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@kidzrevil great look! What is your post workflow?

What kind of projects / shots do you normally take with this setup? I'm curious to learn more about how other people shoot and what works for them. I know that film-making is similar to travelling in that when you start out you take far too much because you don't know what you'll need and you take it 'just in case' and I know I'm definitely in this phase!

Each 'bubble' on the legs have a rubber ring around them and they're surprisingly grippy. Combined with the fact you can bend it however you'd like it can do an ok job. The most significant issue is that as everything is flexible and there's no way to lock things down (there is no tighten adjustment) if you put enough force on something then it will move. I don't think you'll run into this problem if you get a large enough one (this is why I went with the largest model) but you can't expect it to be completely rigid either. Great advice. Rigs are personal and depend on what you're shooting and how you are approaching it. @jonpais what a great rig - reminds me of the contraption I've built for my next family holiday... It has the XC10 and Rode VMP+ pointing forwards and the GoPro and Rode VideoMicro pointing backwards so that I can get shots of myself included in the video. Including the GoPro also means that I can do things like time lapses (eg, if we stop to eat by a nice view) without having a separate rig. I'm also taking my phone with the a phone gimbal for those wide panning shots that I can never get smooth handheld. Time will tell if this rig is genius, ridiculous, or both! @heart0less view this as a sign of what NOT to do!

In addition to the above advice, another option I have opted to go with is a Job Gorillapod (I bought the largest one, I think it's called the 5K?). It's a small tripod with bendy legs, and is a jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none. If you're familiar with Casey Neistat it's what he uses on his hand-held rigs. It can be used: as a very short tripod (~30cm tall) if you bend the legs so they're together it works as a handle if you have a bullhead you can adjust it so the legs go straight out behind the camera horizontally and it's a crude shoulder rig if you have the legs coming back at you then you can have them make two points of contact with your chest, with your hands making three if you put one leg towards your chest you can shape the other two out to the sides in a W shape and they become two handles - one on each side of the camera a variation on the above is that the leg coming back goes over your shoulder making it a shoulder rig with handles it's grippy so it can be wrapped around trees, poles, etc etc etc etc It won't do any of those things as well as dedicated rigs, but it's probably the most flexible rig you can get. You said you didn't want to go overboard - this will give you some extra stability but will also ensure you aren't going too far! My other suggestion might be a monopod. Super stable if you're stationary, and if you're walking then it makes a decent counterbalance a bit like a glidecam.

My partner is starting her own business and part of her duties is public speaking, so I'm learning a bit about editing those videos. When you're going to smaller events they only film them with one camera (if they film them at all) so if you want to edit the speech down for length or to take out awkward moments then I've found punching in to be very useful. As much as I think people look down on YT and vloggers I have learned a lot about low budget film-making from watching how the best of them handle difficult situations. Partly because their publishing schedule is too fast to allow endless re-takes of things, and partly because they often talk about filming, or walk past mirrors, etc so you get to see a bit of behind-the-scenes as well. I particularly benefit from the fact that they have little to no planning, shoot under uncontrolled conditions and then have to make the best of it in the edit room, as that's also what my run-and-gun shooting is like with family holidays etc.

It depends on why you are punching in. In a true example of story > IQ I see many vloggers digital zoom in to 5x or 10x if there's something funny going on (especially of faces that people make in the background when they say something noteworthy). If they only do it for maybe a quarter of a second then the blurry and noisy quality is almost a filter that says "I punched in to this funny thing'. Part of my choice of the XC10 was that between the higher bitrate 4K and the lens IS the lens IS takes care of blur during the exposures of each frame and then I can punch-in or stabilise in post to smooth or eliminate macro-sized movement, meaning I don't have all the downsides of owning a gimbal. Obviously it's not quite the same, but it's a lot better than you'd think, especially if you're only rendering to 1080.

I agree with the above, but would add that 4K can be nice for talking head stuff for people whose channels are higher quality and more like they're the presenter of a show rather than someone recording inane verbal diarrhoea to amuse themselves while in-transit to somewhere unimportant (which - let's be honest - is most vlogs). This camera could easily do the presenter style videos because those people shoot under controlled conditions (essentially in a studio set) and so manual focus and a chair with a backrest would work well in these instances. RS doesn't matter as much if the camera is on a tripod and it's just a person talking. If they had to make compromises (it's Canon, so we'll let the ML team determine if they were necessary) then they're not so bad for vlogging I think.

THIS. I was that guy - I did my research, bought the XC10 and then read the 50+ page XC10 thread on this board to try and learn how to get the most out of it. The purchase was one of the top 10 most expensive things I've bought in my life and the result of much research and conversations with my significant other to get financial approval, and by the end of the thread I thought that I'd f*cked it up, both for buying the wrong camera and also not realising it was only worth about a third of new price on the second-hand market. Now I know that not only had most of the critical people in that thread never even seen the camera in real life, but that many criticisms were factually incorrect (ie, they hadn't even read the spec sheet), they don't actually know much about film-making, and are just aggressive ass-hats. But I didn't know that at the time. In terms of what that means for this forum - I registered to every other film-making forum before joining this one. I read all threads on this board with the assumption that every second person can't read, can't make films, and is unpleasant. I don't have that mindset on any of the other forums I'm on - it may not be related but they're all industry forums where almost every single person is courteous, respectful, and tries not to talk out of their a**es. That's why I had a look here today. I literally thought "I'll have a look in that thread - let's see if there's any chance that there's usable info there - I'll read the last page and if not then I won't bother reading any further".

True.. I rarely watch movies these days actually, mostly watching TV shows (mostly ones where there is no episode-only plot lines - so they're more like a movie delivered in chunks) and youtube videos / documentaries. I do understand there's an art to introducing characters, pummelling the crap out of them and then wrapping it all up, and having it fit into 75-120 minutes, but mostly that constraint doesn't seem to have any intrinsic value to me and if there's enough story in the story (so to speak) then making a TV show out of it and having 6 hours (UK) or 10-17 hours (US) to tell the story makes it a better experience because there's more time to develop characters and story etc. Obviously though, if there isn't enough story in the story then longer is much worse than shorter (eg, Sherlock vs Elementary where the UK told the story in 6 hours and the US version had the same 6 hours of story but also about 12 hours of filler).

I'm definitely not an expert, but I've followed a few critics for long enough to understand their tastes, and eventually I understood them well enough to reduce their recommendations down to a 1:1 relationship - ie, if X critic likes it then I will too. I did this with both Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton (very famous critics here in Australia) as well as the reviewers from Future Music magazine (magazine about technology-based music creation). I guess maybe there's a difference between getting recommendations from a critic and getting enjoyment and learning from what they say about a film. I am pretty much only interested in the former because I don't make narrative pieces.

If you're able to add an external screen instead of the flippable LCD then there are very cheap options available - We've all been playing this game for a long time.. well, with the exception of the LCD problem for those of us who don't film ourselves.

It was above my (low) expectations. I only watched it because everyone else in the family had, by some minor miracle, agreed to watch the same movie at the same time on the same day! My beef with it was that it was very likely a predictable formula-follower, and my cinematic tastes have been broadened by excellent western and foreign films such that the formula has all the appeal of McDonalds - you eat it because it's convenient and maybe it wasn't as bad as you thought it would be but then you're disappointed anyway. It was a formula-follower, but had some interesting fight scenes, gave me a laugh, and provided a family moment. My kids (14 and 12) have short attention spans and like talking during films, and considering their tastes are very western, it's quite commonplace for them to accurately predict (out loud) the whole plot in first few scenes of a movie. I think they like the formula because it's predictable and I suspect they'll grow out of it at some point, but it's a little stale for me at this point. In terms of what critics think, it's just a matter of taste and perspective - their verdicts are based on taste but their perspective is that they somehow know something we don't..

Installed crop_rec but that didn't help me either, I looked in the 3x3 crop mode and used the 720/60fps canon mode but no joy there either. any help would be greatly appreciated!

This is probably a stupid question, but I can't work out how to select some of the resolutions people talk about. When I go into RAW video (MLV) --> Resolution I can only choose from 640, 960, 1280, 1600, etc. People talk a lot about 1344 and other modes but I can't find them. Changing the aspect ratio only changes the vertical resolution, not horizontal. I saw instructions in the EOS-M thread to enable crop_rec module, but that's not in the build I have. I'm using 700D with the 10/12 bit RAW Video experimental build 700D115 (released Jan 31 2018). What am I missing? I must admit that I find ML confusing as hell, even though I have a computer science degree! hang on, are you guys using the crop_rec module? that would make more sense...

Sigma 18-35mm 1.8 purchased! Fast SD card purchased! I'm planning to use ML, either in the 3x Quality mode, or in RAW. I've got the 10 + 12bit experimental build installed and am converting to CinemaDNG with the excellent MLV App and then into Resolve Studio for editing, colour, and export. I'm still trying to figure out sound - I had sound recording in the nightly build with 14-bit video but haven't seen it since. I'll keep testing. I'll also have to work out grading the footage too. The author of the MLV App took out the gamma conversion function due to technical issues, and I don't think it did colour conversion, so might not have been a drop-in format anyway. Who can tell me the easiest way to grade ML RAW, once I've converted it to CinemaDNGs that is?? My preference would be to convert them into an industry standard log and then I can use the Colour Space Transform to convert it to Rec709 where I know what I am doing! If I can't work out how to get nice colours then I might have to default to 3x Quality mode.

I've heard that. What about that certain X-factor that some lenses have? How does it look in an aesthetic / cinematic sense? I've seen some nice videos shot with it, but you've lived with it so understand it...

I think I'm sold on the Sigma 18-35 for my Canon 700D. I fired up ML on the 700D and with the quality setting at 3x (the max) managed to write a file that averaged about 125Mbps where the 1x setting only managed 52Mbps, so higher quality encoding is at least possible. So with that hurdle down I watched some videos shot with the Sigma and wow - it looked very nice at times, very very nice indeed. I was surprised that the best moments were during the day rather than the bokeh lights at night style shots - the daytime shots looked bright and clean and had that nice mix of detail with the softness of out-of-focus areas. It also responds wonderfully when pointed towards bright lights / the sun, with on-or-off-screen flares that are quite pleasing aesthetically. I've never really had a wide-aperture lens before (except the 50mm 1.8 which is too long for main usage) so I am probably going to go overboard for a bit until I work out how much to use and when etc.

I won't be waiting for a cheap IBIS Canon camera - that's for sure.. G80 + 25mm is interesting, I'll research it a bit more. Lens IS is probably fine (I handhold the XC10 at 280mm equivalent and can sometimes get motionless shots, other times they sway a little but it's fine). Considering that I'm looking at the wide end, maybe I don't need IS at all? Good to hear, and yes, I know it's a bargain for what it is. Does this lens have the magic the internet says it does? If so, I might just grab one of these and take a risk that it's wide enough not to need IS, and that the Canon with ML tweaking can give me a bump in IQ. If not it'll still be great for stills when my brain remembers I also like taking photographs and in a few years can be an option for XC20 / 1DC / 1DX, or just sell it.

Anyone with YT Red want to do a quick review of his videos to see which are sponsored? IIRC it indicates which ones are. That kind of attention must be a sponsorship of some kind - Casey has good commercial instincts and isn't afraid to ask for money.. There was a video back when he was raising money for Beme, and Casey told the story that his mentor said something like 'make a list of all the people you can ask for money and then call them all and ask' and Casey made the calls and got some investment, and on the back of the fact he actually called people and got investors his mentor also invested.. IIRC - I do a bit of stuff with start-ups so the respect for action caught my attention.

I wasn't sure if any of them did - the last time I bought a camera I was looking for high-bitrate 4k (and wound up with the XC10) and the time before that I didn't think about video and ended up with the 700D. Looks capable, if a little more expensive than I was hoping. I missed this reply - sorry @sam ! I don't know that those filters are to my tastes, but the wide angle adapter is a thought I'd had before. I think the Canon one was something like $250? Do you know what these do to the speed of a lens? ie, does it keep the same T-stop? and what about the depth of field? I bought a cheap one as a proof of concept and it was meant to be 0.45x but was actually about 0.75x and was so blurry it makes vintage lenses look like scientific instruments! Lol, I want my cake and to eat it too. I don't think Mercer is the only source of this type of sentiment Is now the right time to tell you about what cars I'd like to buy? Yeah, we could be waiting a while. I'm surprised no-one has come up with an obvious suggestion - whenever I was reading about the Sigma 18-55 f1.8 lens everyone said it was the 'YouTubers favourite lens' but I can't find any info on what they pair it with that makes any sense.. The only combinations I've seen are the 18-35, metabones, and a6000 line cameras, but I can't imagine that the vast swathes of youtubers can afford such a thing, and whenever I see vloggers / travel filmmakers go to events I see most people have Canon/Sony FF/APSC, pocket cameras like RX100, or phones. Maybe it's their favourite lens that they'd like to buy, but can't afford? Or the few people that have it talk about it a lot? I think I want to buy the 18-35 f1.8, but can't get past the lack of IS and mediocre bitrate.

Wow.. that's not what I was expecting! That thing is HUGE!! There is no way I'll be able to get that into carnivals, speech nights at the kids school, or use it at parties and picnics! People will think I'm about to zap them with my ray-gun! Imagine taking that thing through border security.. :O The M50 / 22mm f2 combo is interesting - I was thinking I'd get better value by going for better but older second-hand options but it's something to keep in mind, the form factor is great though. I was expecting recommendations like: - Sony a3000 / a5000 and a manual lens - 100D with ML and a wide manual lens - early model RX100 (?) - Ricoh GR (?) - or that it's much easier to hand-hold an 18mm than a 50mm so don't worry about IS and to buy the Sigma 18-35 f1.8 and run ML on my 700D with a higher quality mode for the 1080 (which actually sounds like a potential option, assuming I can get it to write a stream higher than the 56Mbps file it gave me when I tried it on 3x quality) ...or something even more esoteric like an old DSLR film-makers kit from an obsolete lens system but a body with clean HDMI output and an Atomos Ninja Star. I recorded a test video with the 700D and 50mm 1.8 and it was almost passable in terms of IQ (softness and low-light performance at f1.8), but just wasn't a practical focal length. If only Canon had a "Plenty Twenty" 20mm f1.8 lens for $200 and a HQ video mode that did 100Mbps!! (Yeah, I know, it's Canon we're talking about....) I probably just want an XC20.

I shoot handheld run-and-gun home videos / personal projects and my XC10 does this very well, but the one thing it can't do is BOKEH! ...and I can't get it out of my head!!! I am wondering if there's a cheap setup that can get bokeh, can run-and-gun for home videos with decent results, and produces a half-decent image after dark. The smaller the better, so no old cine cameras. I've tried my Canon 700D with 50mm f1.8, but 80mm equivalent is way too long, the lack of IS makes everything shaky, and the Canon IQ is lacklustre. Therefore the criteria is: - BOKEH!! (f2.8 equivalent or faster) - nice image (better than my 700D 1080p ~56mbps codec) - not too shaky image while hand-held (I record while walking - image stabilisation probably required?) - can either autofocus or has a lens with ok manual focus ring (ie, not a quarter-turn for the whole focal range) - wide enough to be useful indoors (shorter than 50mm equivalent - a short zoom would be useful) - as I live in Australia - it cannot have overheating problems (I've had my iphone overheat while recording video - our weather is no joke!) I can either get a sub-$600 lens for my Canon 700D: - the Sigma 18-35 f1.8 looks great, but lacks IS - will it be wide enough to hand-hold? 80mm handheld was impossible! - Canon EF 24mm f2.8 IS USM - not wide enough for indoors? Or I can sell the 700D and lenses, then I'd have ~$1000 for a camera/lens combo. What might that be? I'm ok with ML or firmware hacks as long as they're reliable, purchasing second-hand is assumed. Is this possible? Or has wide-angle shallow depth-of-field just not come down in price enough yet?

That settles it. I'm only shooting in ARRIRAW 3.4K from now on!

I have the Dell UP3216Q 31.5" UHD panel. I'm not a pro so I'm not sure if I can answer all your questions, but happy to try. I run Resolve Studio on it, connected to my MacBook Pro laptop.

Good content for talking head vlogs is in the writing. Or, if you're a good communicator, in the ideas. As they say, content is king