barefoot

Man I'd love to make a Hackintosh. To be honest, I survive on Page to create all of my company letters and quotations. Microsoft Word frustrates the hell out of me with their default set of fonts. Even on a Mac, everything feels uglier on Word.

Hi, guys, I'm looking to buy a small lighting setup to try out for video (complete beginner with lights). I'm planning on using it initially for mostly interviews (and perhaps eventually in short films too). 

I'm currently thinking of buying one big and one smaller LED light to test out. For the bigger light, I've come across the Eachshot Amaran H528, which claims to have 95 CRI. And there are three models (each for £150):

H528C - Color
3200k - 5500k
75 degrees beam angle
725 LUX (according to one Amazon reviewer)

H528W - Wide
5500k
75 degrees beam angle
1220 LUX 

H528S - Spot
5500k
25 degrees beam angle
4380 LUX

The "S" model light seems to be a little narrow, so I was thinking of the "W" model, perhaps with some CTO gel. 

Would this be sufficient and value for money, or should I be looking elsewhere? I'm very open to suggestions. Thanks!

Oh definitely.

Man, EF mount adaptor is risky business. I'm also placing an order for the NX1 this week (I'm a recent convert over the Sony A7S I/II). And I was wondering if anyone had any experience with the Konica Minolta 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 APO Lens for video.

Also, the available mounts seem to be Fotasy and Rainbowimaging. Any good/bad words for either?

I've been looking at this completely the wrong way, when I should have been bench-pressing my laptop all along. Haha

That's fucked up. Anyone use the Fotasy NXEF or K&F Concept lens mount adapter?

Haha. Well, I might be skipping Alienwares in the last minute, as it looks a little fat for portability. Dell's $1100 Inspiron, with a thinner body, seems to have the same 4k screen. And I'm thinking of upgrading to a 500 GB SSD and 16GB RAM by myself for under $200.
 

I was told the Acer Nitro has dim screens as well. And I'm finding it hard to locate a Skylake-version Acer in the US stores (Skylake for h.265 files).

Thanks. Looks like I'll have to get a monitor that covers just sRGB to make sure it's not too off. (And I'll remember that After Effect trick.) =)

One word: trypophobia.

Yea, it's strange there isn't any information on the GPU, even on the page where you preorder it. If I had to guess, it's probably some variation of the 950M as the future Macbook Pro most likely will be. I'll most likely get a future iteration (or if the prices drop on this version), as it really seems to be the ultimate portable hybrid.

Definitely. I myself will most likely switch to a permanent system within a year (iMac perhaps, or a newer Surface Book). For now, I need something that will work well as a transitional system.

I am on a tight budget (trying to get an NX1, too). And I think a similar setup from Surface Book would run up to at least $1000 more (with glorious SSD). 

Hi, guys, I had long chat with Dell's customer service and I found out that their 4k panel actually covers 99% Adobe RGB, which I double checked with a few reviews and it seems true. 

According to one reviewer:

One note to graphics pros: yes the 4K display has an ideal 99% Adobe RGB color gamut, but be warned the saturation or color intensity is very high. It reminds me of a Samsung Super AMOLED phone display with much more intense colors than what you'd see in pro photo sRGB 100% coverage. This can make it difficult to judge photo and video saturation in production environments since everything looks more vivid than normal. For content producers, this is a challenge. For content consumers, it's lovely looking.

Does anyone have any experience dealing with this kind of color saturation when doing video editing and how I could possibly deal with it (if I do buy it)?

Although I'm not in the more experienced group, I don't get the cynicism myself. Personally, I'm a fan of their one handed gimbal, Nebula 4000lite, which, if I'm not wrong, was a first of its kind at the time. Top marks for portability, with its weight limit (around 1 kg) being the only problem. Naturally I'm excited their newer one handed gimbal can take on more load (at least 1.2kg). Even their 5-axis model seems to be a big step up for me in terms of portability from the normal double-handed 3-axis gimbals.

Alienware Skylake laptops seem to be out: http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-15-r2/pd

I'll have a month to decide. Hopefully other companies will have something out by then, too.

A lot of the $1000 gaming laptops seem to have the 16GB RAM, 7200RPM 1TB HDD, with a better graphic card than the Macbook's 750m option (which is definitely a plus), including the Acer and ASUS GL551JW. But I have read reviews of Acer's dim screen, too. That's the only thing that is missing: A better screen at that price point. I suppose I'm looking to see if anyone has positive experience with one of these laptops and the screens.

By the way, I haven't spent $3000 on a camera body yet. =) I still work with an old secondhand Canon 7D for photography (no complaints yet) and would rent cameras for video. But I'd definitely take your advice and get a real workhorse computer, when video work is plenty. 

Looks promising. Claims to have close to 100% sRGB.

I had checked out that website: http://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Best-Notebook-Displays-As-Reviewed-By-Notebookcheck.120541.0.html

But I think I came off more confused. Since they rated the Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition within the top ten screens. My workload is primarily photography, with light video on the side. I'm sure eventually I'd get a desktop if there's a steady flow of video work. For now, gaming laptops like ASUS GL551JW (16gb ram, better graphic card than the Macbook's 750m) seemed a good compromise and alternative, price wise. The only worrying thing was the screen. If colour reproductions would be accurate enough on a $1000 laptop. I don't have much experience with the PC laptops. 

Hi, guys, I'm a current owner of an ageing Macbook Pro, and I'd like to upgrade to a new laptop that'll support editing work on the move. I'm a photographer by trade, but I'm planning to get into video work this year too. 

Option A 
Go the expensive route: 

USD 1900 | Macbook Pro 15.4" (Mid 2014 model)

2.5 GHz i7 (Crystalwell)
16GB RAM
512GB SSD 
NVIDIA GT 750M (2GB)

Option B 
Get a similar spec'ed Windows gaming laptop at half the price, spend the money saved on camera equipments (it comes with the fairly affordable option of upgrading RAMs and SSD too):

USD 1000 | Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition

Intel Core i7-4720HQ (2.6 GHz)
8 GB RAM
1 TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
15.6-Inch Screen, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (4GB)

With the Macbook Pro, the downfall is the price and graphic card. Otherwise, it's a system I'm familiar with, and it has great battery life.

The Windows route is attractive as it saves me a lot of money, but I'm not sure how good the screen is on a gaming Windows laptop for colour (video and photography). And since I like editing on the move, an external monitor isn't an option. Am I overthinking it, would the PC screen (most of which are matte IPS) suffice? Is there a good USD 1000 Windows laptop alternative to a Macbook that you guys can recommend (keeping in mind the color coverage of the screen)?

These are some of the better videos I've seen shot in Magic Lantern raw. Seems quite worth it, if you’re willing to work with the file sizes. Then again, there are great raw compressors available out there now (sorry, the software name escapes me), so even that shouldn't be as big of a problem as before.

Yea, best to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. Especially since they claim overheating is a false issue (or perhaps they are just referring to the A7S series).

New development. https://vimeo.com/140160082. Some interesting claims, including that the A7S II is more or less using the same processor as the previous gen. 

Directly from the video's description:

Remember credit to github.com/ma1co/Sony-PMCA-RE for make this possible.
1-No editing, Recorded with an iPhone (both video together on FCPX that all, can find here twitter.com/nabfathi15/status/646006119358418945 and here twitter.com/nabfathi15/status/646006119358418945)
2-The purpose of this = Show that we have an entire access to the a7s (keep your attention to the details, HDMI, Kernel, etc..) 
2-LGcamera was just a POC (it is the one from Android) it was simply to show the access and the resolution. Off course H.263 will never be use or 250Kbit (this is pretty low !) 15% of 1mb, good luck with that, this doesn't represent anything.
3-Don't say what I didn't say, we have access, we can see 4K internal available, we can see that 10bit 422 HDMI (pay attention to HDMI HDMI) is available too, etc...just a matter of time. 
4-What was discover recently is that Sony include on purpose a timelock algorithm for internal 4K (a7R II, RX100 IV, RX10 II).
5-Overheating is a false issue. 
6-More information about the factor ID on a7s twitter.com/nabfathi15/status/646011996773711872
7- What the Bionz X, Sony was hiding the information but here we go
it is a Cortex-A5MP soc (4cores) with a IP core (single GPU) Smaph-S30 (something that you can also find on a 3DS for example and made by DMP)
infocenter.arm.com/help/topic/com.arm.doc.ddi0434b/DDI0434B_cortex_a5_mpcore_r0p1_trm.pdf
8-the A7S II is nothing more than a A7S with 5-axis, tweak firmware, recycle sensor, recycle body. 
9-Every Sony camera that support Play Memories could support this strong access
10-the subsystem give you an entire control of the camera with the right permissions.
P.S : I need someone who have a PXW-X70 4K for another interesting stuff related to higher bitrate possibility for this model.
For the haters about Olympus (Olympus fault) past and still focus on this.
E-M1 next firmware getolympus.com/us/en/upgrade
Olympus AIR opc.olympus-imaging.com/en/
 

Curiosity?

This youtube channel is claiming to have hacked the Sony A7S for internal higher bitrate and 4K recording, with better subsampling (HDMI output:10bit 4:2:2). Is that even possible without a hardware upgrade?

As someone who's seriously considering the Sony A7S II as my next camera for video work, I do wonder how fast the processor itself is. I know it's a step up from the previous gen, but I mean what about when compared to other cameras in the market. Whilst a standardised benchmark of camera processors probably wouldn't be truly reflective of what it's capable of, and simplistic at best, I'm sure the results would still be interesting. For example, the Samsung NX1 has possibly the fastest processor (or at least the most capable, multicore-wise) inside the hood for a camera of that size, whilst still giving decent battery life. And the body is closer to an A7s II more than, say, a Blackmagic Ursa. But I wonder after seeing the specs about the NX1's processor benchmark compared to an Ursa mini and even the Sony A7S II.

And just when a new Atomos Ninja 2 can now be bought for only $300. GH4 is looking tasty.

The BMPCC misled me. =)