barefoot_dp

I think you've both missed the context of my post which was that working as an AC does allow you to see the mistakes in real time. I wasn't talking about watching youtube or reading blogs to hear about other peoples experiences.

I was talking about being there, seeing the decision making process (even being a part of it), seeing the outcomes on screen while you're pulling focus and again at the DIT station, and seeing the final edit later on. You feel the weight of the mistakes because they impact your role as well (eg the DOP wasted time on one shot, so now you've got to work twice as fast/hard moving all the gear to the next setup), but at the end of the day the responsibility lies with someone else.

My overall point was that working under other people (even if they're not necessarily better than you) is a great way of learning, certainly much faster than going out and shooting the same vlogs over and over again.

I think you've both missed the context of my post which was that working as an AC does allow you to see the mistakes in real time. I wasn't talking about watching youtube or reading blogs to hear about other peoples experiences.

I was talking about being there, seeing the decision making process (even being a part of it), seeing the outcomes on screen while you're pulling focus and again at the DIT station, and seeing the final edit later on. You feel the weight of the mistakes because they impact your role as well (eg the DOP wasted time on one shot, so now you've got to work twice as fast/hard moving all the gear to the next setup), but at the end of the day the responsibility lies with someone else.

My overall point was that working under other people (even if they're not necessarily better than you) is a great way of learning, certainly much faster than going out and shooting the same vlogs over and over again.

If it's putting money in my bank account, it's not redundant.

I don't care who makes the sensors, I just care about whether I can get a good image from it.

If you can't get a good image from the current generation Sony cameras ("good" meaning it will suffice for most professional work), then the camera is not the issue.

 

Watching other people's mistakes is a great way to learn. Much better than making those same mistakes yourself.
 

If it's putting money in my bank account, it's not redundant.

If it's putting money in my bank account, it's not redundant.

Of course you're going to get better at something if you're actually out there doing it, rather than examining endless resolution/DR tests or arguing about film theory or which camera has better colours science online.

Rinse & repeat. Rinse & repeat.

That said, the jobs I learn the most from are the ones where I'm the 1AC. It's much easier/quicker/less painful to learn when there's someone better than you to learn from (of course this means checking your own ego in at the door).
 

If it's putting money in my bank account, it's not redundant.

I work in a factory running cnc machines and lately a waterjet. I dabble in video for a hobby.  I got laid off, not long after covid hit here in aus and nearly everything got shut down. Spent about six- eight months off work. Ended up withdrawing 20k out of my super, as allowed by the government at the time. Paid the mortgage off and bought a 3 year old Mitsubishi outlander.
Some might say I haven't had it too tough, and I can't say that I blame them for thinking that.
Here in Australia we haven't experienced the death rates in other countries. Whether that's due to the government initiatives or a smaller population more spread out or dumb luck, I couldn't tell. But I am however grateful as I have some rare bug called sarcoidosis which would probably not play well with covid, if I were to catch it. While covid hasn't had the same impact here mortality wise, financially it's probably  near crippled a lot of people, families, government. 
Long time ago I remember a saying ask not what your country can do for you, but rather, what can you do for your country.  Personally I think it might the time to focus a bit less on myself and some more on where I can help others,and maybe video something along the way.
 

What a f**king roller coaster.

I was sitting in a broadcast truck editing packages for an international surf event in early March when the first Gov "recommendations" came through. At about 10am, producer comes in and says "we just got word, we're wrapping this today to be safe", which meant they ran through the final 2 days of the competition in one and had about 14 hours live on air that day.

Driving home the next day (8hr drive), every time I pulled over and checked my phone, another Gov update and another job cancelled. $80,000 of bookings gone by the time I got home. 2nd child on the way, wife just gone on maternity leave, and a contract signed for a house to start building, and suddenly all my income for the next 8 months was gone.

This was immediately following 3 months of bushfires where basically no video production other than news had happened because the entire state was blanketed in smoke, and you couldn't even go outside without having a coughing fit. And that surf contest had been my first job in months.

I picked up a few other jobs closer to home, mostly editing stuff for Zoom conferences, but barely enough for bills, until things finally started to pick up again in September. Throughout that period the biggest issue was that I live close to a state border. Many of my clients are interstate, even though they're only a 45 min drive away. Any rental gear I need comes from across the state border. If I have to fly to my own states capital, I usually drive over the border and fly from there. But that state border was closed. My state was open to them, after the initial 6 week lockdown, but I could not travel there to access gear, flights, clients, locations, etc. So even if clients did want to shoot, I couldn't.

Then from Sept to Dec I was probably the busiest I've ever been (not counting single jobs where I'm booked for several months), with lots of stuff for local business, or international brands that simply didn't want to risk any travel to the area (which was also becoming famous as a celebrity destination where Hollywood stars were moving to escape the pandemic). I'd spent a lot of time during the bushfires perfecting my SEO and local marketing, so it was good to finally see all that pay off once filming was possible.

Then in the week before Christmas, another outbreak (an outbreak here is considered ONE single case, who is not a returned travel in quarantine; usually a worker at a quarantine hotel) meant that my last day of work for 2020 was basically spent fielding cancellations for Jan/Feb, so again I was back to nothing after barely struggling to get on top of bills and thinking that I might have enough spare to take the wife out to dinner for the first time in a year.

That was a tough couple of months and my wife made the decision to go back to work earlier than she'd intended, but she's also a sole trader so that's not earning us any money yet while she gets everything set back up.

And then finally last week, bookings started to roll in again to the point where I'm now at capacity (beyond it, actually, but I'm not in a position to say no) from next week through the end of May. I'm just crossing my fingers that state borders stay open moving forward because some of that work in interstate.

Talk about a train wreck of a year.

What a f**king roller coaster.

I was sitting in a broadcast truck editing packages for an international surf event in early March when the first Gov "recommendations" came through. At about 10am, producer comes in and says "we just got word, we're wrapping this today to be safe", which meant they ran through the final 2 days of the competition in one and had about 14 hours live on air that day.

Driving home the next day (8hr drive), every time I pulled over and checked my phone, another Gov update and another job cancelled. $80,000 of bookings gone by the time I got home. 2nd child on the way, wife just gone on maternity leave, and a contract signed for a house to start building, and suddenly all my income for the next 8 months was gone.

This was immediately following 3 months of bushfires where basically no video production other than news had happened because the entire state was blanketed in smoke, and you couldn't even go outside without having a coughing fit. And that surf contest had been my first job in months.

I picked up a few other jobs closer to home, mostly editing stuff for Zoom conferences, but barely enough for bills, until things finally started to pick up again in September. Throughout that period the biggest issue was that I live close to a state border. Many of my clients are interstate, even though they're only a 45 min drive away. Any rental gear I need comes from across the state border. If I have to fly to my own states capital, I usually drive over the border and fly from there. But that state border was closed. My state was open to them, after the initial 6 week lockdown, but I could not travel there to access gear, flights, clients, locations, etc. So even if clients did want to shoot, I couldn't.

Then from Sept to Dec I was probably the busiest I've ever been (not counting single jobs where I'm booked for several months), with lots of stuff for local business, or international brands that simply didn't want to risk any travel to the area (which was also becoming famous as a celebrity destination where Hollywood stars were moving to escape the pandemic). I'd spent a lot of time during the bushfires perfecting my SEO and local marketing, so it was good to finally see all that pay off once filming was possible.

Then in the week before Christmas, another outbreak (an outbreak here is considered ONE single case, who is not a returned travel in quarantine; usually a worker at a quarantine hotel) meant that my last day of work for 2020 was basically spent fielding cancellations for Jan/Feb, so again I was back to nothing after barely struggling to get on top of bills and thinking that I might have enough spare to take the wife out to dinner for the first time in a year.

That was a tough couple of months and my wife made the decision to go back to work earlier than she'd intended, but she's also a sole trader so that's not earning us any money yet while she gets everything set back up.

And then finally last week, bookings started to roll in again to the point where I'm now at capacity (beyond it, actually, but I'm not in a position to say no) from next week through the end of May. I'm just crossing my fingers that state borders stay open moving forward because some of that work in interstate.

Talk about a train wreck of a year.

What a f**king roller coaster.

I was sitting in a broadcast truck editing packages for an international surf event in early March when the first Gov "recommendations" came through. At about 10am, producer comes in and says "we just got word, we're wrapping this today to be safe", which meant they ran through the final 2 days of the competition in one and had about 14 hours live on air that day.

Driving home the next day (8hr drive), every time I pulled over and checked my phone, another Gov update and another job cancelled. $80,000 of bookings gone by the time I got home. 2nd child on the way, wife just gone on maternity leave, and a contract signed for a house to start building, and suddenly all my income for the next 8 months was gone.

This was immediately following 3 months of bushfires where basically no video production other than news had happened because the entire state was blanketed in smoke, and you couldn't even go outside without having a coughing fit. And that surf contest had been my first job in months.

I picked up a few other jobs closer to home, mostly editing stuff for Zoom conferences, but barely enough for bills, until things finally started to pick up again in September. Throughout that period the biggest issue was that I live close to a state border. Many of my clients are interstate, even though they're only a 45 min drive away. Any rental gear I need comes from across the state border. If I have to fly to my own states capital, I usually drive over the border and fly from there. But that state border was closed. My state was open to them, after the initial 6 week lockdown, but I could not travel there to access gear, flights, clients, locations, etc. So even if clients did want to shoot, I couldn't.

Then from Sept to Dec I was probably the busiest I've ever been (not counting single jobs where I'm booked for several months), with lots of stuff for local business, or international brands that simply didn't want to risk any travel to the area (which was also becoming famous as a celebrity destination where Hollywood stars were moving to escape the pandemic). I'd spent a lot of time during the bushfires perfecting my SEO and local marketing, so it was good to finally see all that pay off once filming was possible.

Then in the week before Christmas, another outbreak (an outbreak here is considered ONE single case, who is not a returned travel in quarantine; usually a worker at a quarantine hotel) meant that my last day of work for 2020 was basically spent fielding cancellations for Jan/Feb, so again I was back to nothing after barely struggling to get on top of bills and thinking that I might have enough spare to take the wife out to dinner for the first time in a year.

That was a tough couple of months and my wife made the decision to go back to work earlier than she'd intended, but she's also a sole trader so that's not earning us any money yet while she gets everything set back up.

And then finally last week, bookings started to roll in again to the point where I'm now at capacity (beyond it, actually, but I'm not in a position to say no) from next week through the end of May. I'm just crossing my fingers that state borders stay open moving forward because some of that work in interstate.

Talk about a train wreck of a year.

What a f**king roller coaster.

I was sitting in a broadcast truck editing packages for an international surf event in early March when the first Gov "recommendations" came through. At about 10am, producer comes in and says "we just got word, we're wrapping this today to be safe", which meant they ran through the final 2 days of the competition in one and had about 14 hours live on air that day.

Driving home the next day (8hr drive), every time I pulled over and checked my phone, another Gov update and another job cancelled. $80,000 of bookings gone by the time I got home. 2nd child on the way, wife just gone on maternity leave, and a contract signed for a house to start building, and suddenly all my income for the next 8 months was gone.

This was immediately following 3 months of bushfires where basically no video production other than news had happened because the entire state was blanketed in smoke, and you couldn't even go outside without having a coughing fit. And that surf contest had been my first job in months.

I picked up a few other jobs closer to home, mostly editing stuff for Zoom conferences, but barely enough for bills, until things finally started to pick up again in September. Throughout that period the biggest issue was that I live close to a state border. Many of my clients are interstate, even though they're only a 45 min drive away. Any rental gear I need comes from across the state border. If I have to fly to my own states capital, I usually drive over the border and fly from there. But that state border was closed. My state was open to them, after the initial 6 week lockdown, but I could not travel there to access gear, flights, clients, locations, etc. So even if clients did want to shoot, I couldn't.

Then from Sept to Dec I was probably the busiest I've ever been (not counting single jobs where I'm booked for several months), with lots of stuff for local business, or international brands that simply didn't want to risk any travel to the area (which was also becoming famous as a celebrity destination where Hollywood stars were moving to escape the pandemic). I'd spent a lot of time during the bushfires perfecting my SEO and local marketing, so it was good to finally see all that pay off once filming was possible.

Then in the week before Christmas, another outbreak (an outbreak here is considered ONE single case, who is not a returned travel in quarantine; usually a worker at a quarantine hotel) meant that my last day of work for 2020 was basically spent fielding cancellations for Jan/Feb, so again I was back to nothing after barely struggling to get on top of bills and thinking that I might have enough spare to take the wife out to dinner for the first time in a year.

That was a tough couple of months and my wife made the decision to go back to work earlier than she'd intended, but she's also a sole trader so that's not earning us any money yet while she gets everything set back up.

And then finally last week, bookings started to roll in again to the point where I'm now at capacity (beyond it, actually, but I'm not in a position to say no) from next week through the end of May. I'm just crossing my fingers that state borders stay open moving forward because some of that work in interstate.

Talk about a train wreck of a year.

Don't believe everything you see on the internet! 🤣🤣
They've even added digital lens flares to the "before" images. The picture with the sun in the frame would be exactly the same in the before/after in real life, which shows that not only are they flogging junk, but they don't even understand what their junk is supposed to do!
Yes, please tell me more about how I can digitally add back the shallow DOF and motion blur that is lacking if I shot outside at f11 & 1/400th without ND's!

As for diffusion filters, it's generally much faster (& therefore cheaper) to get the effect in camera, regardless of how well you can digitally add it in later.

I'd steer them towards either a C100 or an FS700. Either of those cameras are a steal for the prices they go for.

They'll save money on audio and ND filters because it's all built in. And they'll learn how to use all of that stuff properly with minimal fuss.

FS700 is more versatile with lots of frame rates, option to record 4K externally, etc. Canon has a better "straight out of the box" colour profile but is limited to 24/25/30fps @ 1080p. C100 also has auto-focus if it's had the firmware update, but learning to focus manually is best for any cam.

If they're going the budget route then a lens adapter for the FS700 would be a good idea, either to use electronic EF lenses or old manual primes (m42, Nikon, etc), as native E mount lenses might blow their budget out pretty quick.

Bang for buck with a tight tight budget, you still can't beat a Panasonic G85. You might even want to go cheaper, and check out a G7, leaves more spare dollars in the budget (which will disappear faster than you think). 
 
Just spend zero dollars on audio, and get someone else to do it instead. 

I think you made a good choice - a solid set of sticks will last for decades and might never be redundant.
LED lights, however, are changing so fast that there might be something better available for half the price or even less within a few months. I'm seeing lots of listing of people selling 300D's and 120D's at the moment, trying to recover some value before all the latest LED releases become available and the used prices plummet. It's hard to justify putting several thousand dollars in to a single light right now.

The problem is designs like that won't work with lenses made for APS-C of FF sensors. The PD150/170 had 1/3" sensors, and the lenses required for such sensors are much smaller and much lighter. Most of the weight of these cams was at the back right near the handgrip, so they balanced well when hand-holding.

Most cameras these days end up with the COG pretty close to the lens mount or sensor plane once you put a typical photo zoom or small cine prime on., so any grip/handle behind that point is going to be poorly balanced. If you were to hold a camera like you describe up to your face to use the viewfinder, your arms would give in after 30 seconds because all the weight is at the very front. And using the top handle to shoot lower angles would lead to RSI after a day of shooting. Plus this design would be no good for gimbals which would instantly discount it for a large portion of potential buyers.
To achieve proper balance, you need to either (a) make the camera body bigger, longer, and heavier (eg Canon C700, Sony F55), or (b) put the handgrips further forward (like Sony does with their grip/arm combo and slanted top handle on the FX6), or (c) make the body a simple block shape and let the user solve the problems on their own (eg red, Alexa Mini, Z-Cam).

Those cams of the 90's-00's were very convenient and ergonomic, but the same designs do not translate well to large sensors and large lenses.

I think you made a good choice - a solid set of sticks will last for decades and might never be redundant.
LED lights, however, are changing so fast that there might be something better available for half the price or even less within a few months. I'm seeing lots of listing of people selling 300D's and 120D's at the moment, trying to recover some value before all the latest LED releases become available and the used prices plummet. It's hard to justify putting several thousand dollars in to a single light right now.

Well, that's a matter of opinion, as you say.

I think it makes sense and anyone who's worked in broadcast can instantly pick up one of these (or an FX9 or FS7), start shooting, and find most of the controls they're used to. Apart from setting the right res/codec for the project or formatting cards, you can often get through an entire days shooting without ever needing to enter the menu's with these cameras. And usually you can find the button you need without even looking.
 
You literally push one button. The video you linked shows you how to change your S&Q settings, but once that's done, it's a single push of a button to get into slow-motion mode.
 
It will be far from "less cluttered" once you have 2x xlr cables (+ adapters to full-size), headphones and HDMI cable coming out of the side with all those little rubber doors dangling around. Not everyone will need that, but it's just as easy to criticise the C70 design as the FX6 (even more so in this regard). The FX6 has the ports right where you need them on a set - on the dumb side. It even has the ports recessed enough so that you can avoid obstructions when using a battery plate.
 
Unless you need to shoot any high or low angles, or on a shoulder mount, and can't use the non-rotating handle. In that situation you have exactly 0 nice dials.  FX6/FS7/FS5 style handle is very versatile and convenient.
 
Fair point, in some cases. But if you're stripping the camera down, say to shoot on a gimbal or to mount it in a car, are you really going to want audio in-camera? All those cables/mics/receivers would just get in the way and go against what you're trying to achieve. You'd probably be recording externally anyway. A deal-breaker for some, (eg if you MUST have in-cam audio on gimbal), but for most it's a problem that is easily solved when it arises.
 
This comment shows just how out of touch you are with most people who will actually use a camera like the FX6.

The reason people will build a rig is to improve ergonomics (for their particular preferences) and reduce fatigue. It also lets them use all the tools they'll need when they work in a crew with a 1AC, soundo, director, etc. It lets them go from tripod to handheld to shoulder faster. It lets them put the shoulder mount and top handle directly in line with the COG for perfect balance. It lets them put the camera down on unbalanced surfaces without getting damaged or falling over. It lets them power everything from a single battery. It also gives the camera more mass which reduces shake and gives a more natural feel to the images (and if done right, makes it easier to balance and operate too).

The only people building rigs to impress other people are those who care more about THEIR image than THE image.
 
Again, we're all entitled to opinions. But you're also making pretty outlandish statements that show how much understanding you lack about this product and the people who will use them.

It's the equivalent about me writing an article claiming the Isuzu N series is a "monstrosity of stupid design" because it doesn't fit into the average household garage.

 

This E mount is a 3rd party piece made by Viltrox, not Z Cam. Hopefully they do reverse engineer a couple more protocols, the more options the better!

If I wake up with cold sweats from nightmares tonight, then I blame you @barefoot_dp

That sounds downright horrifying, and yet has just enough feeling of realism to it to be possible. 

Granted the Mac Pro might not be for mass consumers, but there's a much wider market than just filmmakers. And It's not actually a niche product; it's just a high-end version of a product nearly every home and office uses. Any professional who needs a powerful desktop for any reason might consider it. And many more people with more money than sense will go out and buy it simply because they think "it's what professionals use and I want the best". The real genius of Apple products is in the styling and marketing, not in the design or features.

It's worth noting that if Apple put out a cinema camera they would likely not be able to include ProRes raw recording internally - they already challenged Red's patent in court and lost.

And being Apple, they would probably have a proprietary lens mount with very limited, overpriced lenses. You would have to buy an ipad or iphone as the monitor, there would be no headphone jack, the audio inputs would be some new proprietary type, everything would be touchscreen only, and the mounting threads would be 1/2" instead of 1/4" so that you have to buy a special Apple baseplate for $2499 just to put it on a tripod. Plus it would probably have an internal media and an internal battery that cannot be removed and which does not last for a full 10hr production day (and the charger would be sold separately).

Apple are the last company I would want to see release a cinema camera.

Granted the Mac Pro might not be for mass consumers, but there's a much wider market than just filmmakers. And It's not actually a niche product; it's just a high-end version of a product nearly every home and office uses. Any professional who needs a powerful desktop for any reason might consider it. And many more people with more money than sense will go out and buy it simply because they think "it's what professionals use and I want the best". The real genius of Apple products is in the styling and marketing, not in the design or features.

It's worth noting that if Apple put out a cinema camera they would likely not be able to include ProRes raw recording internally - they already challenged Red's patent in court and lost.

And being Apple, they would probably have a proprietary lens mount with very limited, overpriced lenses. You would have to buy an ipad or iphone as the monitor, there would be no headphone jack, the audio inputs would be some new proprietary type, everything would be touchscreen only, and the mounting threads would be 1/2" instead of 1/4" so that you have to buy a special Apple baseplate for $2499 just to put it on a tripod. Plus it would probably have an internal media and an internal battery that cannot be removed and which does not last for a full 10hr production day (and the charger would be sold separately).

Apple are the last company I would want to see release a cinema camera.