I think there is some weird pleasure we all get out of opening boxes. The truth is you don’t need the latest camera because no one is going to notice if you have it or not. Sure, if you buy a Sony Venice and a bunch of super nice lenses you might get some attention, but as I said previously that isn’t necessarily the attention you want to be getting.
At this point having the latest camera doesn’t mean quite the same thing as it may have done a few years ago. Camera technology is incremental but the manufacturers release new models every year or couple of years so it’s actually impossible to stay up to date. The best approach is to dip in every few years rather than try to keep up constantly with all the new releases, your wallet will thank you. Once you’ve bought a gimbal, you don’t need another gimbal until that one breaks or the technology has moved on so much that it makes sense to upgrade. As an example I bought the DJI RS3 Pro shortly after it came out as I didn’t have a gimbal and many of my clients often asked for gimbal coverage, so it made sense to get one. When the RS4 Pro was launched I didn’t care. The changes made are impressive but not enough for me to part with my RS3 Pro, it’s paid for itself ten times over and it does exactly what I need it to do.
This applies to cameras too, I still regularly shoot on my Sony FS7, despite the FX9 and FX6 being on the market. Are they better cameras? Yes. Is the image noticeably better? Not really. The colour space is cleaner and closer to that of the Venice but could an audience member at home notice the difference? No, so for most work the FS7 is still perfectly fine and does the job.
The Sony PMW-500, a 14 year old camera that is still regularly used in broadcast TV.
4. Pre-owned for the win!
Like most people I used to be obsessed with buying brand new gear, for no logical reason other than it was new and therefore there would be nothing wrong with it. Obviously that isn’t true, you could buy a new camera from one of the major suppliers and get a dud, it happens. Buying brand new gear is really expensive and if you’d only looked around on the secondhand market places you could have saved yourself hundreds or maybe even thousands of pounds. In the long run it will be a significant saving. Given the technological advances made in recent years and the slow adoption of high res delivery, all that extra resolution newer camera models may offer might actually be overkill for some projects. If you’re primarily working in corporate video, quite honestly, you don’t even need 4K. Most videos will be hosted on Linkedin, Instagram, company websites or shown at events, in which case 1080p is more than enough for most deliverables. Having that extra resolution is useful as it means your final video will have less compression artefacts and shooting in 4K gives you more leeway in the edit but it isn’t needed. If you’re just starting out you could build up a portfolio of great looking work with a secondhand C100 you bought for £500 and you’ll be able to pay it off in a couple of jobs as opposed to a brand new FX3 for £4000. It’s the quality of your work that matters, not what you shot it on.
I’ve decided that I will never buy a brand new camera ever again, I’m going to upgrade, but my mantra now is to wait a couple of months, maybe even a couple of years after a release before picking up a camera secondhand. One of my favourite sites is mpb.com because there’s usually multiple camera bodies of a given model available and they have actually pictures of each individual body on the site so you can see the condition before you buy. Most of the equipment I’ve bought in this way is in almost perfect condition and it’s saved me thousands. It means I have relatively up to date equipment that didn’t break the bank and has a good few years left in it before I need to consider upgrading again. Certain items like lenses or tripods are purchases for life so buying them secondhand really is a no-brainer. There’s no need to pay full price as assuming the item is in good condition, you’re not gaining anything with a brand new item.
As a significant chunk of my work involves timelapse photography, my kit is going to be tested to the limit. With that in mind I’d rather buy a secondhand camera if the first job I use it on involves leaving it outside in the freezing cold for several hours. Loosing a £700 Canon 5DSR is a lot less painful than a £3000 Sony A7s III. If the less expensive secondhand camera is able to meet the specs I need for the job then there’s no reason not to buy it and save a lot of money.
My Sony FS7 set up for extreme telephoto work.
In conclusion, whether you decide to invest in film gear or not is entirely down to the work you do and what makes your life easier as a DoP. You shouldn’t feel pressured to purchase gear and it doesn’t need to be the very latest tech. Cameras, lights, microphones, all these things are tools of our trade and the only requirement they need to fulfil is to be suitable for the job. Beyond that it’s entirely down to preference.
