pablogrollan

Well, It does make sense in certain situations, especially because SLog does not have to be 8 bit -though present in A7's and below, it is more of an FS7 and above thing- and the DR it gives is quite impressive. Having said that, I agree there is an overuse and misuse of Slog, or any Log curve "modes" for that matter. Controlled studio environments seldom require 14 stops and any other gamma modes allow the DP to dial the desired look in camera more easily, just as it was done film. Also, less stress on the codec (even Prores has limited bandwith) means you can push the grade without artifacts. Do you lose some ability to add contrast by baking it? Sure, but you are supposed to make those choices beforehand... On a gimbal on the street, even 8 bit SLog it could save you from some blown highlights...

This one is like the glidearm but a lot cheaper... (from 700$ to 300$) https://www.came-tv.com/products/came-tv-folding-arm-slider-sl02 Still, it seems easier to use a proper head on Edelkone's wing but it is an expensive product without any assurance of how it's going to perform.

Nope! I know it seems you have plenty of overhead with those 3.5 GB/s, but regardless of what specs say I'm talking from the experience of editing simple FullHD on a top Macbook Pro with the SM951 SSD (2 GB/s) and having OS, source media, temp files, renders and exports on the same drive always results in a less responsive editing experience, not to mention the risk... Should anything happen to that drive you would lose the entire editing suite. It could be an acceptable compromise exceptionally and out on the field, but IMHO not on a desktop station, though I suppose it depends on what you need it for -I make my livelihood out of it, so minimizing the risks is essential-.

Yet I'd say that's a clear bottleneck there... Never edit off external USB3 drives, and even less if they are mechanical drives. That's an "on the field" solution, but you'll find editing with internal SSDs is much better (faster, more responsive). Also using only 2 drives is another bottleneck. It's great to have the software running on the NVMe PCIe drive, but kind of useless; I guess the OS and Premiere load crazy fast, but once Premiere is loaded, it's loaded -and the drive becomes irrelevant-. It's crucial to have your software/OS on one drive, your source footage on another and your render/temp files on another so that you can use all of the drives at the same time and maximize the SATA bus. Keep in mind spinning discs have a slower access time (regardless of their read speed), especially when they have to access two pieces of data in faraway sectors at the "same" time. It wouldn't be so obvious with a single SSD editing drive because access time is much faster, but you'd still be able to tell the difference between a system with a single editing SSD and one with several HDDs accessed at the same time. It's better/faster to have 4 or 5 "slow" HDDs than a single SSD. That's a Mac problem. PP uses a lot of RAM (the whole Adobe suite does) and in Windows it is much easier to control what is open and running in the background. MacOS is notorious for having tons of processes and apps running in the background. Since macs are usually overkill, the user experience is great -we've all heard people say that apps open much faster unaware that they were never really actually closed-, but when you want to push it to the limit it just doesn't deliver like a windows PC does. It's just a question of knowing the limitation and accounting for the necessary overhead. I recently upgraded the GPU in an old editing suite (GTX 1070, i7, 32GB RAM) and it edits 4K without proxies and without hiccups. It's not as fast is some processes as the new suites, but does the job without crashing/lagging or any of that. You'll see that a single fast processor is better for Premiere. It doesn't really take advantage of dual Xeons like a 3D app does. Still, with such a beast you should consider a multiple drive configuration. You can go the HDD route (RAID) which would require many disks -but cheaper- or go all SSD which would require just 4 SSDs since there is no need for RAID configuration.

Looking at your build the only thing that stands out is the lack os separate drives. You'll need more than two if you want to edit 4K smoothly... I'd recommend 4. As for the "quiet" feature, going all SSD helps. I've only had SSDs for 3 years now and I'm very happy with the result: silent, fast and reliable. In fact, having four separate SSDs for editing you don't need them to be PCI-E, SATA would do -they are faster than required to edit 4K-. I still cannot understand how come you old build could not handle 4K properly. I don't know if you had a configuration issue, an undetected bottleneck or if simply Premiere's performance is way worse on Mac, but 12 cores and a GTX 980ti should usually be enough.

In that case, I'm afraid Sony lenses won't do... though there are focus-by-wire lenses that almost replicate mechanical behaviour, most of them are awful in that regard -the 28-135 f4 PZ is sooo horrible!!!-. I haven't tried it myself but I understand the new 18-110 f4 has a great manual focus feel, it's a pity the lens itself is big, expensive and slow making it as unattractive as it gets. The 16mm f2.8 is ok as a gimbal lens, decent enough autofocus and minimal footprint (it's a pancake lens). Other than that, I stick to adapted lenses for the FS7 and FS5, mostly Zeiss CP with a PL adapter -controlled shoots- and Canon zooms with metabones speedboosters.

The Crane was originally built and sold as a gimbal for camera+lens combos of 350-1200gr. Nevertheless, its motors are quite powerful and soon users realized they could get very close to 1200gr and even over that limit and the gimbal still worked. Turns out 1200 gr. is a very conservative limit. Zhiyun, acting responsibly -which is unusual nowadays-, provided a wide margin so that the product would work as advertised. Having said that, after so many enquiries from some users and answers from other users going over the limit, Zhiyun released an "alternative" firmware that extends the payload limit to 1800 gr, though it also raises the minimum required weight. Therefore, if you are going to use a small mirrorless, bridge or compact camera the "regular" firmware is recommended but if you plan on using a larger DSLR, you can dowload and install the "alternative" firmware from the same Zhiyun page. Hope the explanation is clear!

Wow I didn't know that... I've owned a couple o bigger manfrottos -long ago- and never had that issue, but it's good to know! I'm more of a Sachtler guy myself. If you are looking for a light tripod, the Sachtler Ace is superb. Light, well built and reliable. As smooth as a Caddy, though the sticks are not as sturdy -nor meant to carry that much weight anyway-.

Errr... Nope! It is not supposed to... Kinda defeats the purpose of a bubble level. It is a not so weird defect in some cheapo tripods or tripods that have been through a lot use and abuse: if the level is not completely and perfectly parallel, you would actually be skewing the camera when trying to place the bubble in the ring. Having said that, it is very unusual to find that problem in a top brand tripod -even in their cheapest line-. With Manfrotto, Sachtler, Miller, etc. at least you know the tripod is well made and goes through quality control... Check if there's any other thing that might interfere with the rotation of the head (or something in the bowl).

Literally five minutes after my comment I received an email from Rose Tan followed by an email from Greg at CVP, both showing interest in solving my problem. Unfortunately, it seems I received a defective unit and will need to be replaced. Thank you jonpais and Michael for your help and insights on this gimbal!

Lucky you! I wrote to service@zhiyun-tech.com about my problem including the video and I'm still waiting to hear from them...

Hi Michael. I tried knocking it gently but it doesn't react. Do you know those demo videos in which the user taps and knocks on the lens in every direction to show how strong the motors are? In my gimbal that works in every motor but the tilt. If I tap the lens, it points down loosely and there is no drag at all, as if the motor where offline... Thanks for your help!

I recently received my Crane and found a different problem. The tilt motor does not seem to work properly. It fails to stabilize the gimbal and seldom responds to the joystick... What do you think, faulty motor? software problem? I updated to 1.52 and the result is the same. The wierd thing is that the motor seems to have juice upon startup -balancing the camera at first- but then gets stuck and without any power. You can easily move it without any resistance, as if it were offline.

For quite a while it has also worked with Open CL -not just CUDA-, so ATI card owners -most Mac owners- enjoy the Mercury Playback Engine just as much. And yes, you are right that MPE is alive and kicking, in fact Adobe hasn't "abandoned the fortress" but the other way around. Premiere is STILL betting on the idea that it is much better to work on the native codec without any transcoding, that's why they have been the first ones to support h.265 and the new RED Helium formats. Of couse this requires a beefy computer and an updated GPU. Proxy workflow is just an answer to the increasing number of people editing from laptops combined with the extra requirements of 4K footage. I can edit FS7's and C300MKII 4K footage natively and without lag or any other problem on my desktop suite because it is properly configured to do so and has no significant bottlenecks. Trying to do the same on a laptop with limited GPU, CPU and RAM and a single HDD/SDD is a different story. The same applies to outdated desktops who are "collateral benefit" in this case. I don't mind spending a bit every year to keep the edit suites updated -my livelihood depends on them- and I suppose Adobe expects you to since the whole CC is aimed at professionals. At first, only the Quadro cards were "MPE approved" which meant thousands of $ on the GPU alone! As an added benefit proxy workflow might bring a couple "decommisioned" computers back online.

I already had instant scrubbing and playhead placement with XAVCS before 2015.3 (I understand you mean in 4K). In fact, with every flavour of XAVC. The only one the was problematic was XAVC-L with its "flashing" bug in SLog3 SGamutCine (which has been long fixed).

Sure CMOS may reaching its ceiling... so? Another tech may come by, just like CMOS replaced CCDs. The goal may still the same: lower priced pro-cameras with short life cycles so that the user is "forced" to upgrade frequently. It happened with furniture, clothing, home appliances... and it is happening with pro video gear. Stuff simply used to last longer before and we didn't have a need to update, but since means of production and scale economies have made possible a faster and cheaper production, our consumption has become faster, too.

Si tu tarjeta es Nvidia -CUDA- no deberías tener ningún problema (al menos, generado por Premiere), yo no lo he tenido.

...Or they are trying to change exactly that. Back in the day you'd have to pay 80.000 € for a Betacam, ("real" film cameras were at least 200K €) so the owner/operator had to plan for a long amortization and the camera was expected to stay current for that long a period. In today's democratized market where everyone can have a decent camera, product cycles are a lot shorter and so are gear investment amortizations. The "we have our own cameras" of yesteryear's small production companies has evolved into "we have the latest cameras"... same happened with PC's, which started out as pro only with a price tag of 5.000 € and were not meant to be updated so frequently.

That's what makes the most sense... plus a redesigned menu and new handgrip. Those are the four features that are considerably better in the FS5 and should have been in the FS7 in the first place. As to the new exclusive feature, I suppose they HAVE to offer something other than incorporating the advances already present in a cheaper camera. Improvements in sensitivity and autofocus are to be expected but... to what extent? If they are still using the same sensor, I guess it won't be a giant leap. As you said, the original FS7 -despite its few irritating quirks- is very current.

Please tell me where to get a C100 for 700 € + VAT and I'll buy it right away...

It is, since it is 422 10 bit in HD vs 420 8bit in the Alphas. Sure the FS5 is no B cam to an Alexa, not even close, but if you want portability in a "real" camera package (no need for rigging) it is probably the best option -miles ahead of the JVC LS300 IMHO-.

I'd say bad, since it's not designed to edit video. Kind of like editing stills in Word, which you can. If you are serious about video, sooner or later you'll have to learn to use editing software -not power director nor elements-. Since you are already subscribed to Adobe CC, check how much would it be if you included Premiere CC. At first you may be lost, but that steep learning curve has to be endured and Premiere is as standard and easy as editing programs can be. The upside of this is that, since the concepts are the same, adapting to a different version o program is not that hard. Yes it would be present. Depending on the type of noise, the resizing could improve it or not. If you de-noise first and then resize you could get good results since denoising usually softens the image and the resizing would increase the perceived sharpness.

The nauseating factor (warping) is not avoided with a higher shutter speed or framerate, that would just compensate for the excessive motion blur resulting from stabilizing (or slowing down) what originally was a faster movement. If you plan to shoot a whole project handheld you should plan how to stabilize your shots beforehand (gimbal? steadicam? monopod?). Post stabilization can save a shot if necessary, but it is a botched job and should be considered a patch, not common practice. What doesn't work for me in that interview is that: a) The "concept" and camera work is too repetitive. It's OK if you don't want every segment to be sitting down, properly lit and with tripods, but the hand held group shot thingy gets boring after a little while, not to mention that obviously this impromptu style means some shots are horrible framed and/or horribly lit. It also limits your freedom to edit, and in an interview most of the time there's a lot empty small talk to get rid of. b) Too much Zane Lowe. What happens with "celebrity" interviewers is that either them or the producers sometimes forget that an interview is a dialogue between the interviewee and the audience; the interviewer should be as invisible as possible.

True, but there is no focus shift while zooming in or out, it is "electronically parfocal" which is pretty much the same in terms of usage, an allows for a smaller lens size. Main caveat to me is still the f4...

Well, I just heard a Sony rep at IBC via Newsshooter and Cinema 5D stating that the price will be 4000€, which is 4500$ (though I have the feeling it will be cheaper than that in the US). Overpriced? It is true that you can have a faster-aperture-similar-range Canikon SLR zoom with speedbooster (that would probably be my choice) but it's true they are not the same as a true ENG lens. This 18-110 seems to be very different from the 28-135 which in my opinion is a failed lens (wrong range, non-parfocal, and terrible by-wire ring controls). Everything is mechanic, both the zoom and the focus rings, and is follow focus compatible out of the box. It tries to compete in the league of the new Angenieux, Zeiss and Canon "affordable" S35 ENG zooms, and at 4000€ it really is much cheaper and compact than any of them... I know I will probably rent it, but being f4 @ 4K, it really really has to be amazing to be worth buying over a Canon 24-105 or the Bourne zooms + speedbooster