What's the Best Camera Under $1K? Canon T4i, Sony NEX-6, Panasonic GH2 Shootout

nofilmschool by Dave Kendricken

Kevin Good and the Weapons of Mass Production team are on a sleepless mission to determine the best bang for your buck, and weed out all the rest. Each contender will get its due where it excels, but a clear winner will emerge from the settling dust just about every time — and WOMP will suffer no runners-up, all on behalf of the budget shooter. You know this from the show’s 24-70mm lens shootout — you also know how to shoot with an iPhone, or how others measure up to GoPro as action cameras. Now, WOMP sets out to answer the question of questions in today’s camera market: what’s the best you can do for under a thousand dollars? (Runners-up, beware).

The contenders are:

• $800 Canon T4i with 18-55mm kit lens ($900 total)
• $850 Sony NEX-6 with 16-50mm kit lens ($1000 total)
• $650 Panasonic GH2 with 14-15mm kit lens, both stock and with Flowmotion v2.02 (+$10 or so) hack ($700 total)

And the pudding, wherein lies the proof (drumroll, anyone?):

Given that there are plenty of other sub-$1000 options available, here’s Kevin on why he limited the scope of the shootout, via his post-video writeup:

I know there are a lot more cameras I could’ve chosen from. I chose these because:

1. Canon has consitently been a leader in DSLR video quality, so I felt they should be represented
2. Mirrorless is the way of the future for video, so I wanted the others to be mirrorless
3. These all have larger chips that ‘traditional’ video cameras (the handycam you’d get at Best Buy made specifically for video) which gives us better light sensitivity, shallower depth-of-field, and that cinematic look that viewers of my show are concerned with. read more...