[Vishal.R]

Question is not about digital camera but more about digital videography.

Purpose is typical home videography, mostly outdoors during traveling and sometimes inside home during small events like birthday celebrations.

We have entry level compact Sony handycam for this purpose which has okayish video quality. My father is primary user so don't have exact details about the model.

I am thinking to upgrade, especially for 4K videos. Main problem with (low / mid range, up to 20k) mobile videos is lack of optical zoom and lens size / quality.

I am no longer in active touch with market, Last purchase with my active involvement is around 2005 when We selected Panasonic DVR with 3 CCD sensor and mini DV tape as storage format.

My main question is about equipment to check. I believe boundaries are getting blurred between different types of camera so my primary question is what kind of device is ideal for our purpose? I can see some compact video camaras but any other types of equipment (e.g. mirrorless or DSLR) can be explored?

One problem with DSLR is size, Have a Nikon D5200 but is mostly being used as point and shoot.

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by Vishal.R

I am thinking to upgrade, especially for 4K videos. Main problem with (low / mid range, up to 20k) mobile videos is lack of optical zoom and lens size / quality.

20K is too low for any decent video camera.

If optical zoom is not important then first compact choice is DJI pocket 3 for the amazing mechanical stabilization. Benefit of mechanical stabilization is that when you shoot in the low light with very low shutter speed, the electronic stabilization creates ghosting effect which makes videos look very ugly, that is not the issue with the mechanical stabilization.

If optical zoom is important then cheapest mirrorless option is Sony ZVE1 which will cost you somewhere around 50k with kit lens locally. But it has only electronic stabilization. Its compact but not much compared to your D5200 which shoots in FHD but the quality is upsampled from the full 24MP sensor. So the videos coming out of it are still far better than the mobiles or action cameras which have tiny image sensors.

Cheapest option with mechanical IBIS is Panasonic Lumix G85, costs same as ZVE1. That is old model but has very good stabilization even in low light. If you are ready to spend bit more then can consider newer version of their other micro four third cameras. One advantage of APSC or Micro Four Third cameras is that their lenses are much cheaper compared to the full frame cameras and more varieties are available.

If you want best of the best then you can also consider the Lumix S9 which has full frame image sensor, 10 bit 422 6K open gate and many other state of the art cinematography features. Its a stripped down version of S5IIX with the same image senor. IBIS in these cameras is unmatchable. These cameras also support in-camera LUT so just load few of your favorite LUTs in the camera and shoot with the one you like in the given situation and no need for any editing afterwards.

This is an expensive hobby, caution required before jumping into it.

You already have D5200, you just need to improve on the video shooting skills and invest in some filters like ND filter to achieve better video results. You can not get away with the same camera settings you keep for photography while shooting videos. Follow the 180degree shutter angle rule for video shooting to begin with.

Quality of those old handycams are surpassed by the mobile phones long ago so not point using them now.

I am thinking to upgrade, especially for 4K videos.

If you are talking about 4K then you will also look for 10 bit 422 video output from the camera for the files with better dynamic range. If so then you will also need very heavy computer rig to edit them. So make sure you are also ready about those secondary investments.

Just having 4K resolution is not going to get you better videos. If right shooting techniques are followed then your existing D5200 is capable of delivering far pleasing videos in its FHD resolution compared to the 4K videos shot on any mobile phone.

[Vishal.R]

Thanks a lot for the detailed response,

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

20K is too low for any decent video camera.

Correct, 20k is not the budget decided for a camera, Its the typical budget for mobile phones I am using, just to give an idea about the context when I say "mobile phone", since I understand that high end phones provide really good video quality, but due to my (rough) usage pattern and mindset, would prefer to spend on dedicated camera instead of a high end phone.

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by Vishal.R

but due to my (rough) usage pattern and mindset, would prefer to spend on dedicated camera instead of a high end phone.

Dedicated camera is always better than current crop of mobile phones. For the sack of comparison, a mobile phone has camera hardware costing 1-7K, thats it. On the other hand price of any decent camera starts at around 50K and goes all the way in lakhs where they have all the hardware dedicated for the job photography and videography.

Thats the reason why even decade old DSLRs are still able to deliver far greater images than today's most expensive smartphones. Mobile cameras heavily rely on the software processing for decent results and are easier to use for most people as automatic point and shoot cameras.

I would suggest to refine your videos shooting skills on the D5200 for a while and once you get hold of that, then you will know what you are missing in it and what you should be looking in your next camera.

PS: Read ZVE10 where I mistyped ZVE1 in my previous post. ZVE1 is lightest and smallest Sony camera which has full frame sensor with mechanical IBIS, but its far more expensive than the ZVE10 which is one of the most popular APSC camera by Sony.

[UD17]

Just to throw light on few aspects about my experience with DSLRs and photography. I was very intensely involved in photography, primarily landscapes, macro and birds. I have used all kind of canon gears currently and in the past ranging from 5D body, 11mm wide angle till 600mm telephoto. I still have a full canon kit. Since 2011 till 2017, There were no weekend without photography and i never imagined myself without doing photography in distant future.

But now with the kids, i rarely used my DSLR (although its always available with me in the car), the weekend trips continued but the use of DSLR disappeared. Few reasons could be:

- With kids its too cumbersome to use DSLR, tripods, big lens etc. The usual camera bag is mostly replaced by a bag carrying food, water, umbrella etc.
- Wonderful mobile camera and pics quality. In fact in most situation capturing pictures from a mobile camera is risk free while DSLR needs constant change in settings and one could miss few moments.
- Now i use social media sparingly (with no Facebook at all) so posting the pictures becomes zero. It reduce the number of picture i take out from my camera memory card.
- The Big lens and camera attract undue attention

But i can say for sure that the mobile camera can not match the quality, details and post processing prowess of DSLR images.