Inspire 2 now that the inspire 3 is out?

srandall25 · May 15, 2023

niki said:
Investing so much for I2 just to shoot in H264 from 60Mbps to 100mbps is not worth it. All the accessories and etc add a lot to the setup. Also in my comment I'm talkin about RAW! I1 can do 3.2Gbps at 4K and I2 can do 4.0Gbps, no one can notice such a difference in raw, only some very few cases may show difference while grading. And yes X5S is 16MP while X5R is 12MP, but reality is that if you don't know what equipment is used and there is some gorgeous content with beautiful lighting and composition you'll not make the difference is it 12 or 16 MP or whatever Mbps that is over 60mbps. For example youtube is with 60mbps and I can see there extremelly well looking visuals on big 65 inch TV, they can be shot on proffesional cameras and downsampled to 60mbps as well it could be a Phantom and you to think that it's Mavic or Inspire. All this is very subjective when you are behind the scenes and simply know that the quality of your equipment is. I'm sure you can see some difference between 60 and 100 but honestly I have a lot of cameras and even 130Mbps have a lot of compression issues in sky gradients and other situations.

And the major usage of the Inspire family is dual operator, if you are not in to this type of work you'll be pretty fine with Mavic 3 or Mavic 3 Pro, they are only 2K euros.

You said "you will not make a major upgrade going from I1 with X5 to I2 with X5S". X5 is not the X5R. The X5 doesn't shoot raw. My comment was specific to your statement about the X5S not being a major upgrade from the X5 (not the X5R).

niki · May 16, 2023

srandall25 said:
You said "you will not make a major upgrade going from I1 with X5 to I2 with X5S". X5 is not the X5R. The X5 doesn't shoot raw. My comment was specific to your statement about the X5S not being a major upgrade from the X5 (not the X5R).

Yes, and for shooting raw with X5S you need to additionally buy raw license for 999 euro or dollars or if buying second hand the seller will include this cost. Still in my opinion a lot of money for something so outdated.

PS: Upgrading to I2 is worthy with X7, otherwise not much an upgrade from I1 with X5.

srandall25 · May 16, 2023

niki said:
Yes, and for shooting raw with X5S you need to additionally buy raw license for 999 euro or dollars or if buying second hand the seller will include this cost. Still in my opinion a lot of money for something so outdated.

PS: Upgrading to I2 is worthy with X7, otherwise not much an upgrade from I1 with X5.

So it still remains that one will indeed make a major upgrade going from I1 X5 to the X5S, with or without the RAW license. Also, the ProRes license is also only $500 for the X5S, which also is a significant upgrade with the X5S over the X5.

niki · May 17, 2023

srandall25 said:
My comment was specific to your statement about the X5S not being a major upgrade from the X5 (not the X5R).

Yes you got it right. X5S is not a major upgrade from X5

They have almost the same picture at the end. And yes one can shoot raw with X5S if by additional license. For upgrade from X5 only a bigger sensor is worth it.

srandall25 · May 18, 2023

niki said:
Yes you got it right. X5S is not a major upgrade from X5 They have almost the same picture at the end. And yes one can shoot raw with X5S if by additional license. For upgrade from X5 only a bigger sensor is worth it.

You said X5S is not a major upgrade from X5. That's not what I said. The X5S is a huge upgrade from the X5 in both h.264 and its ability to shoot both CinemaDNG Raw and ProRes or ProRes RAW. I'm not quite sure how you can say the picture of RAW or ProRes of the X5S has almost the same picture as the X5. The real power of shooting RAW and ProRes with the X5S lies in the increased flexibility in how far you can push that image in post. The X5 h.264 image will fall apart so much easier. If all you're comparing is h.264 between the X5 and X5S, I would also argue the degraded video quality of the 60mbps bitrate of the X5 is noticeable and not usable when compared to the h.264 100mbps bitrate. Maybe the image between the two is close when looking at a still or frame by frame, but the video of the X5 is not smooth. I have used both of these cameras and I noticed the improved quality of the video of the X5S even in the h.264 footage right away, but the real advantage is of course in the CinemaDNG and ProRes of the X5S. You just can't compare that to anything else the X5 produces. The X5S is indeed a major upgrade from the X5 IMO and I would argue most anyone who has used the two camera would agree.