bjohn

Just for the record, the SM57 does not require phantom power but as others pointed out it's a totally inappropriate mic for this purpose. You'd not only need a preamp but probably a cloudlifter as well, and even then it wouldn't do a good job. You might want to check some of these in addition to the other options mentioned here: https://filmdaft.com/best-budget-on-camera-shotgun-microphones/ If you're going to be doing your interviews indoors rather than outside, and there won't be a lot of other noise wherever you're doing the interview, that opens up a lot of other possibilities, including non-shotgun mics like the Line Audio CM-4 (less than $200 US but excellent studio-quality sound.

Not at all. It's excellent. However, one big advantage that Final Cut has over other NLEs, including Resolve, is roles. If you assign roles and subroles to all your audio, it'll drop automatically into the right lanes when you edit clips into your timeline. It's the same amount of work in the end: either you spend time assigning roles and subroles at the beginning in Final Cut, or when you're editing clips into the timeline in Resolve you use the track selection controls to make sure the audio lands in the right tracks when you edit a clip into the timeline. But the advantage of Final Cut's approach is that you can more easily sustain creative flow because you just focus on the story without worrying about the mechanics of ensuring everything goes where it's supposed to go. But as a traditional track-based editor, Resolve gives you total control, you just have to plan a bit more and think things through, especially once you've got clips in the timeline and you start trimming and moving things around.

That is a big project indeed. I've been working on a documentary for a couple of years, 100% in Resolve, and have another year at least to go before it's done, but I don't have thousands of clips. Somewhere along the line, I think starting in v. 16, Resolve started creating automatic smart bins for your keywords, so this is a great way to organize footage -- very similar to what Final Cut does. One of the things that makes Final Cut so powerful as an editor is the "favorites" feature, which is a super-fast and efficient way of creating selects. And Final Cut allows you to establish multiple favorites per clip. You can't entirely reproduce this workflow in Resolve but you can sort of come close, using one of two techniques: 1. Subclips: open a clip from the media pool into the Source Viewer and select in and out points. If you now hit the keyboard shortcut option-b, it will turn that in/out range into a subclip. You can add keywords, other metadata, and flags to that subclip just like any other clip. And of course you can create multiple subclips per clip. The main caveat with subclips is that you have to remember to set the in and out points a little wider than what you actually need, otherwise you'll have no handles. If you forget to do this, no worries: just right-click on the subclip in the media pool and choose "edit subclip" and you can add handles that way. That's going to be time-consuming for thousands of clips though. By default, subclips have the word "subclip" added to their clip names, which allows you to easily discover them through filtered searches. All subclips with the keyword "beach," for example, are easily discoverable and you can even set up smart bins with those filters so the bins populate automatically. Create a smart bin to search for all clips with the word "subclip" in their clip name and you instantly have the equivalent of Final Cut's "Favorites" collection. All your selects for the entire project will be in that smart bin. 2. Duration markers: You can convert any in-out range to a duration marker. There didn't used to be a keyboard shortcut for this, but now there is: shift-command-m. Like subclips, you can have multiple duration markers per clip. You can't add metadata to a duration marker, but you can give it a name, a description, and assign marker keywords to it; when you assign marker keywords a smart bin for those keywords will automatically be created (or if you use existing keywords the duration marker will be added to those keyword smart bins). One caveat: I always use the media pool in list view rather than thumbnail view; if you use thumbnail view the smart bins for marker keywords will appear empty. So if you use duration markers with marker keywords, be sure to use list view in the media pool. I like working that way anyway; you can enable a filmstrip above the list, similar to Final Cut's list view. Of the two options described above, I think subclips are the simplest and fastest. In general, with Resolve as with Final Cut, I invest a lot of time entering metadata that allows my footage to self-organize into smart bins, before I ever drop anything into a timeline. It's worth it. I'd also highly recommend the free BMD training book on Advanced Editing in DaVinci Resolve. It's for version 15, but not that much has changed since then (I never use the Cut page, which is obviously not covered in that guide). I learned a lot of useful techniques and approaches from that book and am still working through it. The Resolve manual's chapters on editing, which were written largely by Alexis van Hurkman, are also quite useful.

FYI, there's an interesting discussion about "native white balance" on the BMMCC sensor here: https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=114403 The upshot appears to be that if you set the WB on the BMMCC to 5500 and shoot at ISO 800 (the native ISO for this camera), you have as much latitude in ProRes HQ for adjusting WB and exposure as you would if you shot in raw. I haven't tried this myself but I have noticed that ProRes HQ files have plenty of latitude for WB and exposure adjustment anyway, but I'm normally shooting in daylight so this might explain why I've experienced so much flexibility.

I ended up going with reflectors (in my case I got Dedo Lightstream, but there are several competitors including CRLS/Lightbridge and Kflect. What I like about this system is that for a small setup like interviews you only need one actual light; the rest of the lighting can be provided by reflectors. That means only one light to plug in or to power by V-mount battery. The reflectors come in various levels of diffusion so you don't need diffusion for your lights either. You shine your iight to one reflector that serves as your key light and bounce that light to other reflectors to provide fill light and rim/backlight. My entire lighting kit, including light, reflectors, mounts, and magic arms, fits into a Pelican 1510; the only extra stuff to lug apart from that is the C-stands. The whole system isn't very cheap, but you can get a starter kit for not much money and use it with an inexpensive light (although the Dedolight system really works best if you use their parallel beam attachment, which greatly increases the effective output of the light). The light looks more natural because it's traveling a greater distance from the source, plus you can control its direction precisely simply by mounting the reflectors on magic arms.

Thank you! I'll give that a try.

I'd love to see some suggested workflows for this lens. I bought it based on all the praise, but on my original Pocket Cinema Camera and the Micro Cinema Camera (with or without speedbooster) I almost always end up hating the look, even with Hollywood Blackmagic filters applied. Harsh, too contrasty, etc., at least outdoors. I've gotten some lovely indoor shots with controlled lighting. Maybe I should just forget about the filters and focus on what I can do in Resolve. I have the Tokina Angenieux model and like it much better but sometimes I need the low-light benefits of the Sigma.

See this piece on the Z6 (for astrophotography, not video, but it'll give you an idea): https://amazingsky.net/2019/04/30/testing-the-nikon-z6-for-astrophotography/ There are lots of examples online and reviews of the Z6 low-light video performance as well.

The Sigma fp and Nikon Z6 also have decent low-light performance. I would think most of the so-called "full frame" 4K cameras will be good in that department; if it were me I wouldn't only be looking at low light but also the color science, ergonomics, stabilization, and other features...it's the whole package that matters, as Mr. Freeze points out above.

There's some discussion from two users toward the bottom of this page: https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=70922&start=200 Quality control doesn't appear to be great based on this: one user reported "a problem" with one lens in the set and another reported problems with two lenses.

You could start by writing to SmallHD and asking them. Those monitors have come way down in price this year so if the cost to replace the glass is higher than the new monitor you might as well get a new one. But it would likely be fairly cheap. If it's affordable enough to be done by SmallHD themselves, sending it back to them for repair might give you the best-quality result. Otherwise you'd have to shop around to find someone who could repair it.

Can you not find any used first-generation MixPre for sale? Now that the second generation is available with 32-bit floating point, a lot of people have been selling their first-generation recorders. Having 32-bit float can be useful for location sound when level changes are unpredictable, but plenty of people managed just fine for decades without it. I'm still using a first-generation MixPre 6 and have no plans to upgrade to the new generation.

Agree with Zoom F4, but in terms of the Zoom F series the one I'd avoid is the Zoom F1. It's brilliantly small but has a number of issues that make it a dealbreaker for me: 1) there's some sort of EQ going on in the plug-in power preamp (for lav mics or other mics); it seems optimized for voice which I guess makes sense since you'd mainly use a lav mic there, but makes it near useless for recording ambient sounds with binaural or omni mics that use plug-in power. 2) Gain is set only in steps; if you want precisely controllable gain you need to buy one of the Zoom mics (shotgun, M/S, X/Y, etc.) that attach to the front of the recorder. With these, recording quality is acceptable but nothing to write home about. I bought the M/S mic but regret having sunk more money into this recorder as I only use it when I need the small size and the ability to mount on camera (which I never do unless I absolutely have to). I've been spoiled by the sound quality from the MixPre series, so the F1 spends most of its time sitting at home in a box.

Agreed. I'm a relative newcomer to video (~3 years) after almost 5 decades of photography and I got into it reluctantly because I like keeping things simple. But as a creative outlet I don't think anything else can match it. I get to conceptualize and tell a story, compose my own music, solve lots (and lots) of problems, and learn new skills like color grading. The technical details and nitpickery can be overwhelming, but it's good to remind myself that I don't shoot videos for cinematographers and colorists. They're not my audience.

I have this same lens (it's based on an Angénieux design) and the same camera. It's great! Here are a couple of examples; this is on my original Pocket Cinema Camera, not the Micro, as it's faster to set up (no external monitor required as long as it's not too bright outside). Using a Metabones speedbooster, Nikon version as I also have the Nikon version of this lens (so I could have manual aperture control). and As a contrast, here's some footage of the geese taken with a Helios 44-2; I don't use a speedbooster with that lens so it becomes a telephoto on the Pocket or Micro:

A few of the recent videos from this person in Japan use the S1 to great effect: https://vimeo.com/yasunariarai Here's one for example; If you explore this person's videos you'll also fine some really excellent work (best I've seen) using the Sigma FP.