EphraimP

Looks like I've bitched enough about my old box's performance in Premiere with 4K files that my accountant (aka the wife) has authorized the purchase of a new editing machine for 2020. My current system is a gaming laptop  with a 4-core i707700HQ processor @2.80GHz, 15 gigs of memory and a GTX 1050 Ti card.

I'm currently running Premiere (hope to migrate at least some of my editing to Resolve this year) and a mix of ProRes, h. 264 and h.2645 files. I'm definitely going to dump the memory up to at least 36 gigs, and want to get as close to doubling the processor as possible (it is possible, right?). I'm really not a computer specs guy and do zero gaming or other computer intensive work besides photo processing and a tiny bit of graphic design. I've used Macs in the past but am most comfortable on PCs and don't intend to switch my OS.

I'm looking at the new Nvidia RTX studio laptops, plus workstations/desktops. Not sure if the Nvidia program is more marketing than actual functionality-oriented building, but it does make sense to buy something that has been purpose built for graphics heavy work. I've never built a computer but I haven't entirely ruled out building my own system because I assume it could help me same some coin. On the flip side, it could lead to a lot of trouble shooting and a lack of back end warranty support.

What I'm looking for now is info to help me select a processor and graphics card, or range of cards and processors to look for that tick the right boxes, especially value for money. Budget is $2,000 to $3,000-ish, maybe a little more. Some of the Nvidia builds have RTX Quadro cards, which I thought were the go-to for graphics related work. However, I recently read a comment that the newer GeForce RTX cards using the new Creators drivers instead of game ready drives are pretty much just as good. 

I'd really appreciate feedback from those of you with experience with the new RTX studio builds and computer knowledge in general.

On 1/26/2020 at 3:36 AM, Marin said:

one more extreme sports video with the XT3
https://youtu.be/3rmf3TXxKgI

Fun videos. Are you using autofocus for these and stopping down to get more depth of field to keep the subject in focus?

15 hours ago, MeanRevert said:

If this doesn’t come to pass, will this be the biggest blue balls event in mirrorless history?

No. That's the a7s III, of course. Just today I talked to a Sony shooter who was hanging on to his S II and dreaming of when the S III will show. I've been shooting on the T3 for less than a year and I bet you I'll have the T4 before he gets his  fantasy camera. 🤣🤣🤣

On 1/19/2020 at 7:26 PM, BrooklynDan said:

I'd prefer if they released a dedicated cinema camera instead. It's easy to forget that Fuji has over a half century of experience making motion picture stocks. They were Kodak's main competition. Their Vivida daylight stocks were gorgeous. Deep rich colors and solid velvety blacks with warm lovely skin tones. Sadly, they no longer produce film stock, but bringing that look and feel to a digital cinema camera would be an amazing coda to that legacy. 

I also think that Fuji's ergonomic sense work translate very well to a video camera. They have a charming analog feel to all their cameras, which is something that is sorely missing from most low cost video cameras today.

On 1/19/2020 at 9:21 PM, IronFilm said:

Bingo! A Fuji Cinema Camera would have none of the downside risks that a FF camera would have, while playing to Fuji's strengths and existing product range / customer base. 

Take the X-T3 internals, boost it up to make it be 4K 60fps 422 10bit internal, with built in NDs, and a couple of XLR inputs, and a TC & SDI I/O, plus just in general a smartly designed body like a FS5 or EVA1, then Fuji has a winner on their hands so long as they keep its final price below the competition!

This, so much! As soon as I read the topic header, I thought, "naw, we don't need a full frame hybrid, we need a Fuji cinema camera." Personally, as a newer Fuji shooter, I'd go bananas for a X-mount cinema camera with internal ND, XLR jacks and TC & SDI. They wouldn't even need to make their own monitor, and I wouldn't even care if they gave us a 10 Bit 422 internal, as long as they still played nice with Atomos and BM monitors. Honestly, being able to record straight to a 1-4 terra sd that I can plug directly into my computer is the bomb, and I can use the internal cards to capture proxy-style backup files. 

To get a cinema camera that matched well with my X-T3, I'd definitely go for that. A GFX version is a nice pipe-dream.

10 minutes ago, kaylee said:

i kno rite. ive got my fingers crossed for fully articulated flippy ?

One can only hope. I know everyone gets their rocks off bashing Canon, except for that Mokara dude. And rightfully so, perhaps. But damn if I didn't grow to love the flippy screen on my 80D... and I never shot a Vlog once. 

On the other hand, once I got a a 5-inch monitor for my T3, hot damn! Even if I had camera with good internal codecs and cheap storage, I couldn't go back to relying on even the nicest of 3 inch camera screens. It so easy to miss stuff on those little screens, like the reflection of a boomed mic in a window, and it's soooo much nicer to pull focus on a big screen. 

20 hours ago, jagnje said:

Long battery life, internal NDs, XLR inputs and good overall onboard audio are things that you need for documetary work. Ibis would be least of my concern.

19 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Eh, an external battery + MixPre3 + VariND is still less hassle, easier to add, and more compact than adding a gimbal to replace the lack of IBIS. (although of course a gimbal would be ultimately more powerful than IBIS) 

 

You know, the beauty of treating a mirrorless/hybrid as a build-it-yourself rig is that you don't actually have to choose between an external battery + MixPre3/external preamp + variND (and hell, let's add on a Ninja V and a follow focus unit to go all in) or a gimbal setup. It's a false dichotomy. With a cage like SmallRig's, which has a quick release rail build right in, I can pop the top handle off my T3 and pop it off the mini-cine rig and slap it onto my Ronin S in a minute or so. It takes a bit longer if I want to move the monitor or mike over to the gimbal but it's doable. 

People get caught up debating whether handheld rigs are better than gimbals or vise versa, when the reality is they're both just tools to get a particular kind of shot. The real trick is picking the right tool to get the shooting style that helps tell the story or at least doesn't get in the way of telling it. With gimbals coming down in price and rigs being so modular, its not unrealistic to set up both systems. Personally, I like handheld/shoulder mount and sticks for doc work and a gimbal for brand stuff that calls for slick movement and modern transitions, plus some event work. 

9 hours ago, jagnje said:

Yes, so now you have an external battery, a cable to power it to camera and it's a usb one. Then you have a preamp, with it's own set of batteries, cables, and an ND that you can easily drop, break, loose and every single cable will break eventualy.  I'm not trying do argue at all but I've been there and you will not belive what kind of releave it is to have a all in one solution at all times. Would I want ibis on a let's say fs7...sure why not, but if I would have to choose I would pick it last out of all these features. But maybe you have done more docu work than I have, and you prefer Ibis above all of the above feature, and thats fine, I'm just sharing my own experiences. 

You know, with the T3 and probably every other major camera out there, you can run a dummy battery instead of a usb cable to your V-Mount. Other than that, yeah, of course it's less hassle to run a full cinema rig like an FS7, C200 or what have you (unless you need something that can also strip down to be very small). But one of those used is in the 5k range. You can pick up a mirrorless hybrid like the X-T3 for less than 2 grand (a fair bit less most of last year) and start shooting right away, and build your custom rig as cash comes in, plus use stuff you may have from other camera setups. And you can still come in at less than the used cine camera.

I will be thrilled when I can relegate the T3 to a b-camera/permanent gimbal camera, yet it is awesome to have a camera system that is cheap to get into and has a ton of utility and is worth building out for the stage of the game I'm at. It's the tool that will get me to the place where I can drop 5-15K on a single camera. I'm sure may others are happy about that too.

16 minutes ago, kaylee said:

i like participating but i didnt vote bc im still rockin that 5D3........ however i must say that my new Note 10 is a capable tool in many ways, ill haveta post on that in the future...

that being said, my vote, in spirit, is for Fuji — ive never had a fuji camera and thats totally what im getting next, i wanna see how i like it~! ill be watching their releases this year...!

 

Fuji is coming on strong for the underdog Super 38/APS-C mirrorless. The X-T3 is mighty tasty to shoot with a few choice accessories. And now the X-T4 is about to drop. I'm sure curious to see what it's like. I'll almost certainly rent one for a job on the week of March 18 if the rental houses have them by then. I did that last year with the T3 and my 80D's been pretty much collecting dust ever since.

Anyone want to buy a used 80D? It's got pretty low mileage, the tires are still good and it doesn't leak any oil ?

1 hour ago, Video Hummus said:

Gear channels like potato jet work because we all like our gear. We like new things. Improved things.

But it has gotten extremely stale for me as of late. Everybody on YouTube seems to morph into a brand because that’s the only way to make money. It’s all starting to blur for me. Everything is the same shit.

...

I think there is tremendous space left in YouTube for unique and engaging content with an original spin from people that aren’t brands, or have managers, or company logos.

I agree. When McKinnon started out, for instance, I'd watch his videos the second they dropped, guaranteed. It was bound to be an interesting tutorial with a bit of Pete's fun personality thrown i. Now that he's a big successful brand, I don't watch nearly as much of his content. For one, his fun personality has grown a bit obnoxious and I don't need ANOTHER tutorial on how to shoot b-roll of making a cup of coffee in some exotic location. He, and others like him, have gotten a little navel-gazely about their success with their blogs. But that's fine, there are always other channels out there to discover.

47 minutes ago, Cinegain said:

Bit of a shame. YouTube used to be Skillshare. A place where you'd get wiser. Where people were genuinely excited to share wisdom and had fun making videos they cared about themselves. Hardly the case anymore these days (though still a few around, luckily). All about creating a brand for yourself raking in that Googoo money. Might be a generational thing. People don't really want to know about the artform of shooting video anymore. It's about how to get results the easiest. 

YouTube is still a great Skillshare platform. You just have to look harder for it. I think the fault lies with YouTube, not the creators/influences who are charismatic enough and clever enough to have figured out how to make a successful career off of the platform post Adpocalypse. When YouTube decided to slash the ad revenue going to channels and aggressively demonetizing them, it changed the platform. 

We all know how much work it takes to produce good videos. If you can't earn enough ad revenue off of your creative content to make it pencil as a business venture, you either have to figure out how to get other revenue streams, hence the growth of the channels we're talking about, get off of YouTube, or only due it as sort of a hobby. Some folks, like the Crimson Engine guy, are figuring out ways to split the difference. He for one, posts a fair bit of gear review, but he also posts some technique stuff and interesting content about the business side of making indie films and other content. YouTube is sort of a jungle; if you want to find worthwhile content you just have to keep hacking a way at it. Sometimes you'll find interesting trails to follow (channels) and they may take you somewhere awesome and they're just as likely to peter out.

That's my take on it, anyway. 

On 12/27/2019 at 4:00 PM, kye said:

I'd suggest that it wouldn't work so well trying to make such a large change in hue. The problem is the same as greenscreening except that this example has extremely soft edges and getting the key right would be tricky and the edges would probably have strange halos.

Take a few screenshots of one of the videos above and try it.

I'd suggest grabbing a key, taking the key and blurring it vertically in one node, blurring it horizontally very heavily in the next node and then changing the colour based on that. Not sure if PP or FCPX will let you do that work flow, but it's pretty easy in Resolve Studio.

On 12/29/2019 at 7:49 AM, Tito Ferradans said:

What @kye said. Pushing the hues all the way around is pretty extreme and bound to give you poor results. You can still try it. hahaha

Thanks for the feedback, btw. I suspected as much. I decided to pass on the lens... for now...

As much as I'd really like to play with anamorphic shooting, I can't see thing lens paying for itself, let alone making me money in the near term with the kind of work I'm doing. Personally, I've got to start being really careful about not just giving into GAS and treating my gear purchases as investments. 

I am hopeful that this lens spurs other makers to put out lenses in this class and I'm looking forward to seeing what Sirui comes up with next.

I think one thing to remember is that flashing/reviewing/showing off all the new gear is part of the business model some of these YouTubers use to make their living. It's the affiliate links. The key for channels like Potato Jet, Matti Happoja, Crimson Engine, Peter McKinnon, Kai W, etc, etc, etc, is to get reviews up as often as possible, especially when flashy new gear comes out, to pull in viewers. Yeah, they only make pennies per view, but they make a lot more through affiliate link purchases. 

The next $ tier up is the big brand deals that people like McKinnon get to  fly somewhere posh like Dubai and shoot ~10 minute advertorial/blog videos about products. And the bigger the channel gets, the more likely big companies will loan or give away gear for a video review and little/new/Chinese companies will just send random product to them in hopes of getting a mention. Matti Happoja has mega swag-opening sequences pretty regularly on his channel that highlights this phenomenon. I wonder how much of brands' marketing budget has shifted from TV commercials, magazine ads and other traditional media purchases to social media placement. For marketing people, it's all about the impressions per $ spent.

I have a question about the lens flair color. Tito showed that it's possible to select the flare and push its color into the greens in post. Would it be possible to push it into the warm part of the color spectrum without it falling apart? The lens looks nice for the price, apart from really strange lack of focus gearing. For a project I envision using it for, the aesthetic wouldn't work at all with blue flares, but orange/yellow, or even reddish flares would be nice. 

18 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Please don't use a blimp indoors ?

And definitely don't use it indoors with a wookie condom on it!

I don't know, maybe that CEO suit is windy AF. He looks like the type.?

My Meike 25mm cine lens has some pretty intense flaring, which can be great if I want that kind of look but not so great otherwise. A matte box with a good eyebrow flag would definitely tame this behavior. I just saw this new Titla budget matte box that looks like the ticket for use with photo lenses and small cine lenses with filter threads. It has space for a single 4x5.56 filter and works with standard thread on filters too. At the intro price, what's not to like about it?

On 12/11/2019 at 9:34 PM, IronFilm said:

There is something to be said for buying Nikon F Mount glass ?

You should have mentioned something in 2016 when I bought these lenses for my 30D to shoot news, nature photos and local sports. ?

As it is, I'm looking to see what I can do with what I have. If I was investing in new glass, it would be native and/or cinema.

9 hours ago, noone said:

The blue flares look nice BUT (regards the Sirui phone lens), it seems like just about every single night time phone video with car headlights in it for a while is going to have that blue flare and it is going to get very old very fast....same with video from the APSC lens maybe.     

I want to like this lens, but the flairs are a bit out of control. I think you're right that it is going to get old fast, especial since it triple flares so easily. If it had a warm flare, I'd be all over this lens in a heartbeat. It seems reasonably sharp and the no-hassle appeal of a single focus lens with no adaption necessary under $600 is super appealing. Hopefully this will spur other lens makers to get in the game. I can see Meiki and Rokinon competing in this space.

I'm tearing my hair out here trying to figure out if there is an EF mount adapter that's worth buying for my X-T3. I have the 17-40 F4L; that range is covered by my Fuji 18-55 so wouldn't be worth adapting without a speed booster. I have a 70-200 F2.8 L USM that I absolutely love and would be the main target for adapting. And I have the wonderfully weird 180 3.5 L macro that I tried to get rid of but never could and am pretty happy I didn't, though I really never use the beast.

I know that the Fringer is the best for autofocus, but sounds like it's not good enough for video autofocus, so it's pretty expensive for just iris control. The Viltrox w/out speed booster gets pretty bad marks for iris control and awful marks for autofocus; I haven't heard if the speed booster version is any good. The FotodioX Vizelex ND Throttle Adapter sounds great, but doesn't have any iris control and it seems stupid to have a lens that only works wide open. I mean, bokeh is king and all, but what happens when you make the creative decision that you actually want some depth of field. The FotodioX with an aperture ring gets pretty crap reviews for adding vignetting and not depth of field.  The KIPON Baveyes speedbooster with the electronics might be good, but the first Baveyes I tried without electronics didn't even fit right, so I'm skeptical of Kipon.

So what have ya'll used and has success with? Should I just say screw it and invest in old Carl Z Jenna glass and Russian primes?

X-T3 is affordable and has one of the best codecs out there in cameras under $5,000 and the images look great with either the built in film looks or graded Log. I think most people would agree. Autofocus is only ok. I can trust it for well lit sit down interviews, but it can be hit and miss for fast action b-roll. Great 60p and usable 120. Not a ton of third party glass, but Fuji's native lenses are nice and not extremely expensive compared to, say, EF mount L glass or Canon's new R mount. It's fine in low light at 1600 and usable up to maybe 8000 if you nail exposure. 

Fuji has an 8-16 F2.8 and a 10-20 F4 plus wide primes. Their lens stabilization is ok, but not amazing.

With the money you'd save over some of the full frame options out there, you could buy a gimbal to get smooth handheld shots or put in on good sticks. I'd say it's worth renting one for a week to see if you like it. That's what I did, and since I made the switch from an 80D I've been happy. 

6 hours ago, Anaconda_ said:

Hi all, I'm a little late to the party, but I just picked up my XT3 and I'm pumped to get using it. It's main focus will be on family kind of stuff. For work I use Blackmagic, so I'm a little overwhelmed with the menus and settings etc. - Does anyone have a good setup guide to get me started?

I'm fairly sure I want to shoot with Eterna, but I'm happy to be swayed into the many other options.

My starting point from what I can see is :

h265

Long GOP

Eterna

 

Eterna is great. Also, overlook Classic Chrome. It's also a nice look if you aren't shooting Log. Actually, I wish Fuji made a log to Chrome conversion. If you're shooting h265, you'll save on file size, but, as you probably know, it's a lot harder on your computer. 

1 minute ago, fuzzynormal said:

I read the same myself online, but it was in there Premiere so I tried it.  What the heck, it's "free," right?  Worked fine in my experience.  Never had an issue and I ran the DCP through about 13 different cinemas.

I did buy software called extFS for Mac.  It gives you a simple GUI to format disks in LINUX (makes DCP systems happy) but it was only something like $30.

I use a Windows machine, so sounds like the extFS app isn't necessary. What medium did you use to deliver your DCPs to cinemas?

5 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Sound quality is six of one, half a dozen of the other when comparing Sony vs Sennheiser. If you want an improvement in how the audio sounds then upgrade the lav mic used

But in terms of design / features / ergonomics then the Sony is streets ahead of the entry level Sennheiser G3/G4

Good to know. 

2 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

It's built into Premiere.  There's a few solid YT tutorials.

What I read about it said that the Premiere versions doesn't work well. Maybe that's bad info.

9 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Except... I reckon the Sonys are better value than Sennheiser, for around the same price. So go for that instead. (either the latest UWP-D21, or the older UWP-D11)

 

Better sound quality? Better features?

2 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Are you doing shooting at work? You should be talking your boss then into buying more gear! ?

You ever work for a nonprofit? It's like squeezing liquid from a stone. And I know, cause I gotta get the liquid in the stone in the first place.

Actually, though, I just got them to buy a bit of gear for my next project, coupla drives and a Mixpre3 ii, a year's subscription to Artlist and insurance for my gear. I put a wireless mic on the expense list, but it got stripped out. I'm going to see if I can get it put back in if I get more funding for the project.

It's hobby level for now, hopefully I'll be able to launch a business for real when in six months to a year.

10 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Figure out how to tell a story. 

Build a tale of high-stakes, conflict, resolution, redemption.  Use whatever toys you have to accomplish that.  Your gear is adequate, but I see that you're fretting so much about the technical.  I can't stress this enough, it really doesn't matter.  Your. Gear. Is. Good. Enough.  That part is done.

Figure out how to tell a story. 

Concentrate ALL your efforts on that.  Don't worry about ProRes vs. DNxHD.  Don't worry about this drone vs. that drone.  Premiere vs. Resolve?  Not really going to matter.  Don't even worry about frame rate.  Pick one you like.  There, you're done with that.  Anymore consideration into these things is a waste of time.  A lot of new filmmakers fall into the trap of putting the majority of their efforts into equipment and specs because it's a somewhat non-creative aspect of the craft and results are objective and easy to understand and control.  Avoid this.  However, do accept that story telling is difficult and messy and highly subjective.  Understand you'll make storytelling decisions that are flawed.  It's part of the challenge.  But you absolutely gotta do it as your main focus.

Figure out how to tell a story. 

Does your protagonist have an antagonist?  Can you frame what they're doing as a "hero's journey?"  What sort of set-backs will they have to struggle through?  Can they overcome those road blocks?  Will you be able to film those moments to tell such a story?  Is there a bit with a dog in it?  These are the things that really matter. 

Also, making bad movies is depressing.  I can't tell you all the corporate projects I've unfortunately done over the years where the singular goal was to put a camera on someone, have them talk to a dry boring interviewer, snag a few b-roll shots on the way out the door, and call it good.  Bah.  That's a recipe for mediocrity.  You could shoot that crap on an ARRI and no one would give two shits except the people that got to play with the ARRI.  And unless your subject is someone like Robin Williams on one of his cocaine benders, it's not going to be interesting.

You want to make a film?  A real film?

Figure out how to tell a story. 

Okay, that rant over.  You asked about DCP.  So, I do a film festival every winter.  We screen 8-bit .mp4's off a laptop at 1080 and they look fricking awesome.  Why?  Because we care about our projection system and have dialed it in with high-end equipment that's well-considered for the theater we use.  Not everyone does this. Properly encoded .mp4's can look beautiful.  Well shot movies made into DCP's can look like crap.  Depends.  It's not the file, it's the system that screens it.  

Here's another anecdote:  I toured my doc around the country this year with an .mp4 exhibition screener as well as a DCP.  The best screening experience I had was with the .mp4 running off a laptop into a consumer projector.  It just so happened the particular auditorium was gorgeous AND had a new projector AND the image it put out looked lovely.  OTOH, I had a screening of my DCP at a well known multi-plex chain that looked awful, even though my DCP looked absolutely fine elsewhere.  Your film is often at the mercy of teenagers running the projection system...and who knows what state that projection system is in. 

Now, the bad thing about .mp4's is that it's such a generic format that inevitably some Boomer will be running a $400 laptop and a cheap-ass projector in a rinky dink film festival that's been set up in the town's abandoned bank lobby...with no window black outs and a complete lack of understanding how to operate the sound system.  BTW, it's a sound systems that's a low-end PA in a room made out of marble.   That sounds oddly specific, right?  It's happened to me twice.  None of your technical stuff matters one bit in that situation.  When you're out in the wild with your screeners, shit happens. 

Finally, you absolutely do not need 4K for exhibition screening. People are too far away from the screen to notice that level of resolution.  4K is great for editing and then downscaling to 1080 for exhibition screening, but 4K for screening?  Only in very specific situations.  I get 4k ProRes screeners for our festival.  I get DCP's as screeners for our festival.  Take a wild guess what I transcode them into for playback on our system... Don't worry so much about the technical.

Figure out how to tell a story

17 hours ago, kye said:

I did the film festival / film competition circuit for a while and my takeaway was this.

Content is the only thing that matters.

I've seen barely acceptable videos with out-of-focus shots, shots where the camera got bumped, clipped dialogue, noisy dialogue, car sounds making it difficult to hear people, overexposed shots, and various other problems win competitions outright because they interviewed old people and got them to talk about sex and it was hilarious.  I've seen films win best edit when the editing was clunky because the story was good, etc.

Content is the only thing that matters.

Content is the only thing that matters, content is the only thing that matters...  content is the only thing that matters.

I get the importance of story. I'm a former magazine writer and newspaper editor. At the same time, if I'm going to do something professionally, I want it to look professional. There's nothing like being prepared for something when you go to do it. That's why I asked about the technical aspects of shooting/editing for big screen. ?

15 hours ago, cpc said:

Is there a reason you'd want to avoid making a DCP for festivals, or am I misunderstanding? Don't bother with a 4K release, unless you are really going to benefit from the resolution. Many festivals don't like 4K anyway. Master and grade in a common color gamut (rec709/sRGB). DCP creation software will fix gamma for the DCP, if you grade to an sRGB gamma for online. Also, most (all?) media servers in current cinemas do 23.976 (and other frame rates like 25, 29.97, 30) fine, but if you can shoot 24 fps you might just as well do.

I don't necessarily want to avoid a DCP. I haven't exported this way before, and it sounded like it might be either a bit of a hassle with third party plug-ins or stand alone software or expensive. 

12 hours ago, tupp said:

US$1,200 for a 1200 watt HMI is a huge bargain (provided that it works safely and reliably).

5 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Finally, someone gets it. 

In fact "insane" bargain might be more accurate than huge bargain. 

This is from Came-TV's "economic" line though, which I think means its ballast is a lot noisier than their more expensive ones? Not too sure, wish there were more than a small handful of reviews out there of them

 

The subtlety of my ironic intent was lost in translation to the Internets. I get that the Came light is actually a good deal compared to Arri or other high end lights. On the other hand, I've spent somewhere between 6-8K or more on film gear this year for about 4k of work, aside from the shooting I do at my day job. So every new piece of "affordable gear" that I come across adds up.

And it's ok; I'm happy to spend on gear as I get jobs. I'm putting kit together while I have the day job so I can make the jump to full time video production and have a decent little one man band operation. I've still got to drop on a purpose built editing machine and 4k display, so I can quit editing on a two-year-old gamer laptop and 1080 tv.
 

I understand the value of good lighting, and I'll eventually pick up higher quality fixtures when I know they'll pay for themselves. Right now, the crappy little Chinese COB light is serving its purpose. And to people who couldn't tell the difference between a Neewer light and a Mole-Richardson package, it looks pro.

11 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I just got this set https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1110971-REG/savage_led2000k_2000w_location_light_kit.html 

so it'll be interesting to see how bright they are. Seems overpriced new but they had them used on Adorama for $300. 

I'd be interested to know if the whole package is usable, including the light stands themselves. And if you end up modding them like folks in the B&H reviews did to get rid of the color cast to the lights and the fan noise.

8 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

I'd like this, definitely affordable if lighting is something you need/use:

https://www.came-tv.com/collections/hmi-light-kit-economic/products/hmi-fresnel-light-1200w-220v-electronic-ballast-dimmable

Affordable he says. Good one ?

I'm definitely not a big boy yet. No need for one of those shooting interviews for nonprofit/small corporate gigs. Maybe when I make my first short feature. Actually, probably not even then, because that will be a real diy production for a small-time local winemaker with a crazy dream -- if I can every pin him down to launch the project we discussed over good reds one evening at his bar.