Choose a camera package

What this is about

The package assembles itself once the requirements are honest: which resolution and dynamic range the deliverables truly need, whether slow motion or low light carries scenes, what the edit pipeline can process without choking, and which look the moodboard promised. From there follow body, a consistent lens set, support matching the planned movement, media sized for the shooting ratio, and a B-camera that cuts with the A-camera instead of against it. Rental versus owned is an economic question; the workflow test with real files before the shoot is not optional either way.

The order matters more than the tools. Skip a step and you usually notice two steps later — by which point the fix costs several times as much.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• Deliverables set the floor: resolution, dynamic range and slow-motion needs derive from where the film will actually run.
• The B-cam question is a grading question — mismatched sensors tax every review round in post.
• Support gear is chosen per shotlist, not per habit: the movement in the plan books the hardware.
• A workflow test with real files — record, offload, edit, grade — is part of the package decision itself.

Step by step

This order gets you there fastest:

1. Extract the requirements from the deliverables: final resolution and formats, dynamic range, slow-motion moments, expected low-light situations. These answers narrow the field hard.
2. Decide the recording format together with post: codec, bit depth, file sizes and grading headroom must fit the pipeline and the schedule, not fight them.
3. Choose the lens set for the look the moodboard fixed — characterful or clinical, vintage or modern — and keep it consistent across days and units.
4. Match support to the shotlist: gimbal moves, tripod dialogue, handheld energy, one slider moment. Support choices are shot choices wearing hardware.
5. Pick a B-cam that cuts with the A-cam — same color science or a tested match in the grade. A mismatched B-cam taxes every step that follows.
6. Size media and power for the shooting ratio with reserve: enough cards that nobody formats under pressure, batteries for the coldest, longest day.
7. Run the full workflow test before the shoot: record, offload, edit, grade with real files. One test hour finds the surprise a shoot day cannot afford.
8. Book the rental early with pickup the day before, and check the package at the counter against the list — a missing cable is a conversation there and a crisis on set.

Common pitfalls

What most often goes wrong in practice:

• Renting the impressive body and discovering the edit suite chokes on its files.
• A lens set assembled from availability, so Tuesday's footage looks unrelated to Monday's.
• Media calculated for the plan instead of the ratio — and a formatting decision at lunch.

With TillyGen

The shotlist TillyGen drafts marks movement and speed per shot — exactly the input a package decision needs, so support and format questions answer themselves from the plan.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.