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Should Cinematographers buy/own gear?

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Matthew J Wilson

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I'm trying to convince myself to buy Hive's new 575-c LED for £4000 but I keep coming back to the age old question as to whether cinematographers should own their own gear?

The light would probably only get used for tests, personal projects and low budget work. Is it worth the investment? Will technology change and make the light redundant?

Would be interested to hear everyones opinion on whether cinematographers should own/buy kit?
 
I own a metric shit ton of gear, which has worked out well for me. The catch is I never bought anything that didn't have a job that would pay for it right away.

A friend of mine sold his G&E rental business after LEDS basically put him out of business. they keep coming out so fast and everyone wants the latest and greatest, so there is no time to make your money back on LEDs.

As far as hive is concerned, I had a client who bought a bunch of their plasma lights, and holy hell did they suck. They sucked in every way something could suck. Based on their astoundingly bad design, I would stay away from them. But that's just my opinion.

If you are not trying to rent it to other people, there are some very good, cheep LEDS coming out of china. I have about 6 18x24" Falcon eyes matts and they have been bullet proof and overall fantastic. Falcon eyes makes a bowens style openface 300w bi color led that looks pretty promising for about $800. It gets full output at daylight color temp so you get the full 300w. Next time I have a project where I need something like that I'll probably pick a couple up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDj1eovjg1U

Nick
 
Hi Nick

Interesting opinion on Hive, I have a similar attitude with Aputure, I used a 120d once and was amazed at how bad the quality of light was, I've heard good things about Hives LED's as far as colour goes but build quality is an area I haven't really thought about.

Would you say its better to spend less on incandescent than risk spending more on the ever changing market of LED's?

The falcon looks interesting but I'd be nervous about buying from an unheard Chinese brand like Falcon eyes.

In an ideal world Arri would bring out a compact RGB LED Par with equivalent output of a 2k fresnel for £2000 or less. One can dream
 
I guess it all depends on the market segment you serve most. If you’re mainly just operating on movies, commercials, etc., buying probably doesn’t make much sense. I’ve always been an “owner/operator” serving mostly the network/broadcast world where I provide all of the gear(cam’s, audio, lighting & grip) and service and the bulk of the rate(~2/3) comes from the gear. Conservatively, 75%-80% of my work is with my gear, which is down from 100% five years ago. But a lot of times when I’m not shooting with one of my cams, I’m still getting my lights out and audio with an op, too.

I have four Hive LED’s. Two of the 100’s and two of the 200’s. They improved a lot with the last firmware update, color wise(white light), but I mostly use them for their color ability as I have Gemini’s and Astra’s for keying people.
 
If you have good rental options nearby, I suggest owning very little gear. If your location is bereft of proper rental shops, then owning may be worth the investment/upkeep. Shipping based rental options like LensRentals, etc are starting to change that equation, so I'd research what it would cost you to rent everything via online order/direct shipping.

The other key factor is how many days per year you can invoice for your gear and if you have local production pros you'd be comfortable renting your gear to. What about a safe and convenient place to keep your gear? Don't forget insurance.

FWIW, if I was located in LA, NY, ATL, etc I would happily own nothing but my Monstro, sticks, batts, cards and a couple of lenses. That way I could shoot personal projects and interesting low budget stuff out of personal kit and rent everything else. YMMV.

Cheers - #19
 
I can only say good things about Hive LEDS the 100c are limited in power but they are on every shoot, having access to unlimited gels at a switch of a button is so valuable. They are never keylights but a colored fill perfectly dimmable and light enough to rig them on a an arm of a CStand as a boom.
How did you use the Aputure when you disliked them. Looking at getting a couple of 300ii when they are out. Won't use them with bare reflectors but inside a chimera or briese style parabolic or with fresnel and leko attachment they are incredibly versatile. But I am here to learn if you tried them and it did not work out
 
Tough question, but I think it depends at least partially on what niche you're working in-- or want to work in.

For me, owning my own camera and certain workhorse lights has allowed me to take on smaller recurring jobs that make money over time, but that wouldn't be worth it if I had to factor in rentals each time (against a low total budget). These sustain my business in between larger gigs. Most of that business is corporate/educational. It also has sometimes let me do personal work or more creatively exciting gigs.
I also know DPs-- and gaffers, since we're talking lights-- who own very little. On higher budget commercial and narrative stuff, it doesn't necessarily make a difference to own your own gear. It's possible that you increase your margin or are able to be more competitive on a bid if you have the right camera or lens set-- but that's a bit risky. As Nick said, lots of times a client wants the latest and greatest-- it's gotta be a Skypanel, even in a situation where a pair of Astras would give the same results.

A Hive 575 or an Aputure C300D or a Litepanels Astra will give the same great results three years from now as they do today. And you're only limited by your skill and vision--we've all seen amazing work that was lit with a $500 Lowel Rifa (see: the work of Robert Elswit), and only equipment nerds are gonna care which unit lit a given shot. Whether or not you can rent out those specific lights in three years, and whether or not they do what you need for a specific job is another question.
 
Thanks everyone for your input, I've decided to go for it under the condition that it has to pay itself back within the year or I'm selling it.

Really difficult decision as I totally agree that expensive kit doesn't equate to good images. Some of the best images I've created have been from using daylight and negative fill.

I also agree that it depends what area of work you're in or going into. I myself wish to go into low budget indie features, music videos and commercials where most if not all the kit would be from a rental house. However, currently I'm a freelancer where the kit I have is whats getting me work.

Would still like to keep the discussion open, interested to hear more opinions!
 
I wouldnt buy an expesnsive light.

if you need a good light for everyday testing and low budget, get the Rayzr7's in Daylight. super powerful and only about 1300$

If youre using the Hive on low budget stuff they arent paying for the light properly, so basically you blew up 4000GBP on somethign that wont make its money back. plus its weird to bring one light on a big job...
 
Owning gear can be helpful, as it gives you more control over your creative, your workflow, and yes - your budget.

As to Hive, we work a lot with their Plasmas and LED lights and we're big fans.

The Plasma lights are VERY punchy (think Joker 400), but yes can be a little finicky. However they draw very little power, give off very little heat, and have their place.

Their LED's however are really winners. The Hive 100 is a great accent light. Basically replaces Arri 300/600's. And because it's RGB, it can play as a colorful accent light in a 5600 daylight environment. The only issue we have with them is the accessory attachment's aren't as robust as the lights themselves, however because the lights were smartly designed to work with Profoto attachments, it easy to find other accessories from other third pary brands. Being able to control the lights via DMX (and now wireless DMX) is also a massive bonus.

The Hive 200 is AMAZING. Almost as bright as a Joker 400 (we've keyed with the Hive 200 in a Octaplus).

And I have no doubt the 575 will be a winner too.

LED is where HIVE have really started to shine (pun intended).
 
I'm struggling with this myself as I'm looking at lighting as the next frontier for equipment purchases. However, I've had great luck on the low end using Philips LED bulbs with certain inexpensive bulb fixtures, 5000K balanced LED work lights that seem to constantly disappear from the market shortly afterwards, and some of the newer inexpensive LED solutions like those foldable LED mats that are popular right now and just good deals on older used LED panels like Litepanel 1x1 lights. Newer and more powerful lights like the Aperture 300D II seem like great investments and cuts down on depending on my bigger 10-bulb fixtures and other exotic solutions but they're not only expensive but quite a handful for storage. I had at one time thought to purchase a couple of my own high end generators for filmmaking purposes but after filming my first feature last summer, I learned right away that I don't want to have to store and handle maintenance for generators and, yes, there is the gasoline smell issue as well. We rented from Home Depot as that was the closest available place to get them and that process was pretty seamless and convenient overall, so it shows that if there's someplace you can rent, in my experience, then that would be the most preferable situation. If you're in an area that doesn't have any rental places, well, then that depends on your budget and what your needs are.

As for cameras and lenses, I would say you should definitely have something on hand, even if it's an inexpensive set of still lenses (cine-modded or not) or a set of Rokinon Cine DS lenses. You never know if you might want to capture something or put together a quick short or even a test. If it's a good enough camera to bring you jobs, all the better, but I wouldn't go broke over a personal camera.
 
Im no DP but I try to work under the same principal as Nick. I only buy stuff when I got something booked that will pay for it and it will cost me less than renting it for the given project. Very rarley I buy something that needs a longer ROI. This industry is changing so fast so I let the rental companies run for that money instead.


But for DPs I think very different. You guys should be consultants, not sales people promoting the use of your own gear.

Sorry to say, but as soon as a DP start talking about his own camera, lenses, lights or what ever for a project I'm doing... Its a complete turnoff. Does not matter if they are offered at a low price. No matter how its done or how nice the intention where. For DP´s I think a better approach is to be a independent creative force ready to use and recommend what ever is best for the project and not have tinted ideas about those things because you got some led light at home that you could make a few extra bucks from if the production use them.

I seen very talented DP´s that go that route, even Oscar winners, that start to buy into gear, then trying to bring them into projects in different ways. Directors, producers and everyone involved very often see through that kind of behaviour and it simply does not look pretty.
 
I have been doing this for a long time (30 years) so I have accumulated lots of stuff. I got a call a couple of weeks ago to do a commercial that was all macro impressionistic stuff. It included a shot of a chess board with pieces rising up from underwater. They wanted to shoot in about 3 days. I said this is going to take some figuring out and could probably use a test day. I ended up building a rig where the chess board was on an arm rigged from the dolly so we could use the boom to raise and lower the chess board. I gave them a quote saying I would bill them a la cart for whatever we used lighting wise. Started off with a 1200 HMI, that was too hard to control for the macro stuff we were doing so we switched to 100w LED fresnel, that wasn't doing it so we went to LED dedos. Having all the stuff made it easier to figure out because we didn't have to decide what to use ahead of time. At one point the client wanted to do a pull back through the chess board on a probe lens and have the camera roll when we did that. Can we do that? Sure, I just dug out the weaver steadman and set it up for that. Overhead shot looking straight down? Sure, let me grab the little jib.

I was doing a commercial last month where we decided we liked flares. I had my Illuminas which we were using, but we wanted something more dramatic, and since we were at my studio, I had 3 different wonky lenses in the 30mm range that we could audition on the spot. Ended up shooting the rest of the spot on russian still lenses.

A couple years ago, I was doing a feature and we were shooting near my shop. You never have like extra tripods and heads on a shoot, but I had them and my AC was like, "sure would be handy to have a couple extra sets of sticks and heads just to bounce cameras back and forth between cranes, steadicam" etc. So we had like 4 sets on set. it was really useful.

My point is, having a ton of options can be very useful. But again, I never bought any of that stuff as an investment. Just a good deal pops up on ebay, someone is selling something, I have a good project that has the money to buy some toys, etc. I did a shoot recently where I needed a B camera. The money in the budget was exactly enough to buy an AJA cion. One week shoot, boom, now I have a free extra camera body. So that stuff adds up over time.

At this point I don't need to rent anything except specialty gear for anything up to a medium sized feature. Since everything I bought was already paid for, when the low budget thing pops up I can still make a decent profit and over deliver on the product because it's not an added expense.

I have had a camera package of some sort for a long time. From an ARRI SR to Varicam, to reds. A camera package in my market rents for about $1200 a day. Since forever. The SR was 1200 a day. the Varicam was 1200 a day. That includes accessories. I was really on the fence about buying a Gemini because the cameras are turning over so fast now adays. But I did and it paid it's self off pretty quick. Less than six months. But my arii MB-19, my lenses, my heads, all the gack hasn't changed. A camera is just a box you stuff a lens on. There is more money in all the other crap.

I have done pretty well on making money on lighting. I have a generator package, a bunch of HMIs and leds, a pile of tungsten crap. The thing is, I don't rent it piece meal. I am doing a job, I just bill for a daylight lighting package, and take what I think I'll need. Grip is a pain in the ass. There is next to no money in it, but you need it. I think I bill $300 for a 1 ton Grip package. C-stands and cardelinnis are expensive. Also that is the kind of shit that vanishes. I stopped buying scrims for lights after like the third movie where they were all gone at the end.

Not everyone has the space to store a ton of shit, but if the opportunity to buy some gear comes along, and it's not a big out of pocket expense, I say go for it.

Nick

I will add, based on Bjorns post above, that I never push to use my stuff. If a client wants to use the flavor of the month lenses, or a different camera or there is a better solution to the problem than what I have, so be it. Happy clients are repeat clients ;-)
 
Interesting opinions everyone! I've always been told that you shouldn't invest in any modern and expensive camera systems due to the ever changing technology. 30k for a camera that might become redundant in a few years to me isn't a good investment. But I do think cinematographers should own a camera body, something more affordable for personal projects or general shooting that the owner wouldn't lose to much money from.

In my opinion lenses/filters should be where the money is spent. (I'm buying Leica r's)

However, I do think cinematographers who are just starting out can benefit a lot from owning kit, a few light fixtures, some diff, bounce, solids etc. Doesn't have to be expensive stuff but I think that practising/experimenting with lighting and composition can aid the learning process.

This is the area that I'm in and I'm investing in kit so that I can do just this. Most of my paid work is corporate/music videos and having my own kit is great as it gets me more work.

I'm open to opinions/advice on this, definitely no expert!
 
I think it depends largely on your market and the type of work you are booking. There's just no one way to answer this.

For me, owning gear in a smaller market has allowed me access to larger jobs. Production like an easy rental solution and if I own most of the things we'd need to rent, it's an incentive on making the production go smoother. Plus, the obvious upside for me then is the extra cash flow. You really need to calculate though the ROI on certain pieces of gear. An s-60 can pay for itself if it goes out 10 times at $300. A client monitor that costs $500 and goes for $50 on every shoot you go on is a smart move. Other specific, niche items, maybe not so much. Plus I also consider what gear my crew already owns. A lot of my gaffers own a lot of lighting, and so there's no need for me to purchase it. I'd rather pay them their rental rate and give them the extra cash.

I think you just have to calculate what you use most, what you know will make you money and return on investment. If it makes your life easier, probably worth owning. If you know it makes you money, probably also worth owning. But again this is for the market I work in. In larger markets, most everything is so easily accessible and most crew members bring their chips to the table, that as a DP, you don't need to own anything but a light meter.
 
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