Beginner with $30,000 RED vs PRO with $600 DSLR By Parker Walbeck

So, hey how's it going guys in this video. We have a super fun shootout for you. We have our brand-new intern josh Bauer he's my cousin he's a stud, but he's only been shooting for about five weeks now, and we gave him access to a 30, 000 cinema camerae, and we're going to compare what he can do with that to a five-year vet in Jake Waller, who is a professional cinematographer, shooting weddings all over the world, and we're giving him this little dinky canon sl2 that goes for 600 bucks, and we're gonna, see if Jake can produce something as good or possibly better than josh can with a professional cinema camera. So we're going to give each of them one hour to shoot a fan made commercial for one of our favorite boot companies, and then they're each going to have a day to edit together a 30-second commercial, and then we'll come back here and see how they compare now. Josh has never used a red camera, so we did have somebody on set just helping him know how to navigate it. But besides that creatively, it's all him.

As for Jake, he's just going to be using this little kit lens and a nifty 50 millimeters, compared to josh's cinema 18 to 35 millimeter lenses, so definitely a lot better gear at josh's hand, but I always tell you guys: it's not the gear that makes a difference. It's the skills behind the camera and Jake's going to prove that he can produce something awesome with just an entry-level camera, like a lot of you have. So, let's get going all right. So we are now here on set filming, we're gonna, be shooting our buddy Nate who's modeling some boots for a company. I love this is a fan made commercial.

They are not paying us to do this, and we're going to be taking turns shooting in different locations and seeing what we can come up with as creatives as storytellers as cinematographers, and then compare our work after we add together a small 20 to 30-second commercial and joshes, and I are not going to be shooting together. We don't want to copy each other's ideas, so when I'm filming josh will be off set when josh is filming I'll be off set. So that way as creatives as storytellers we're not influenced by each other, so for this first shot, I'm not really sure what storyline I have yet. I just want to get a lot of good product shots of Nate wearing the boot and also kind of sleeping the lifestyle. I want to show someone looking good in the boot and not just show tons of pantyhose of the boot.

That makes sense. So this is on manual focus as well. The sl2 has autofocus, but I'm using a manual lens, so it's going to be a little difficult Nate. Could you step into the sun? For me dude, I want to see what it looks like man's dynamic range is terrible pull my focus hit record, and I'm going to do an as stable as I can. Three two one go.

Oh, shut up. It died on me hold on yeah good thing. I died because I messed up. I've got to walk up and three two one walking away cut shaking so much this thing's hard to hold. So I want him to like walk through walking past the glass and leaning against the fence over there, and then we're going to get another shot of his upper body zooming into like the mountains, then we're going to end it.

I need to do that again. Holy crap, this thing's hard to hold three two one action, nice and slow. Oh one, more time that was beautiful, all right, three two one hold on. I need to redo that that's bad all, right, we'll call it a day. Are we just rap shooting I'm a little nervous to see how my footage turns out? I'm really starting to see how josh's footage turns out we're going to go back into the office edit together, our commercials watch them with parker and compare the differences here we go, and we are back in the office.

They have finished their edits, and we're now going to watch and review and give feedback and see how well they each performed with their respective cameras. So, first up, let's check out josh's 30-second commercial, so nice work Joshua, very nice. I am such a proud cousin right there. That is with five weeks of experience, like I said before that he would send me iPhone videos, and we'll show you some of those videos that he was shooting just a few weeks ago. Compare that to what he just produced, and he's already come a long way.

In five weeks we've been training him mentoring and helping him grow. So that's better than what you know just an actual rookie who's not shot anything ever would produce so awesome job josh. You can see just from having good gear. That does make a difference like you really can produce quality stuff just by having some nice gear, even if you have never used and don't have a ton of experience. So that's something to keep in mind that gear does make a difference.

It doesn't make all the difference. I don't think it makes most of the difference, but it does make a difference. But let's now watch Jake's see how that compares with a nice canon sl2 by the way that was shot in 6k, and this is going to be in 1080. So see if you can even tell loved it. I was when he showed me that I was like you really shot that in the sl2 I mean, that is a 600 camera, and that is a commercial that could pass and that you could charge thousands of dollars for, and that just testifies to how important it is to have experience.

He has five years of experience, he's probably put in 10 000 hours, like I always tell you guys you got to put in those hours, those repetitions. I was just telling josh the other day, I'm like man. If you want to be a professional, if you want to be able to do this full-time you just got to put in hours, you got to put in repetitions and Jake has done that, and so, when you throw at him an entry level, camera he's still able to produce high quality results. Now, what did you guys think of those two watching them back to back with your thoughts? First off I had to put a lot in post to make that look even better. I had layers of color correction I'll, show you kind of some layers.

I was adding some sharpening. Furthermore, I was adding um. Furthermore, I did warp stabilizer to everything because I was shooting handheld and so a lot went into to the post-production started to make it look just as good as I possibly can to compete with a red over here, but I think some key difference is it's just it's just knowing like parker said just what experience can teach you that gear can't teach you and that's some shots to get some angles to get some depth to create things like that, as you can see, like josh's came quite a ways just by having gear, but what really stood out to me with Jake's is the colors. Josh doesn't have a ton of experience, color correcting or color grading, and so his image looked pretty flat, and this is a pretty flat camera. It shoots in raw, and so, if you don't know what you're doing in post, then you really can't manipulate that image and get the most out of it.

As far as color grading goes, the colors just popped on this. It just looked more like a professional commercial, whereas this looked like a first draft, where we hadn't quite done the color correction yet, and that just comes down to experience and anybody who would be given a red without knowing how to use it or how to color grade it. That's how anyone would look, and so josh did the best he could with what knowledge he had. But that was the biggest thing that stood out to me immediately, where the colors just popped off the screen with Jake's. Another thing with shot selection like Jake mentioned Jake just has a lot more experience with creating depth and getting different angles, and you just notice a different level of cinematicness with Jake's shots that he's getting.

Where he's creating more depth, he's using foreground a little better and as far as the effectiveness of the commercial itself, you notice that Jake is using titles to describe what we're looking at. He focused a little better on the boots, whereas you know josh is just kind of grabbing shots of his model walking around, and it's not super focused on the boots and that's something once you've worked with a ton of brands and done a bunch of product videos, you just start to learn what types of shots your client is going to like and which ones they throw out and say. I didn't like that. One can replace that with something else and Jake's done so many of these he's gotten that feedback, and he knows I shouldn't get a shot like that, because they're going to ask for something different, whereas josh he's never shopped for a client yet, and so he's just filming whatever he thinks is going to look good but doesn't have the perspective of a client again, someone that just comes with experience. One other thing I noticed was just nailing focus, there's a few shots.

I noticed where josh was a little out of focus and again that just comes down to experience of knowing how to use the camera, so that was one advantage Jake had been his camera? Had autofocus versus this, one is all manual. So if you don't know how to use manual, focus really well that becomes a disadvantage, and so these big cinema cameras as nice as they are. They still have some drawbacks to you guys shooting on some of these cheaper cameras. You got to realize and take advantage of those, and those can really help you out in areas that someone with a cinema camera might struggle with if they haven't practiced, that manual pulling focus, and so, as you guys can see like this was a fun comparison for us just to be able to see how much does the gear actually make a difference, and, as you can see from that personally, I thought that you can do just as much professional work as you can with the red. If you know how to use the gear and that's what we teach inside a full-time filmmaker, the ultimate online film school, highly recommend you guys checking that out.

We have mentors here to help you guys we have over 400 tutorials, that's going to teach you guys how to get the most out of your cameras. Jake's going to show you inside the course what kind of picture profiles he's using going to show you how to color grade is going to show you how to get cinematic angles and all these different things that go into making that what it was versus, no matter how good of gear you have its doesn't matter. If you have 30 grand, if you don't know how to use it, you're not going to be able to shoot professionally as awesome as josh's was, and as far as he's come in five weeks. That's not quite going to pass as a professional video for a client, they're going to have a ton of feedback. They're, probably going to ask for a reshoot, and so the gear doesn't make all the difference.

It makes a difference, but not enough to be able to do this professionally and to be able to make money. I get a lot of people asking me like. If I upgraded to a red, would I automatically be able to charge more for videos, maybe a little more, but mostly no mostly people just care about? How does the final product look, and they're mostly not going to care about what you shot it on as long as it looks the way they want to and as long as it showcases their product in the way they were hoping for? So that's pretty much. It guys make sure to check out full-time filmmaker if you want to learn how to take those skills to the next level with the gear. You already have, lastly, make sure to subscribe for more content just like this, and if you have any further questions, please let us know you.

Source : Parker Walbeck