Why are video cameras (not movie cameras) more expensive than DSLRs with worse picture quality?

Video cameras that are not movie cameras usually come in several classes:

1. Broadcast grade cameras.

2. Business-grade cameras.

3. Civilian high-end cameras.

4. Home ordinary DV camera.

The camera as a traditional video recording equipment, development history has been very long, the technology is relatively mature, as a professional video recording tools, in the short term will not be replaced by other models.

Some friends think that DSLRs and mirrorless cameras have stolen the share of many traditional video cameras, which is an objective fact. But what we should see is that the camera is only replaced by the camera category division of the last class, that is, home DV, just like the cell phone to take away the low-end card camera market is a reason. In the professional, quasi-professional field, the camera is still irreplaceable.

Then some friends will say, DSLR video quality is better than the camera. In fact, it depends on how to look at the so-called "picture quality". Because the SLR camera cmos sensor size is very large, so the video image has a good shallow depth of field effect, has a good high sensitivity performance, belongs to the class "movie machine" effect, but the direction of the traditional video camera use itself with this purpose is different.

Traditional cameras, although the original size of the sensor is small, but it has a very clear purpose, that is, to be more "clear" picture. This clarity includes a large depth of field brought about by the overall clarity of the picture, that is, the traditional camera itself does not want to shoot the depth of field is too shallow picture, but the pursuit of a larger range of imaging clarity. The reason is simple, is associated with its main purpose.

Traditional camera applications for broadcast media, news video recordings, studio video capture, conference sessions and other long video recordings, performances, such as filming the use of its position, in such application scenarios, the shallow depth of field of the artistic effect and no market, and also try to avoid the shallow depth of field brought about by the focus misalignment, the background blurring and other picture effects. Professional, quasi-professional level of the camera has the resolution, bit stream, chroma sampling rate, etc. is matched with the broadcast television standards, this aspect of the camera is not so standardized. High-end camera image quality can not be said to be worse than the camera, but the image quality orientation is different, to achieve broadcast standards or similar specifications of the camera, the image quality is not bad at all, but the camera will be in the indicators to meet the needs of the broadcasting industry.

In addition, the camera's wide-range zoom lens, built-in ND scrim, a variety of audio-video interfaces, long battery life, and a control system designed specifically for video are all specifications that the camera can not reach.

According to the current development trend, camcorders and cameras have a certain degree of integration cross, but in the field of professional use, or each have their own specialties, there is no complete integration of the possibility, only in the civilian field of this distinction is becoming more and more fuzzy.

Who told you that?

What you're talking about should be a professional broadcast-quality camera, and the average home is much cheaper, so there's no discussion!

In the professional-grade field, the most frequent use is the network multi-camera live broadcast, conference recording live, wedding and other small gatherings of content recording, from these characteristics is not difficult to see, this type of camera recording time is long, the frequency of use is high, on the hardware base of the camera requires a high level of characteristics! Although the wedding is now mainly SLR-based, but the use of SLR characteristics are destined to be unsuitable for long-time use of the requirements. First of all, the hardware characteristics, professional-grade cameras generally use 1/2.8 inches or larger coms, generally 3 pieces, respectively, to identify the red, green, blue three basic colors, internal cooling fan, the lens also supports 20 times optical zoom, the basic magnification is generally 18, and the body interface is more abundant, generally standard with SDI, HDMI and analog audio and video interfaces, while the SLR, although the photoreceptor chip Larger, there is no specialized cooling air duct ducts and interface design, so can only record short films, and the interface can not directly on the switching table, you need to convert the equipment, the lens is not as convenient as a professional video camera! Webcasting for the loss of picture quality, so the advantages of SLR in the field of webcasting is not obvious, and the need for channel replacement batteries, and even become a burden on the live broadcast! Although there is an external battery, but the heat is extremely serious, long time use will burn the sensor chip!

In the field of broadcasting, there is no need to mention that the DSLR is useless in professional events, large parties, and multi-camera satellite broadcasts!

The advantage of SLR is that in today's network popularity, the rapid development of self-media today, to be able to quickly, high-quality, low-cost filming of some material, before the rapid development of, and SLR or some of the ability to shoot high-quality video of the full-frame microslice, the lens set is rich, easy to maintain simple, easy to use, the pre-costs are low, to become a lot of freelance creatives and studios preferred

Because the amateur There are so many of them, they mistake shallow depth of field for good image quality.

I'm guessing you're looking at, what, a really big one of those machines, and that's why you're asking this question? A real camcorder's image quality is still online.

The camera is generally small, the lens ratio is too large, more lenses, processing circuitry to compress the image quality, rendering color. Resulting in poor picture quality. Typical junk quality TV series is, bright sword, Chinese style relationship. High quality TV series are, Doctor Who. Of course, it's still the 90s Hong Kong martial arts film space stereoscopic sense of good, better color.

Simply put, in fact, now we look at the short video online to see the eyes of the bad, thinking that the cell phone and the camera out of the good thing. Other aspects of the problem, such as a large depth of field ah, life time ah, other answers are involved in some of them, I'll talk about the color of the professional and amateur.

In fact, if you look at a few videos, you'll see that the color of the image is constantly changing as the light changes, and especially as the composition changes. Especially the human face, a little attention will find the character's face a moment of green, a moment of purple, not a moment later and gray. Or a moment of darkness, a moment of brightness, a moment of the picture is in focus, and a moment of the picture is out of focus. Of course, the geniuses at Up soon invented the hand-behind-the-lipstick method of focusing, but as you can see in some people's videos, when they hold their hand in front of the camera, the hand is always out of focus, and the camera is dead set on always focusing on the background.

Why are the colors, shades, and focus so messed up in these videos? Because the intelligence of cameras and phones is still too limited to be even close to the level of an artificial retard, let alone expect any AI. However, in order to sell more money and goods, the camera manufacturers have chosen to use auto-focus, auto exposure, and auto white balance in such a limited level of technology and at any cost, all of which are stacked on top of each other, which, in the best case scenario, might help you shoot a very good video, but that's still just a maybe, and the fact is that most of the time, it's hard to measure.

Focus and brightness and darkness are fine, after all, they've been built up over a hundred years from the days of film cameras to digital cameras. Color and white balance that can be difficult, but this white balance is still since the digital camera era only began to have things, this thing a **** came out only 10 years, 20 years, manufacturers do not have much accumulation, but this thing is also the most difficult.

More terrible is that the camera this kind of thing is, after all, an electronic device, electronic equipment is characterized by the task, tireless. He is not only tireless to help you shoot, he also wants to be tireless in every minute and every second to figure out how to get your focus, brightness, white balance, color and all these complex things correct. The key is that he doesn't have that ability, but he does have that tireless energy.

In fact, the most frightening thing is his tireless energy, that is to say, he is always adjusting, always modifying. One minute, the color and white balance of the image is very good, but the next second he has to change it to a black face, or grey, green, anyway, it does not look like a living person. This is why many Up owners have to put a lot of effort into post-production color grading before they can send them out.

But can you blame a bad camera or cell phone? Yes and no. Let's talk about the reasons why you can't. It's really simple, it's because your camera tirelessly keeps detecting, all the time. So one minute the picture may be sunny and the trees are green, and the colors are beautiful at this time. Then the next minute the character comes in, wearing a snowy green dress, and the camera has given a push for a close up, and at this time you see that the colors of the whole picture are getting weird. Then the next minute the character walks onto a concrete floor, which is lead gray, and then the character sits down on a pony, and the camera goes to an overhead shot, and the concrete floor takes up most of the frame, and then the whole time, you see the color of the character's face is never fixed.

Why? It's because your camera is detecting it all the time. So when what's in the frame is different, but the camera isn't smart enough to understand that what's in the frame is different. The camera just knows that the white balance calculated with the current picture is different from what it was just now, and the camera thinks that the white balance seems to be "off", and then it tirelessly recalculates the white balance, and then recalculates the colors for the picture with the recalculated white balance. Then the next minute it recalculates the white balance and recalculates the colors. That's why you hello find that the colors in your shots just never stabilize.

So if you want to blame the camera, of course it's the camera. If you don't blame the camera, it makes sense, because that's how cameras are designed.

That said, how does a professional camera deal with the content of the picture and changes in white balance? In fact, it's quite simple. Professional cameras have special switches to turn these functions off.

Generally with a professional camera to shoot it, the photographer will be that a white board, or gray board, in the field of light to measure a white balance data, recorded to the camera inside, and then fixed this data, the back no matter how long to shoot, as long as the photographer does not say that to change, the camera has been honestly with this white balance to shoot, has been using this white balance to Calculate the color. So no matter how the scene is transformed, how the colors of the characters, the background, and the lighting change, the colors calculated by the professional camera will never be affected.

A brief summary. The so-called professional equipment, his professionalism is usually not reflected in how many awesome features he has, but in how many awesome features he can turn off. Just like flying an airplane, the pilot flying a tens of millions of hundreds of millions of dollars of large planes, there are hundreds of switches to move in order to turn the plane up, your more than 100,000 yuan of cars are already automatic. So why are airplanes so expensive? It's because every control in the airplane has to be able to be turned off individually so that the pilot can have complete control of the airplane. Just like your car, if the oil pump can be turned off individually, and your left front shock absorber can turn off the hydraulic pressure individually, or the spring can be turned off individually, then your car will not be able to be purchased for more than a hundred thousand dollars.

So the reason professional equipment is expensive is to meet the needs of professionals. The requirements of the profession often require that no matter what environment is inside, the things that are shot are directly on the air, directly to be used. For example, when the news is live, sports events live, this time where there is time for you to do post, to adjust the color of the opportunity ah?

Depending on what the camera is, the current 4k level, large scenes and close-up shots, or have the advantage of DSLR can not replace the camera, just like the phone will not eliminate the SLR.

You're comparing the quality of the previous camera with the current DSLR.

You look at the poor quality of CCTV's TV screen? They use professional cameras that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a piece, and the picture quality is not better than a DSLR?