Axel

Didn't check if the RAM is depleted when using Neat, but there ab-so-lutely is no real time, not with Optimized Media and not with viewer set to Better Performance. Render times are also the longest ever. I wouldn't use proxies for Neat, with noise being one of the things I wouldn't want to judge in quarter resolution. Proxies are better for multicam (you can check in preferences) or if you have to save disk space abroad. Otherwise (depending on CPU and Quicksynch or not) I'd use Original / Optimized. Note, that you can't choose to view one over the other once both appear in inspector under Available Media Representation. On the long run, ProRes will work better than H.264. If you are not only performing simple cuts. A few more basic tips: 1. Watch One Smart Collection To Rule Them All. Since this MASTER ACCESS collection lives in the new library, you'd have to create it every time anew. To facilitate this, I made an empty library with just my OSCTRTA, I call it FILTER (german for filter) and exported an XML. You can download it here. You double-click it to open FCP X. 2. Learn shortcuts, also those for navigation. See Editing At The Speed Of Thought for inspiration, and imagine how long it would have taken if he had just used the mouse. 3. Use the new workspaces. I made my own ones. I resized the windows for Organize and Color & Effects (scopes opened, viewer very big). I even made my custom workspaces the default shortcuts (cmd shift 1 & cmd shift 2), but that's a "hack", I tell you only if you can't stand to have to use the menu anymore. 4. Make your own shortcuts. Two I use very often are set volume to silence ("0" - zero) and automatic speed (conform clip framerate to project framerate, ctrl cmd r). 5. If you encounter any problems and you can't google them, send feedback to Apple. There are bugs, and there is no point in tolerating them.

@jonpais Then I think it's Neat. I think that the old saying that FCP X is hungry for RAM is nothing else but a myth: I don't say, you don't need 32 GB. Just be prepared that you might not find the difference too dramatic - like doubling your RAM will double your performance or so.

A year ago I bought the biggest 5k iMac, with the fastest CPU and the biggest GPU - but I didn't yet upgrade the 8 GB RAM (wanted to do that with third party RAM, because it's cheaper). Biggest library contained roughly 1 TB of footage, biggest project since then was 18 minutes (not long, I know, but rather complicated with compounds and subtitles). Never felt a bottleneck. Until then, I used to have a 2009 MacPro with 32 GB RAM, eventually. At the time I built in the new RAM I expected a significant improvement, but there was none! I guess the main bottleneck of this computer was i/o. Couldn't go over ~ 200 Mbits read speed. For 4k, particularly with ProRes, it should be at least twice as fast. Check that (the volume with your footage). In my experience, Neat is a real real time killer. Should you turn it off (the checkbox in inspector)? I wouldn't. I would make CC the last step in the workflow. After you locked the edit. You could then turn on background rendering, or, if there are not too many clips with Neat, render them individually. Another trick for improving performance is to limit the number of clips your Mac has to access all at once. In the browser by filtering. I never see more than 50 clips, mostly much less. In the timeline by splitting up the whole into shorter sequences (=projects). "A five minute clip" looks short enough, indeed too short to structure it any further. But it can be advisable too. Maybe in part because the media management frightens them off?

@ripper2020 The Sigma 19mm is indeed quite easy to balance (don't know if the A6000 is perhaps a little lighter than the A6500?). With the sun shield mounted (you want it to be front heavy) and on Crane V1, the front screw's head beneath the camera is 4 mm away from the mount for the lens support. Pitch/tilt axes (with ruler) = also 4 mm (gives you an idea if you are not familiar with metric distances). Roll axis = 10,5 mm. Yaw axis: 0 mm (ruler mark just disappearing under the metal). Gimbal Tools setting "weak" (although "medium" seems to work too, I sometimes forget to change after the SELP18105, the latter can't be mounted with sun shield, because then the lens bumps against gimbal parts in some positions, I have no idea how others do that with bigger cameras and longer lenses).

Inspiring. Looks pretty simple. Most of the time, the horizontal rod lies just loosely on his shoulder. Makes me think of the big box full of cheap rig parts I've gathered over the years (parts from India or China). Kept because they are worthless anyway and because I thought, who knows?, they might come in handy one day. The center piece somehow reminds me of something: ... maybe some connection of my old U-flycam up in the attic?

Actually it's just another representation of the color range, like an earth map compared to a globe. Once you get accustomed to it, it's even more intuitive to use. I always complained about the 0-100% acuity of the sliders. In the end, if fast CC is asked for, this can be an advantage. I am defending it only to this extend. Apart from the quick wysiwyg-approach, it feels too much like iMovie. They should make the tool more precise. You probably heard that the Dashwood effects (360°/VR-tools - a hint for 10.4? - , but some other FxFactory products too) recently became free, because Dashwood was hired by Apple. I installed them and tried White Balance. Too simple. Already existed within the color board (it just doesn't tell you how much in Kelvin you had shifted the balance), like the majority of third party CC-tools. The color board also has the advantage of being as well an effect as a clip property. If you open the color board window with cmd 6, you can jump from clip to clip in your sequence, and the Color effect is automatically applied to every clip you changed. I see Color Finale as something in between the color board and Resolve. More precise than the first, but not as powerful as the latter.

I have some numbers. From day one to 2013, when the Adobe subscription model was presented, they had sold 13 million licenses for all products, over two decades. From 2013 until now, there are 9 million subscribers (included, of course, design and photography packages). Adobe officially said: "Significant numbers" means economically significant. And "all routes" traditionally include the, er, unofficial users too (cracks). From 1998 to 2011 (when FCP X started) Apple had sold 300.000 FCP licenses, now they sold FCP X 2 million times (and for the customers the need to buy Apple hardware to use it. BTW: it's interesting to point out that the trashcan MP didn't sell well, had all those "pro" users been content with iMacs and MacBooks?). Resolve had been $30.000 before 2011, became free for the mass market (with restrictions irrelevant for the "hobbyist customers") and is now offered with additional features (i.e. ability to read GH5 10-bit files, not too irrelevant. And: they never need to change their UHD-limit, when consumers soon demand higher resolutions) for $300. What generates more money? A hundred con/prosumers or one big customer who of course expects personal support and a commitment? Take Fusion, also a high-end software, now free. But (like Apples Shake) not easy to learn and not comfortable to use. Maybe they will even try to merge it with Resolve. One day we may wake up, and there is Resolve 16 (or so), the swiss army knife of video software. And there may also be a Blackmagic computer line, optimized for this software. Would you laugh at that?

I quote myself from another thread (external monitor for A6500 on a gimbal, my so-so solution were video goggles, now I wait for smallHD Focus of course): I find it works quite well. Left and right movements are easier to avoid than up and down movements. Whatever you do: use your camera display's crosshairs. Helps a lot. Aim and steer.

Arguably. Depends. A shorter handle is easier to hold with one hand, whereas a longer one (or prolonged, i.e. with folded table tripod) is easier to hold with both hands - for occasions when you don't move much with a heavy camera/lens or in inverted mode. The same is true for the dual handle. Useful for certain shots, not so much for others. I experiment a lot. Screwed the Zhiyun on a monopod, screwed a hook at the other end, hung my camera bag on it as a counter weight and had a makeshift crane indeed. Wondered how to perform the perfect dolly shot on my parquet floor - too uneven for a Pico dolly, as I had learned before. I stuck a soft broom at the end of the monopod and shoved it gently (instead of wheels). Not a brushless gimbal any more ;-) Version 2 looks like an improvement. Still happy with mine, but for those who still don't have one it could be better to wait. Battery life of 12 hours seems to me kind of overkill.

For the record: GH5 10-bit footage seems to be accepted by Resolve Studio 14 (now $299, no dongle). Can s.o. confirm?

Converter? Software? Okay, admittedly I only know the few first Neumann clips - the 10-bit clips could be easily opened and played back by FCP X natively (with Better Quality enabled and If a frame drops, stop playback and warn checked). Resolve didn't recognize them. Just tested with Resolve 14 beta: Aside from the 60p (8-bit) clips, the others show Media offline. It's funny how VLC as well as QTX accepts them. Edius does ("edit anything").

Bought a book for Affinity. Found, that almost everything is covered. No one should subscribe to PS if he doesn't already know it, he should start with Affinity. Some things work better (for me) like refining masks. However, there is one thing I don't like: updating changes is slow. I mainly use PS for raw stills. ACR has a page with HSL sliders (don't know the name off the cuff) where I practically "grade" my whole image. Didn't find that particular tool in Affinity Develop. But who knows, perhaps this is just the famous quest for the blue button ...

I subscribe to Photoshop (13 €) although I have Affinity. And I have After Effects (24 €) although I also have Motion. Both Adobe applications I know since almost 20 years. AAE is ridiculously old-fashioned and has a terrible UI, but the thing is: I know this UI like I know the back of my hand. What about integration, dynamic link? Not a big issue. I can pre-compose everything in FCP X as compounds as part of the sequence. Since a compound is also a project of it's own, I can XML it over to AAE (I use X2CC for that, 50 € once, not sure if this was even necessary), render there, re-import it (name of the compound) and connect the finished result over the compound. Should anything change later on in the edit, I alter the compound, asf. I guess the same thing could be done with Resolve, since Resolve also knows compounds. The NLE has to be about performance and stability, not about a thousand features. Adobe has maneuvered Premiere to a dead end in this respect. In 2009, 2010 they had been very successful with the mercury engine. Other NLEs, like Edius and FCP X, used - and continue to use - every dirty trick to improve performance. Premieres 2015's proxy workflow was awkwardly and half-heartedly integrated. As if editing non-natively was a shame. Even the free Resolve had that thought out waaay better: I fully understand the frustration. GH5 10-bit footage not supported and such things. I also understand that people like to use the NLE they know best. So go the Rocky Mountains route or wrap to MXF. But nobody is forced to pay monthly for a product he feels is becoming a PITA.

Had there been space left for other people to make it into the frame? I recently saw a doc on Brian De Palma, he said he always shot complicated action sequences with at least two, sometimes three cameras. But of course: he can repeat the shot, you can't. What I particularly like about wedding videos shot with many cameras is that people behave so naturally. And the real-time feeling only a seamless multicam edit can provide, like the best live-TV ceremonies. If you fluently cut from a medium shot to a close up of the rings. Or the kiss. It's so emotional. With one or even two cameras you are so limited. Total failure. Sad.

Many do this. Own the Ronin M (for A7rii) and frequently used a borrowed Shogun (1500 nits) on it, and it's still hard to frame with that in direct sunlight. But possible. That's why I didn't want to buy a field monitor again. The cheap ones won't help much.

See this posting. Goggles are in a pouch on my belt. In direct sunlight, I connect them via HDMI. I frame the shot, monitor the framing on it, repeat. Would like not to look like Geordie La Forge in public, but there is one big advantage: doesn't add any more weight to the gimbal. When I'm finished, I just unplug the HDMI, put off the power, fold he glasses and put them back in the pouch. It's not suitable for judging exposure, you first have to do that through the EVF (histogram or zebra not shown on the glasses).

Too risky. But if you are the thief, please publish an unloading, unboxing and first hands-on review of the stuff on Youtube.

Probably the WB of my camera is not correct anyway. I read somewhere it wasn't neutral, and people kept fiddling with WB shifts deep in the menu. Since it's Easter, let me cite he Bible: you shall know them by their fruits. What they present as the results of their deeds needs further corrections in post in order not to look weird, some scallop it with special luts. I use sun, shadow, clouds or bulb, which already is twice as precise as analog photography was with tungsten and daylight film (okay, some used glass conversion filters for in-between values, some welcomed minor casts because they captured the atmosphere of the place, some corrected in the darkroom, does that sound familiar?). People make all their colors look neutral with custom WB. Afterwards they complain that their colors look aseptic and digital and apply a look lut that mimics film.

There are few contemporary feature length films I find interesting. No matter if it's mainstream or independent (or just independently produced but aiming for mass market), the patterns of the narrations seem to be final by now. You can tell every variation and theoretically give them names (like Kansas City Shuffle? ), you can watch the storylines develop and always stay ahead, because you've seen them all. This is not "inherent" (Inherent Vice, that was a crazy film and one of the exceptions, PTA has the mindset of a 70's filmmaker who questioned everything. Thousands of good films from everywhere over the world from this period), it's because mainstream audiences demand mainstream entertainment, and films are expensive. Short films and series can be more daring, for different reasons. And docs too. A novel consists of words. The story must be told in such a way (style, structure) that the reader sees his own personal movie. There is a word for this in german, Kopfkino, literally head cinema, when someones' words trigger an intense scene in your imagination. I'd say that reading a novel engages me more than watching a film, and not because the author is more talented than he filmmaker. Books are not too popular anymore, you'd write for very few. But unless someone exceptionally talented re-invents cinema and creates a mainstream masterpiece, you also shoot for very few.

Spec-wise, that means on paper, the GH5 crossed every t and dotted every i, but yet, in direct image comparison to the smaller and cheaper A6500 (my choice eventually, no Sony fanboy at all) there is no clear winner - see proof on Youtube. Both have their issues. The GH5's unique feature, 10bit in V-log, apparently doesn't win over simple 8-bit S-log2 as far as DR is concerned. The biggest downside of the alpha 6... series is the display. Too dark, too low resolution, not fully articulated. If they just improved that and added 4k60p. Poor battery life is no dealbreaker because cheap powerbanks exist.

Yes, film means additional challenges because you have to master the techniques. Because it's more complicated, the nimbus is greater. Orson Welles on cinema: the biggest electric train set any boy ever had. I find myself enjoying books and comics more than movies. They became too elaborated in film language and are constantly trying to overwhelm me. They look too perfect to make me suspend my disbelief. It's like you are offered a wooden horse for the hundredth time. I am actually more immersed with less audiovisual input.

I'd definitely try "STRONG". But also I recommend using another lens for the Zhiyun, shorter and lighter. Clearly the whole thing was designed to work best with weights between 800g and 1200g and a not too oblong form. Because you can tilt without limit with shorter lenses, and you can hold the gimbal for several minutes if it's not too heavy. EDIT: for all those who search in vain for the WEAK-MEDIUM-STRONG settings in their Zhiyun app because a new version (red logo instead of blue) was automatically loaded from the appstore, here is a direct link to the old version: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/worldview-assistant/id1195283390?mt=8 Note: this version is called "World View", not Zhiyun Assistant, it works nonetheless.

The first video I'd never have watched if I hadn't been asked to compare the two. It tells a story? But not through the visuals, they just show what is being said anyway. Even if I had been interested in the content - which I am not - I would have skipped it after seconds. The second video I knew before, and I kind of like it. Why? Because my duty was always to beauty, as Depeche Mode puts it. Empty eye-candy, but pleasing. Somewhat boring. What I was interested in is just the way it was edited and graded. You know how on Youtube there are often ads you can skip in 3, 2, 1 - click! Like this Turkish Airlines ad: Pleasing, but easy to forget. A reminder that should I ever visit Turkey (which I am not interested in right now ) there was no point in capturing beautiful impressions of landscape and architecture because these images already exist, and I couldn't top them anyway. Neither of them would be my 'picks'. Anyway, since I do a lot of camera gear related Youtube surfing, I got this ad before the ad above: Afaik that's a turkish company. Edelkrone sounds very german though, it would literally translate as noble crown, good name for a beer. Watched it a couple times, because it inspired me. The internet, as we know, is full of special interest stuff, some considered mainstream (3 million clicks in one day of a 10 second iPhone clip showing a girls' feet with Justin Bieber sleeping in a hotel bed - speaking about content), some not so much. Who buys sliders?

Exactly. Also: Many seem to mix up the words professional and high end. An Alexa or a 20.000 Dollar cine lens don't support autofocus. Does the camera operator therefore have the camera always sitting on a tripod or on his shoulder? - because these were the only modes that allowed him to focus manually? Hardly. Take a closer look at any modern film (cinema, TV/PPP-series). If you look at them shot by shot, you'll realize that there's a big percentage of steadicam shots, for which someone else has to pull the focus. One has to do with the other. The higher the resolution, the smaller the pixels (particularly if the video image is downsampled from even more megapixels) and the shallower the DoF due to bigger sensors, the less acceptable is the good old hyperfocal distance, which allowed - through short focal length in combination with smaller aperture - a fixed-focus and point-and-shoot solution. With 4k viewed on 4k displays, we've all become pixel peepers. For a low end user (and no professional) like me this means that a lot of shots I dreamed about in the past became possible now that gimbals and good AF are available and affordable. ... and will be nothing special anymore. People will have to learn to hold off. Forbid themselves "narrative pans" (like in the opening of Rear Windows), bragging with pointless sequence shots or overuse of focus transitions (which should be really rare and well motivated). That said, I never was a big tripod fan. I'm glad that there are IBIS and OIS. And gimbals. And AF. And miniature field recorders. Better lowlight. Spare me a lot of expensive and heavy rig junk. The argument that pros don't use AF doesn't impress me. I shrug. So what?

Just as it's possible to exorcise bad colors and RS wobble from a Sony (given you are paying attention to it and are willing to invest some time for research and testing), it's obviously possible to use the GH5 on a gimbal with CAF (given you did some exhaustive testing). I call this mastering the shortcomings. A much more dangerous attitude is to rely on your camera's strengths. Remember the days when, in order to shoot with a steadicam, you only had wide lenses and small apertures ... I find one aspect very underrated: the influence of the autofocus breathing the lens produces. You can test this by focussing manually, thereby you can better distinguish hunting from breathing. I promise you: the differences between lenses are dramatic. Avoid hunting (no big issue with the A6500): use a more moderate aperture. Never track focus if the motif is not completely within range, test different focus speeds. Avoid breathing: don't force the AF to perform extreme focus transitions. And use an "apneatic" lens ;-)