Jonesy Jones

This is straight from B&h for Fs5. "The XAVC Long allows you to encode from HD to UHD using Intra-Frame or Long GoP compression with 10-bit 422 for HD and the choice of 10-bit 422 or 8-bit 420 for UHD."

Thanks Fuzzy. It's just one of those things that while you're posting you think, someone's going to complain about it being overexposed and the ugly patch of light under the ears and the light is way too low. A preemptive acknowledgment of my awareness of my skill level.

The fixture is homemade. I used steal studs that are super cheap at home depot. A steal track is the visible chassis, and a steal stud fits perfectly inside to cover up the wiring and what not. It's like $5-$10 for both. I also use electronic ballasts for the same flicker reason. To mount to a stand I would use a 6" Impact Baby pin ($12 here). I did not like the Avenger ones. And 3" is just not enough to work with ('that's what she said'), go with the 6". It'll go right into any typical c stand knuckles, which can be had for like $20 if you don't have them already. I have not seen that video yet. I'll check it out. I'm at work now. I just inquired to the maker of the bulbs I used and they don't offer them publicly any longer, though he offered them to me for under $10, which is quite a deal. If folks were interested I'd I buy a bunch. But you'd also have to pay for shipping. It may also be worth looking into Philips or Cree or another manufacturers. You want the ballast ones as the others, though way easier work with, have a flicker that shows up as banding. Also, LED's are getting higher quality and cheaper. I am starting to see LED's showing up at home depot with 90+ CRI.

So, a couple years ago I was just fed up with outrageous prices of anything filmmaking related, and at the top of that list was lighting. $1300 for fluorescent lights? And LED's? Good luck. So I started researching anything and everything lighting, particularly LED's. Called around. Ordered samples. And half a dozen wildly different prototypes later, I finally have something that I think is usable for actual professional production (this is obviously a very subjective opinion and many will probably not agree). I have, however, already used them on a commercial shoot. I'm proud to show them here on EOSHD and would be happy to share my basic plans and parts were anyone interested. Below are the basic specs and some photos of the lights themselves and some test shots as well. Lets start with the best spec... price. $150. Takes me about 2 hours to build from start to finish. My math is soft tonight, but at one point I believe I calculated them to produce about half the lux of a 4 bank kino. Design is similar to a kino, but much lighter. 3 x 48" bulbs. Each bulb is switchable. I used the frosted bulbs instead of the clear ones. Putting talent in front of the clear ones is cruel. Fits in your hand and is easy to move around to Hollywood it (am I using that term correctly?). LED CRI is about 85. Not great but not really that bad either. I think there is some of the green tint that comes with some LED's, though I can't see it with my eyes. Only when I bring a raw file into Adobe camera raw with auto setting do I notice it, which shifts the Tint to about +25. Easy enough to deal with that. These are consumer Daylight, so slighter warmer than 5600K. I went with ballast compatible LED's because I tested tons of the other and the cheap drivers created horizontal banding in my footage. These are clean, and silent, and run warm but not hot. I've built 3 so far. Overall I am extremely happy with my lights, though the fixtures from aputure are also very attractive as well. I think these are very different lights with different applications, but those aputure ones look very promising. But at least I have my own lights that I can start really testing different lighting setups and so on. It is so easy to get these on a C stand. Lift them up. Tilt them. Spin them around. Whatever. Very excited. What I am most proud of is the design of the fixture itself. The bulbs can be replaced as LED tech improves and becomes less expensive. I like the bulbs I have, but if in a year or so inexpensive higher CRI bulbs become available I will replace mine if they are indeed an improvement. The bulbs I used are no longer available online (though the maker will still sell them to me at a massive discount). But I believe any ballast compatible LED bulbs will do. I used a steel stud track cut 48" as the main chassis. All the parts are attached to this. A steel stud (cut to roughly 46") fits perfectly into the track to close off the fixture and keep all the unsightly innards out of view. I used a 6" Impact Baby Pin. I don't like the Avenger ones. I line the baby pin centered in the fixture, mark and drill the holes. The ballast I used was this one. But there are bunches that are same basic price and size. This ballast fits nicely centered in between the bolts from the baby pin. Mark and drill holes for the ballast.I used these tombstones. That's for a pack of 10, you'll need 6 for 1 fixture. 3 tombstones side by side fit snuggly into the end of the steel track chassis. My second batch of tombstones needed a little sanding on each side to fit. Like I said, they fit pretty, very, snuggly. Place 3 in on each side of fixture so they fit right to the end. Mark and drill 1 hole for each tombstone. You'll need an additional nut or washers in between the tombstone and the fixture (as a spacer) to get it a bit higher.I used 3 of these switches from Home Depot. Mark and drill a hole for each. These switches interrupt the 3 same colored lines coming from the ballast, and then go to the tombstones at one end of the fixture. One switch per tombstone. I am not an electrical engineer, so it's possible there are better suited switches for this particular load, but these work for me.I used a clamp connector from Home Depot. I forget the exact size, but the smallest one. Mark and drill hole. You will probably need a 7/8" hole saw, but maybe there's more than one way to do this. This connector is for the main power cable.For the power cable I just used an extension cord. I new I was going to make a few so I bought a hundred footer and cut it into 4 lengths.This was the cheapest route. And bought 3 prong plugs to attach to the cords that needed it. I would drill all the holes first. Then attach the hardware. Takes me a little over an hour to do this. Then do the wiring, which is pretty easy. I also laid down some duct tape inside the steel stud track for additional shielding. I think this is a good idea. Once everything is connected, put your bulbs (T8 LED ballast compatible) in to test it. If all is well, remove bulbs, insert steel stud to cover up the wiring and screw that in. Insert bulbs again and then use gaffers tape at the ends to hold bulbs in place and cover up the ends and tombstones. Takes me just over 2 hours. One quick note: sometimes the bulbs will glow (very slightly) even when in the off position. Could be from the switches or an electromagnetic field or something. Haven't been able to solve this, but it doesn't affect my lighting at all as it is so minor. Also, unless you discover otherwise, using the ballast and the ballast compatible bulbs are 100% necessary. I have found these are the only ones that do not result in flicker and banding problems. Good luck. Please forgive my poor lighting skills ( now I can start practicing). Blown out portions are due to me forgetting to turn on zebras. Shot with BMCC and Sigma 18-35 in my garage with 1 of my lights with only 1 bulb on as the key and another one with just 1 bulb on as the fill.

Just saw this. It's for aws but looks amazing. Like unbelievable actually https://aws.amazon.com/importexport/?tag=nofilmschool-20

I'm offended BM's look is not included in this list.... but on a more serious note, I personally prefer BM's look over all the above with the exception of Arri. It would be could to see how BM stacked up next to those, at least in this dude's apparently knowledgeable opinion.

I see your reasoning. However, my understanding is that the plane from China to the US is happening regardless. And the plane from US to Sweden is happening regardless. And everything in between is happening already too. Not trying to start a debate. I was just wondering if I was missing something.

How is it better for the environment?

1 article. Written by an Islamic site. Attacking a very Jewish company. Haven't heard from both sides. Probably won't know the ins and the outs unless we take the time to investigate fully..... equals unfair judgement on someone.

I think it was extremely well shot. Great locations. Great performances. Great wardrobe and make up. Very good props. Solid camera movement. Kinda creepy though. And didn't make sense. Maybe that's just a culture thing though. Overall well done. Way to make the most out your gear. Btw, loved the haze. That was my favorite thing. Would you share what you did there?

I'm a bonehead and did the same thing. Same problem and switch to cuda in project settings worked. Then on restart totally different problem, only on playback, not on pause. Maybe i need to update my nvidia driver. How would I know if I needed to do that? How would I update?

If there are no 'above the line' components to your job description then you may get away with hourly. But as soon as they say 'we'd like to see what you would do here', hourly is going to bite you in the ass. There's no way to measure with time and money the value of experience, research, development, brainstorming, etc that goes into creating something new, custom or original. Day rates or project rates work best for that. Never quote someone on the spot. Ask for an email and tell them you'll send them a proposal/quote very soon (that's more for projects and may not apply to hired gun projects). Find a rate that seems to work (there'll be some trial and error here) and then slowly experiment with inching that rate up, but eventually you'll plateau. That's where I'm at. I couldn't tell you how to get further except just... persistence. What were you doing at the weight room?

Both SDI and HDMI carry an audio signal. On another note, I just noticed that the VA comes 'bundled with DaVinci Resolve'. Am I reading that correctly? Is it the full version? Can't be. But I don't remember ever seeing the Pocket advertised as such. Can anyone add some insight?

The great thing about preordering is that you can cancel your order later if you decide the camera is not going to work for you after learning more about it. With preordering you're just saving your place in line, you can get out any time. I ordered within the first couple/few minutes but of course I won't go through with the purchase until we've seen more footage and hear some reviews. Right now I am planning to buy the camera, but we'll see. There is a great write up on no film school about the URSA mini, this is from a user with the 4K sensor, so not the 4.6 but a great overview of the body. You can read about it here. It's seems great, but not flawless, but mostly good. Seems like with a firmware update or two (which BMD is pretty good about) it'll be even better. Point being, seems like an awesome camera, and if the 4.6 turns out as good as a few users have been saying it is, it'll be magic. I am more than likely taking the plunge, but for me, image is tops. I can work around the other stuff. I was one of the first to jump into DSLR's (and btw, everyone complained about how hard it was to work with them). Also, Red isn't perfect either, not by a long shot. Neither is Sony. Canon is pretty solid, but their price/spec is pathetic. We'd all like an Arri, but they're not for every project either. Oh, and the demeaning comments above about BMD and URSA not being professional, well, maybe there's some truth to that, but if you're getting hired because of your camera, you're gonna need to spend way more than what it costs for an URSA, either one. And for the rest of the clients out there, I'm going to take a risk here, but, when they see the image, they're gonna love it. But until we see more, get in line, and if I'm wrong, just get out. Easy peezy.

Thank you IronFilm for doing this. I have all of that in the PDF that is in the original post. I can't do a screenshot until I get back to my workstation middle of next week. But your summary is very well done. Quick question, did the fps for the URSA mini change? I am only aware that it does 60 fps at 4.6K raw. I think you need to go down to windowed HD prores to get 120, and it was even touted to have 160 at one point. But that would be great if it did 120 full res raw.

I don't think it's unfair for a company to be focused on making money. However, I think Red is a very fitting name, since you'll be in the 'red' after buying their products.

It's called 'insecurity'. It started at the top with Jim. That spills over to the rest of the Red culture. On another note, even though I've lost all interest in Raven, my plan is still to complete the table that I started this thread with. I assume there are still many who are interested. My hope is to have a chance at that later today.

I was just thinking that I could learn a bunch from you guys regarding your location scout checklists. Do you have an actual checklist? If so, I would love to see it if you don't mind. If not, what do you generally look for? For me audio, tod, power, and lighting are my main things, but I wonder how you approach those things. I'm sure it's different for different kinds of productions, but again, how do you come at it? Thanks.

I created a comparison table for these two cameras with the info we have at this point, and some we can assume, and posted it on another thread. For someone like you who shoots music videos nearly entirely, the Raven might make sense for all the reasons you mentioned, including the Red logo on it. However, with considerably more filmmakers with a Red in their hands, will this have as much value? Have you name dropped Blackmagic on a client? I have and got a 'wow'. I don't think they had a clue but it sounds impressive. Just as impressive as dropping Alexa would have been. I also don't know that Red's 4K is very future proof. Hopefully there is a 4.5K firmware update or something. Probably not possible but here's to hoping. Prores, or lack thereof, might be important for some, will be for me. Let's see what happens.

If you're referring to the 8K Weapon sensor, then I think this imy be false. If I understood correctly, Jared said early this morning that it was a Dragon sensor. Maybe that's the same thing. I don't know. We're getting into tech talk territory I have no business debating about.

Nope. It's intentionally left out until we know for sure. I'm hoping for that too because you're right, kind of a deal breaker. But for the market they're shooting for with this camera, it's kind of a no brainer. Would be surprised if they leave it out. I'm also kind of hoping the max res is actually a bit higher. 4.5K at 30p tops would be cool. This is Red after all. Res is kinda their game.

Some of you may recognize a similar table that I created a while back to compare several cameras, including the URSA Mini. These charts help me to make a more informed decision. For my purposes, there's been no camera to rival the URSA Mini (on paper at least) at it's price point. The Raven may be a competitor, though it could be shaping up to not really be in the Mini's price point. There's still a bunch we don't know, but a lot we do. I'll add info to the list as it becomes available. I trust you'll let me know where I'm in error. Updated with Raven 4.5K sensor.

$5950 for just he brain. My impression is that sub 10k is for a shooting package, though mathematically I'm not sure if that's adding up.

Can you paste the link here? I've looked it up and can't seem to find the deal you are referring to. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong service. Edit: never mind found it. I was looking at the wrong service. https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/home

I hadn't done the math on the SSD's yet so that's a good thing to look into. Good to know about NAS. Will have to research that a bit though. I hadn't thought about this seriously at all, nor had I heard about Amazon's service. I will look into that now. What happens to all your currently uploaded data when you stop paying the yearly premium?