- Hey guys, it's great to see you again.
And don't worry, I survived the whole shark experience.
If you don't know what I'm talking about right now,
you should go ahead and watch my last video.
It was just an insane experience,
probably the most craziest thing I've ever done in my life.
But that's not what we're here to talk about today.
We're gonna talk about the top five cameras of 2018.
And these are kind of the mid-budget range,
they're not the most expensive cameras,
and they're not the cheapest cameras either.
And again, these are just my opinions, these are not
some sort of written rule of fact, a law, just my opinions.
And it's a good thing to note that I mostly just look at
video features, I don't really care about
the photo side as much.
I think almost all of these cameras do pretty well
in photography, but video is really what I look at.
But before we get into that, I just want to remind you guys
that I am filming a documentary, and we're actually doing
a Kickstarter to raise funds for that documentary.
That documentary is about this small little mining town
with some of the most interesting people that I've ever met
in my life, and I'm really looking forward
to telling that whole story.
But, it's also really cool because you guys get to be
a part of the whole thing.
You guys get the behind-the-scenes look,
there's a whole bunch of different live Q&As and videos
that we'll be making around that documentary.
So, if you wanna be a part of it, if you wanna support
that documentary, check out the Kickstarter,
I think there's only a couple days left.
Thank you in advance, really appreciate it.
All that money's gonna be going to flights,
and basically all the logistics, editors, all of that stuff.
I don't even know if I'm gonna get paid from this,
but I don't care, it's more of a passion project for me,
just something that I'm really excited to be a part of.
Alright, so let's get into the top five cameras,
in my opinion.
And this was actually really hard, so bare with me.
Number five, I would give a bit of a tie,
even though they're completely different cameras,
to the Nikon Z6,
and the Black Magic Pocket Cinema 4K camera.
Both are very interesting cameras, and the big problem here
is that I haven't used either of them.
So it's really hard for me to say exactly
what these cameras are like because specs are very different
from real world use.
But I found them to be very interesting cameras.
First off, the Nikon, full frame, 4K, and it actually does
10-bit 4K full frame, but it's recorded externally.
But this is something that pretty much no other camera
in this range can do.
You basically have to go to some crazy cinema camera.
Like Caleb Pike from DSLR Video Shooter was talking about,
you have to pay a lot of money to get full frame 10-bit 4K,
so that's really interesting.
Again, I haven't tried it, so I can't say too much about it.
But I really appreciate that Nikon is starting to
innovate and get better at their video side.
Traditionally, they've been more of a stills camera,
and their video has been, meh, not so good.
But I feel like they're really starting to
ramp up the video features also.
And the Black Magic Pocket camera's
obviously very interesting.
Specs heavy, like a very weird camera in that it's kind of
off on its own.
It shoots Raw, it does 60P 4K,
120 frames in HD,
dual native ISO,
there's just so many different things
going on in this camera, which makes it very interesting.
But it also seems too good to be true in some ways.
So I have some reservations, especially with the history
of Black Magic.
A lot of times, they kind of promise things
and they're semi-true.
There are a lot of good things, but then there's a lot of
weird quirks and things that don't work super well.
And then, also, it's a micro four thirds camera,
and I think it crops in some more on the HD 120 frame,
so that's a bit of a problem for me.
I really like full frame, micro four thirds is way smaller
than full frame.
Also, no auto focus, that makes it very problematic for me,
for my type of film making right now that I do,
but for other people, this will probably be a great camera.
My reservations might totally be wrong,
but I do need to test it out first before I can
give my full review on this camera,
because I'm just going by specs right now.
Number four is the GoPro Hero 7.
Now, I've had a GoPro for a long time, and I always think,
I'm just gonna take my GoPro along, it'll be really great
and convenient to film this snowboarding or snorkeling,
or whatever it is.
And then I look at the footage and I'm like...
Dang it, it just doesn't look good.
But the Hero 7 is the first time that I used it,
first day using it, it just looked really, really good.
And the big reason for that is it's crazy stabilization
now that it has.
Honestly, it made me say, wow, and not too many cameras
or things in cameras make me say, wow.
So that's the big reason why I'm giving the GoPro Hero 7
the number four spot.
It's because it's just a very impressive little tiny camera.
And I think it's the camera that they always wanted to make,
and it's finally here.
So, if you're looking to upgrade, highly recommend
getting the Hero 7.
And then the number three spot, I'm gonna give
to the Fujifilm XT-3.
This was kind of just a surprise camera to me.
I wasn't really expecting that much from it,
but they offered to send me one to test out,
and yeah, it's a really impressive camera.
Very specs heavy again, 4K 60P,
it does 10-bit 4K, Super 35 sensor,
so it's a little bit bigger
than a micro four thirds, but not quite as big
as full frame, 120 frames per second, great color science.
The auto focus, that was the big surprise for me,
it's actually really good, and I found it to be
even better than Sony, which I was not expecting at all.
It wasn't quite as good as Canon, but very impressive.
You could fully rely on the Fujifilm XT-3's auto focus.
The only big downsides would be the no flip LCD screen,
like I'm always complaining about, and then no IBIS,
you do get a lot of that shake.
There isn't even an electronic stabilization mode,
so you're gonna get those little jitters,
especially in 24P, so that is something that you
need to look out for, you're gonna need to
stabilize your footage, use a monopod, glidecam, gimbal,
whatever, when you're moving it around,
it will shake on you.
But a very impressive camera, highly recommend
checking it out, testing it out for yourself,
and see if it fits for you.
And then the number two spot, and some of you are gonna
get very angry with me, I'm gonna give it to
the Canon EOS R.
Bare with me, bare with me.
This really is one of my favorite cameras to use right now.
There's a lot of people complaining about it,
and I don't think those people have actually used it yet
at least, I think they're just going by specs.
And if we look at the specs, it is very underwhelming.
There's not much interesting going on specs-wise,
there's a little cool features that they've put into
the muralist, but specs-wise, not impressive.
But as soon as you start using it, you start realizing
that it's actually a lot better than you would think.
And the big reason for me is the image.
The image is just really nice.
The colors, the log profile, it just works really well
in my opinion, from what I've used it.
I really enjoy it.
And there's something about Canons that just make them
really easy to use.
The menus, everything just kind of makes sense.
Not to mention, flip LCD screen, I'm a big fan of that,
really like using the flip LCD screen.
I don't like always having, like I have a little monitor
right here, I don't like having to rely on external monitor,
I like just having the flip LCD screen, seeing myself,
or I'm filming down low, being able to see
what I'm actually filming, up high, all of that stuff,
really enjoy the flip LCD screen.
And then of course, auto focus, it just works really well,
and you know that I need that auto focus.
So for me, the Canon EOS R, although very underwhelming
in specs, I am actually enjoying it a lot, and it's one of
the most enjoyable cameras for me to use in 2018.
Obviously, it would be great to have things like
no crop 4K, or 120P in 1080, I would love to have that,
that would be really, really nice.
But for vloggers who don't need 4K and don't need
super slow motion, 60P is still great.
For those people, this is probably
the best camera out there right now.
I think this is the closest to a perfect vlogging camera
there is right now.
Definitely not perfect yet, but I think it is
the best option for a lot of people.
Let's be honest, not everybody needs 4K right now,
and not everybody needs super slow motion either.
So, for those people that don't need it,
definitely check out the EOS R.
And then lastly, the number one spot,
I'm gonna give in 2018 to the Sony A73.
This camera specs-wise is just kitted.
It basically has all the specs that you would want.
4K, 120P, great auto focus, great dynamic range and S-Log,
the colors are pretty decent, it just ticks a lot of
the boxes that most people would want.
Even things like IBIS, it has pretty much
all of those things that you would want or need.
The only big thing that it's missing is a flip LCD screen.
And because the auto focus isn't quite as good as Canon's,
there's times where I really, really wish I had a flip LCD
so I could see, is it focusing or not.
But of course, that's not something that everybody needs.
Not everybody uses auto focus.
So if you're one of those film makers that films
other people more so, flip LCD screen
isn't quite as crucial.
And there is one other thing that I don't enjoy as much
about the Sonys, is that they're not quite as easy to use.
There's just something about them, the menus,
the way things work, they're not quite as intuitive,
not quite as enjoyable to use, but also, overtime,
you kind of get used to them
and you don't think about it as much.
But the real reason why I think the Sony A73
is the camera of the year, is that it's just so versatile.
It fits pretty much any kind of film making style right now,
whether you're a YouTuber, you're an indie film maker,
wedding shooter, you shoot corporate videos, music videos,
pretty much anything and everything, this camera can do
in some capacity.
It's not perfect for everything,
but it can pretty much do everything.
It is really versatile, the most versatile camera.
And at a decent price, it's not crazy expensive.
It's a lot cheaper than you would think
when you look at those specs.
So for me, I'm kind of bouncing back and forth right now
between the EOS R and the Sony A73.
Again, this is just for me.
Both these cameras have a lot of things that I like,
neither of them is perfect.
Both of them are great cameras, don't get me wrong,
all these cameras are great cameras,
but these are the two that I'm going
back and forth between right now.
As always though, when I'm talking about cameras,
I always want to remind you guys,
find the right camera for you.
No camera's gonna be perfect for everybody,
so test these cameras out.
There's a lot of hate on the EOS R,
and I think that's mostly because
they just haven't even tried it out.
As soon as you try it out, you realize
there's actually a place for this camera.
It's not for everybody, but there's definitely
a place for it.
Alright, I guess that's it for this video.
Those are my top five cameras of 2018.
Obviously, there's tons of other great cameras,
cameras that I haven't tried out,
cameras that I don't even know about right now.
There are so many great cameras, and I just love that
there's tons of different companies really pushing it.
It just means that there's gonna be
better and better cameras for us to use, which means that
we're gonna have more fun and make better content,
make better films.
So I'm really excited, I'm really curious to see
what 2019 brings, but I'm also really happy with the cameras
we have in 2018.
It's kind of unreal, the options we have.
And it's also funny, I think, that we complain
about our cameras, because um, never in history have we had
so many great options at such affordable prices.
Cameras used to be insane prices.
Now, for like under $1,000, you can get
a pretty decent camera already.
Alright, that's it, hit that Like button,
subscribe to the channel, and I'll see you guys
in the next one, bye.
(upbeat music)