gethin

On 6/13/2020 at 8:17 AM, JordanWright said:

I picked up a Godox SL60 for under £100, works a treat! I think they have newer versions out now that'll hopefully drive the price down even further.

I've got one of these plus the sl150

The 150 is a crap ton brighter, and is almost a perfect colour match (but not totally identical)

The word is to avoid the sl200, it's very green.

I also bought a cheap fresnel

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Bowens_Fresnel/Ntt/Bowens+Fresnel/N/0

This coupled with silver boards gives a nice backlight keylight.

I made my own silverboards from insulation foam. 

Personally I think these lights are way more versatile than led panels.

1 hour ago, newfoundmass said:

It's not under $200 but I've been very happy with the Zoom H6 overall. 

Is the boot up time reasonable?

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

But if I was absolutely 110% restricted to a sub $200 budget, then I'd get a Tascam DR60Dmk2. 

I read that you get like 2 hours battery which might drive me a bit bonkers. I really like having the mics onboard too.  So I hear what you're saying but I very rarely shoot people and never drama. For me it's the occasional talking head, so a "proper" recorder feels a bit like a sledgehammer to crack a nut.  I used to be more than happy going straight into the gh5, but my z6 sounds like crap (even I can hear that lol).  For running and gunning my kit that gets used most is the quickest and simplest to setup.  

One of the tascams (I forget which) can record from the onboard mics and external at the same time. That sounds like good feature for me. 

I have a knackered old tascam that's about 10 years old. It's falling apart. I did a whole bunch of research yesterday. The dr40x looked like a good replacement until I saw a review that said the noise floor is awful. 

I don't really want to spend $600aud on this zoom it's total overkill for me, and the cheaper zooms seem to be a bit long in the tooth.  (Lots of posts of people bitching about the bootup time). Is there anything under $200 that is ok?

In fact on that note if I'm spending $600 wouldn't splurging on the ninja v (I have Nikon z6) be more sensible? I know it's only got 3.5mm in, but all my current sound kit is 3.5 anyway (lavs, rode video micro and their wireless doodad)

Very similar to my Nikon 50mm f1.2, but with nobs on. Same slight swirly bokeh and field curvature. 

Lots of character. I love it

I still master in 1080p, but being able to reframe the 4k image is fab.  I agree that 8k will be a nightmare to handle but there are 2 upsides (and slim ones at that).  It gives me the potential to crate stock footage that has more longevity than 4k, and it would allow me to master in 4k and still pan and scan.

With Australia's pitiful broadband network i can't see 4k being required for 3 or 4 years at least, but having stock that I can use in 4 years time would be great.  I will look hard at a 6k or 8k Fuji camera, I'm liking what I'm seeing there, and Im a fan of apsc for a bunch of reasons

I thought this was interesting. 

http://thenewcamera.com/list-of-sony-sensors-to-be-used-in-upcoming-dslr-and-mirrorless-worlwide/

I know this is speculation central, but that apsc sensor looks promising.  Of course no idea of readout and dynamic range, but 8k is coming for good or ill

I just watched that newsshooter vid and agree it looks great.  I was peeping for moire and I didn't see any.  

Need to see more footage before reaching any conclusions

23 hours ago, Django said:

Actually the kings of DR is D850/A7RIV with 14.8 DR (DxO rating) followed by Z7 with 14.6 stops.

I know the Z6 has better low-light and no line-skipping but any idea how Z7 will fare with the RAW upgrade? I think I read it will only output it in DX/APS-C mode?

I still need a high-res OLPF-less hybrid in my arsenal, wondering if Z7 might be a worthy choice.

the quoted values are always pretty much bulshit.  My D5300 had virtually the same dynamic range as the d800 according to DXO.  The usable dynamic range was nowhere near the same. The z7 and z6 have banding in the shadows which means you cant push them as far, and on the z6 at least the noise is not as pleasant - so again you can't push it as far (and the lower MP doesn't help either).  Until we can get someone to do a controlled test with and without th 12 bit raw i reckon all this is a big fat waste of breath ? 
One thing I will say though is that sometimes I feel like the flat image on video almost retains better highlight detail than the raw still. Making me wonder if they deliberately hobbled the raw to create a bigger gap to the z7.  

Now if we could only have 4k 60 I'd be as happy as a pig in shit

13 hours ago, Danyyyel said:

Very balance story about Nikon Z6 Prores Raw. One exciting thing is his talk about very good Dynamic range which you can also shoot at 100 ISO. It looks like it will mirror the stills raw experience. So we can expect depending on your tolerance to noise, 14+ stop of 12 bit imagery.

https://www.newsshooter.com/2019/12/17/raw-over-hdmi-is-here-we-test-drive-the-nikon-z6-and-prores-raw/?fbclid=IwAR241dA3bDKX1Z8pvDMKzh1V33FjXuueX472uNc_1WNYnWp_MsaAZHm_DUA

 

No 14+stop on the z6.  The d800 supposedly has 13.something stops and the z6 does not reach the same levels of dr.  I get the feeling it could if they turned up the active d-lighting.  Anyhoo the blacks are way noisier than the d800, I'd guess 12 usable stops at most (which would still be awesome)

I'm a nikon shooter, but I'm just about done with them.  And I really want my 4k 60 back.  (I ditched my gh5 for a z6).  
Anyone here had experience with both nikons and fujis?  Will I miss the dynamic range shooting stills? 

Hurrah.  Apsc is the ideal sensor size IMHO. Better noise and dynamic range than m43, higher frame rates than full frame, easier to move and cool than full frame. Speed-boostable for a full frame look. There's nothing sensible out there at the moment so I'll be watching this fuji closely. 

Just in case anyone was under the delusion that the z6 raw update was 

a) nearly here

b) a high priority

I had an exchange with a nikon tech about it via email: he didn't know anything about it - i got the impression that he hadn't heard that a hardware update is going to be necessary, making it look like Nikon Australia has no plans in place to manage it.  He said he expected it to  come out with an update in the next few months (which I took to mean that he thought it would be done with a firmware update only, which we know is wrong and kinda shows they are as clueless as the rest of us). 

I've been shooting real estate vids on the z6. 

I want to start shooting small docos on it. Just for youtube and myself.  The preamps are rubbish.  
Can anyone recommend a teeny sound recorder? I've just ordered the rode wireless go, that I can mate it with. (I've got this we thingy:https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/673340-REG/Tascam_DR_08_DR_08_Portable_Digital_Audio.html but it is really beat up, and i dont trust the 3.5mm inputs 100% - totally not ideal for doco reording. Need it to be bulletproof). 

Also the inbuilt h.264 is probably OK, I'm shooting flat. Anyone using Andrew's flat profile? Pros/cons?

Any other little bits of kit that would improve the experience?  I dont know about and external recorder - relatively big expense for how much benefit? I've not seen any news about z6 raw either - is it out yet?

looking forward to hearing what you think of the z-cams. Very much liking the footage I;ve seen so far 

3 hours ago, Emanuel said:

 

How game changer is such contribution?

massive.  prediction: the sort of processing I do on real estate pics will be pretty well dead in 5-10 years time.  They won't be as good, but they will be "good enough".  I can imagine the new image processing software will just have  bunch of looks, and ai will do the rest. This is the reason I'm trying to get out of the game now.  It's bound to come to video, too. 

Neat video is the bee's knees

On 9/6/2019 at 5:39 PM, Adam Kuźniar said:

I hate these kinds of stupid comments. He should absolutely expect a perfectly usable product for 200 euro.

you beat me to it.

The pico mic looks pretty good. bit more expensive, but you get 2 mics in a kit. 

What's this sigma camera is going to be like I wonder? I'm a bit over the big boys.  I'm not loving the Z6.  (Actually I wonder if anyone does. It's a fiddly pain in the bum). 

I'd be curious @Andrew Reid how you'd find the z-cams.  I'm loving the image I'm seeing from them (if only the E2 wasn't 3x the cost of the BMPCC4K), and their super35 bodies didn't have EF mount. 

On 8/28/2019 at 1:27 AM, fuzzynormal said:

Thanks for the tip.  Unfortunately I couldn't restore thumbnail goofiness by media cache manipulation.  Also, the weird thing about the interpret footage option is that it works with source file footage but not proxies.

I always edit in proxies, so...

Anyway, dead horse and all that.

Ah yes, Because of that I end up creating my own proxies for DJI h.264, otherwise I just edit with the source footage (my 4k nikon stuff edits OK). 

Hey the other thing you can try is resetting the workspace, that sometimes jogs thumbnails back to life.

and the thing that pushed me to download resolve was 4 hours spent trying to do the most basic of things in premiere (import h.265 4k, speed it up, export it). 

Premiere and media encoder kept crashing. I downloaded resolve, and having never used it, did all that, stabilised and exported it in the half an hour you'd expect it to take

I posted the wip on my insta page 

And it didn't crash! 

9 hours ago, ntblowz said:

so much wobble...

 

 

Nasty, makes it a poor choice for a gimbal camera.  You need faster readout for warp stabiliser not to poo itself.  

Oh dear. As Fagan said: I am reviewing the situation.

Was about to send them my z6 for warranty repair. Might as well wait now, or might get rid of the bloomin lot. I hear plumbing is profitable.

The weird thing is I don't love the z6. I really love the d800. I even loved the d5x00s. They were a nightmare to use but the image always surprised me.  The z6 is clunky like the d5300 but 5 times the price. 

On 8/18/2019 at 12:01 AM, fuzzynormal said:

So much this.  WTH/F Adobe?  There's no reason with their budget that they couldn't have released a cohesive "PRO" version of their editing software with strict hardware requirements and support so it's an effective reliable tool.  Nope, just an endlessly buggy BS.

My favorite new annoyance is this:  I do a lot of slow-mo, and I like to shoot in 60p.  So, I batch apply 50% speed to my clips for my 30p sequences.  In bins I can scroll the thumbnails, which is helpful.  However, latest version, for no discernible reason, will now "blank" all thumbnails of clips with any speed variance applied.  They get turned to black.  So now I'm looking at a bin full of black thumbnails.  Basically, making thumbnails of clips with speed adjustment useless.

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2622768

Yes, it's not the end of the world, but it affects the workflow.  One needs to fight Premiere to work effectively.  That's always been the problem.  It just doesn't play nice. I've been using Premiere on and off since version 1, so I know it's always been a problem child.  

Had a 15 year run there when I was on Final Cut and that was nice.  One of my colleagues is still using FCP.  I might return to it although I don't find it as appealing as the traditional version.  Ugh, I dunno.  Gave Resolve a spin but their version of using proxies was unreliable and everything I do is proxy editing...so still looking.

I get the black thumbnail thing from time to time.  You can usually fix it by trashing the files in your media cache (or sometimes the media cache files).

Also rather than batch applying speed to your clips, try selecting them all and go modify>interpret footage and specify it there. I think that's a more robust way of doing it. It basically tells premiere to treat that media as if it was shot at that speed (and ensures for instance that it will play every frame if you're slowing your footage to the same fps as your edit timeline). 

On 8/19/2019 at 1:55 PM, kaylee said:

omg andrew whoo iss sheeee in your new iconnnn

/adobe = im over it!!!!

resolve = god tier. using v. 16 rn and im lovin it™

heres a short i made last year that i did 100% in resolve, the free version, NOT KNOWING WTH I WAS DOING (lol). came out ok~!

>>> for real: im teaching my friend resolve rn, and what im telling him is, "It's easy, but the learning curve is steep, and Resolve may seem pretty odd at first, it did for me~! Nodes are like layers in Photoshop, etc etc..."

cool! I like it. mysterious

On 8/19/2019 at 8:38 AM, Mako Sports said:

Congratulations ?

The stabilizer is included in the free software

thanks! good to know

25 minutes ago, Trek of Joy said:

I went all in on Resolve at the beginning of the year, just the free version, and haven't looked back. You already know its the best grading software around, and the Cut tab in v16 is really nice, everything is streamlined and very logically laid out. I have free access to Premiere and I have to use it to collaborate with another editor and an ad agency my company works with, I dread using it every single time. Its just so clunky. Until they do a full FCPx style refresh, I'll only use it when I have to. Everything else is 100% Resolve.

I've never used anything other than the $10/mo photo plan since Adobe went subscription, and for the money Lightroom and Photoshop can't be beat - in my opinion. Capture One is the only alternative I've seriously considered, but the cost and not enough time between jobs to spend learning a new workflow makes it a no go for now. If I can get a week to really do a deep dive, I may download the trial version and do a bunch of tutorials to get a feel for it. But I can do most of my adjustments really quick in LR, tagging and keywords are simple, its super LUT friendly, panos and HDR merges are simple, and then fine tune in PS with a few adjustment layers, there's little to be gained by switching. Again my opinion.

Snapseed is great, but limited in comparison, same for mobile versions of LR and PS. LR Mobile is included in the photo plan as well. I use it a lot when I travel - which is frequent - and I like it a lot. I'd like to have the ability to merge panos and HDR images. Though Adobe says a full version of PS is coming soon. I also use Lumafusion as a mobile video editor, and despite its limitations, it's brilliant and only a one time charge of $20.

But I also don't get the hate toward the subscription model, its cheaper than buying new versions every couple years (again the photo plan) and you get regular feature updates and mobile versions. $120/year is made back within a day or two of renewing my subscription. Otherwise there are plenty of alternatives. The anger in the comments of every Dpreview story on Adobe are hilarious, its just consumer goods, but people treat their business model like some kind of personal attack on them.

Chris

Well Chris I have grown to hate Adobe with a passion. It's not because of the subscription model, its because the subscription model has earned them billions, whilst their products have stagnated and their support has gone down the toilet. I was an unofficial adobe evangelist. Photoshop was amazeballs in 1997, but it essentially hasn't changed much. Their algorithms remain untouched. As do the paradigms. But all of that is nothing compared to the towering magnificence of their ability to ignore bugs.  There is one that dates back to lightroom 2. I had a workaround, but now that's broken too. It's broken my workflow. Their tech support is a joke. It's like falling out of love with someone: suddenly you realise the love is gone and all those little things you out up with for years now drive you nuts. In fact you realise you can't stand them and never want to see them again, the treacherous harpies!  

There's probably a meme out there with that guy turning round from his gf and looking at a girl he's just walked past. Well, that. 

Feels so good. Not sure it'll still feel good in 2 weeks time when my subscription runs out.  I have 20 odd years of Adobe workflow to re-do.  (I may end up resubscribing to Photoshop and lightroom but if Snapseed was a desktop app I would think about ditching them too).  So resolve is the no-brainer choice.  Can i get away with the freebie version?  And if not should I buy the bmpcc4k? I cant remember if the free version includes their warp stabiliser equivalent. 

Any other software I should look at?