leafcutter

I was playing around with my iPhone the other day taking shots at 240fps and was quite impressed with the results. It got me thinking that if 240fps was readily available at consumer level is there anything out there that is faster and still relatively easily available? I was reading about a motion tracking device that claims a camera speed of 10,000 fps - ok it costs several thousand dollars but presumably not all of that is the cost of the camera hardware. Are there easily available high fps cameras out there (that maybe you could hook up to a computer for processing) or is it all in the realms of high cost specialist equipment?

​ ​Premiere has mutli camera too that does a good job of syncing tracks and is easy to edit with. I've used it with continuous takes on multi cameras plus dropping in shorter takes for closeups and movement. I used to move things manually by waveform but after testing the multicam I realised it does a much better (and quicker) job.

Could you use a raspberry pi instead of the laptop? It might not be powerful enough and/or have the right connections but they did just upgrade it to a quad core processor and it runs linux (and is cheap and small)

Thanks for those - The DR70 looks like the 60 I have but with better inputs (i.e 4 xlr), similarly the zoom H6. The Zoom R16 looks like it mixes everything down to 1 stereo channel for recording? So that would mean getting the mix right before hitting record. I really need something where I can just record the dry audio and then mix it later - the mackie looks pretty good for that and offers more flexibility than the scarlett I was looking at but it does look a bit big.

Does anyone have any suggestions/recommendations for a multi-track (6+ channels) portable audio recorder? I film musicians explaining how to play their instruments - in the case of something like an acoustic guitarist I can easily end up with five or more audio inputs: - dedicated voice mic - room mic / external guitar - internal guitar pickups (mic / magnetic / piezo) - A drum kit would need even more than that. My gear has to be fairly poratable as we go on location with limited time to get set up and test. Having more channels would also be useful in that I'd have more options to record multiple mics for voice just in case there is a problem with one that we don't catch on the day. I've been using a mix of a Tascam DR60 (2 tracks + a 3rd stereo at -6db) and a scarlett 2i2 (2 tracks) both of which work quite well. I like that the Tascam is self contained and has some element of backup with the -6db option but it doesn't have enough channels. The scarlett is also fine but it needs a laptop to work with which is an extra bit of gear. If anyone has a recommendation for gear they've used that might solve the problem I'd appreciate your thoughts. If I kept my laptop something like the scarlett 18i20 might do the job, or I did even think of getting a couple more DR60 units and fixing them all together - more buttons to press but also more resilience with separate power and recording media.

As an experiment I decided to have a go at upgrading my dual core 2012 mac mini to see if adding 16gb of memory and a 512gb SSD would make a significant difference. (Obviously) it does - it is now officially smokin! Seems to handle photoshop and premiere really smoothly. Seriously considering not getting a new model mac and buying a 2012 quad core instead and doing the same upgrade to get an even bigger boost - there do seem to be a few of the quad cores still hanging about in UK resellers at least. (Upgrading the HD was a bit tricky for me so it definitely isn't for the faint hearted. At one point I was resigned to living without wireless as I couldn't get the 2mm plug back into the 2.5mm socket but after 20 minutes and a couple of toothpicks I finally managed it.)

I'm pretty sure the bottom line here is going to be hours and hours of practice!

Me too - I've had a couple of Mac Minis and was waiting for the update to get a new one. Have been left a bit undecided as to what to go for next - Windows 8 has almost killed my enthusiasm for PCs and I don't need any more screens so a Mac Pro looks like a pretty big jump up. My only issue with getting an 'old' quad core mini is that at some point Apple will drop it from OSX updates and presumably that will happen before it happens for the 2014 mac minis. It might not be an issue for FCPX but I also do development so not having the latest OSX can mean that you can't upload apps to the app store or run the latest XCode, so the lifecycle is quite important.

I thought there was an issue with scaling of things like icons in certain apps on Windows 7 that is only fixed on Windows 8 (and higher). So if you run photoshop for instance on Windows 7 attached to a 4k monitor the icons all come out as unclickably tiny because they are effectively fixed pixel size and the dpi is higher (so icon size is smaller). On windows 8 they have addressed this so that the OS can scale things up when attached to a 4k monitor so that user interface elements stay roughly the same size in real world measurements. (I only think this because one of the magazines I read keeps banging on about it whenever they review a 4k monitor and they keep saying you need Windows 8 with 4k monitors. I don't have a 4k monitor and only a windows 8 laptop so I can't verify myself).

Going back to the op and the title of the post - I think 4k will be important to you if it's going to bring you a benefit. These guys are all working in specific genres and within that they work within specific constraints. Stuff like maybe having big budgets, lots of crew, loads of experience, expensive and powerful talent etc etc. The reasons they gave about not wanting or needing 4k don't necessarily apply to somebody else (e.g. me and the stuff I shoot). I can see that 4k might be very useful to me - especially things like being able to crop an HD frame out of a 4k frame and simulate pans and zooms etc. Working with a very small crew (mostly just me) being able to introduce those elements into shots without needing to handle the camera during the shoot could be a huge positive. For those guys they maybe don't see the benefit of that as they can just say 'get an extra camera crew in and shoot the pan for real'. Maybe 4k is initially going to be another creative tool that low budget shooters can get the most out of.

In a way it is just the same as it has always been - you do a shoot and until you get the data off the card it is at risk of failure. Whether it takes up 1mb or 1gb it is still either backed up or it isn't.

re 4k broadcast I just read something today about the BBC doing a public trial of 4k and 100fps streams for the Commonwealth games (after they did non public streams for the world cup). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28440076 Maybe by the time of the Rio Olympics you'll be able to watch it all in 4k...

Really great to watch - you captured some really nice footage there (it is a beautiful place which also helps!) I like the way the slomo scenes look from the few I have seen from the GH4 - it is a nice effect.

They look good - thanks for the link. I will have to investigate to see if you can have two keyboards attached at the same time - I have one main PC that I use for a lot of different tasks so I would prefer to keep my main keyboard plugged in plus something like this. It works with mice as I have two attached and they both work so maybe keyboards will be the same.

I thought it was great. Really liked the static effect and the way you transitioned from scene to scene.