Here’s to the Establishment

Ok, this isn’t some political statement. It is a statement about videography equipment brands. Now and then I become aware of those proponents of the big players in camera equipment claiming that start-ups and small companies are unreliable. Usually, I disregard these comments as unfounded and elitist. That was until I noticed an unfortunate trend.

This trend is not evidence of defective or faulty engineering, but it does highlight that an established company’s experience in manufacture and design is important in creating a ‘solid’ piece of equipment.

The term ‘solid’ is separate from ‘well featured’ or simply ‘very useful’. In fact, it is generally the upstarts with better specs. Let me explain.

Black Magic Design burst onto the scene with their offering of relatively inexpensive cinema cameras. The Pocket Cinema Camera was one of their most popular products; a seemingly professional grade camera in the palm of your hand. However, for a time after launch, users started to complain about dropped frames at the infamous ’25-minute mark’ of recording. Since then, Black Magic Design have released firmware updates to fix this issue, so current or potential buyers rest easy. Nevertheless, this is a reason why it seems wise to eschew super-early adoption of very promising start-up brands until the reviews are in.

However, closer to my heart:

For the record, GoPro, in my opinion is indeed still the leader of the action cam game (for now). However, few realise that this company has no pedigree at all. Now, before I descend into total snobbishness, let me establish; GoPro’s, in general, are pretty damn ok.

However, now for the bad bit: in my experience at least; the way GoPro handles its memory medium (micro SD cards) is quite flimsy. At one stage I lost a full SD card of footage through simply powering on and off the device in erratic ways and making lengthy time lapses. That SD card was completely broken afterwards. Furthermore, on my recent trip to Newcastle, around half of my footage experienced severe corruption through my repeated taking out of the SD card for preliminary viewing. These were two separate SD cards: Sandisk Extreme Pro ones rated at much higher data rates than the camera was capable.

I understand that what I did was unadvisable, but it was not gratuitous; these things happened by accident in the line of duty. I have done the same thing with my Canon cameras over the years and have found no such issues.

These are the issues that have lead to me not jumping for joy after every new ‘super product’ from an unknown startup is announced. Sad but true.