newfoundmass

To be fair, I don't think it's a lack of desire to work as much as, working 40 hours a week at a job you almost assuredly hate, to enrichen people that already have more money than they'll ever know what to do with, has younger generations thinking "what the fuck?" The older generations were sold on an American Dream that never really happened for a large majority of Americans. I'd say probably half of my friends that graduated college had to find work for this other than they're majors. I know college graduates who deliver pizza because they can't afford to start at $12-15 an hour in their field. My friend makes I think $10 an hour plus tips delivering pizza. Long term he'd be better off with the $15 an hour job, but between his college loans and living expenses, he'd be worse off.

In a prefect world I'd have the crowd, the ring and under the ring mic'd up, but that's just not feasible for a variety of reasons. I'm not looking for the best, given the circumstances and the budget, but hopefully something that gives fuller and richer sound than the camera mics. What I have now is the announcers going into a recorder and, sometimes, a Zoom H1 recorder I'll put under the ring to make the "bumps" sound more impressive. Ideally the stereo mics on the hard camera and my ringside camera would get better sound than I currently am getting. In terms of sound I'm already ahead of most of the people in my niche field, but I'd love to improve it more. I'm definitely not concerned with DR, especially in the venues we run!

You can vary the speed. I imagine more expensive ones can move faster, but mine is fast enough for my use when using DC power. It runs slower on batteries, especially as they get depleted.

I was referring more about Chinese companies in my post, as opposed to just products made in China. Product quality can be hit or miss wherever its made, really. I think China gets a bad rap because so much comes out of there, more than any other country on earth, from a wide variety of manufacturers. If China was, in general, a country that made shoddy products we'd be pretty fucked because even things that aren't made in China often have parts sourced from China. A huge chunk of televisions sold in the US these days are Chinese made or from Chinese companies. Look at TCL and the deals they've made with brands and retailers. We're a long way from the days when I was a kid and you'd hear regularly about recalls for toys made in China because they were made with lead paints. Basically, China makes great products and so does Japan, Japan just has a longer history of providing stuff to the US and global markets, whether it's electronics or automobiles.

I'm looking for something that picks up pretty much all the noise, from the action in the wrestling ring / to the crowd. I want the viewer to feel like they're there in the building. While the camera mics aren't terrible for this, I would like something better.

My view of Chinese gear has changed significantly over the last ten and even five years. Ten years ago it very much was "well, you get what you paid for." Things were cheaply made and would often fall apart. That started to change around five years ago. It was around then that you really started to see high quality stuff coming out of Japan. I think you can kinda of trace the change with the quality of GoPro knock offs, because those were the first things I really noticed people giving positive feedback on. The first ones were garbage, but around 2014/2015 you started to hear about Yi and SJCAM putting out good quality ones. Also around that time you started to see lights coming out of China that were comparable to much more expensive lighting, and then the flood gates kinda opened with quality budget options for everything from mics to gimbals. In many ways it has killed the DIY filmmaking scene. I remember when people would carry around DIY light set ups to shoots; they'd go all out trying to make them look as professional as possible. Now everyone has affordable Chinese lights. It's kinda sad, cause the DIY era was the most fun era for me. But it's hard to justify spending hours building a light panel when you can buy some that cost less than the parts you'd need to make your own. Seems cameras and lenses are the next phase. That first Z-Cam wasn't particularly impressive, but the second one and their cinema cameras are. I think the Pocket4K really kinda stole their thunder though. Still there's a lot of garbage coming out of China. I don't stray far from the recognizable companies making stuff there.

What is frustrating about 90% of the video reviews for stereo mics I'm watching is that the reviewer doesn't understand what a stereo mic is for. So you've got a lot of videos where the reviewer is using it like you'd use a shotgun mic or comparing it to a shotgun mic. Example: "The RODE is better because it doesn't pick up background noise." Ahhh!

That hits the sweet spot, I think! I'm looking at videos now! Still open to suggestions! Any and all are appreciated!

I've been thinking of adding a stereo mic to my set up, in hopes of getting better crowd noise during events I'm shooting. There aren't a ton of reviews though on YouTube for stereo mics. There are some for RODE's Stereo Video Mic X, Stereo VideoMic Pro, etc. but not many for budget friendly options. Anyone have suggestions or reviews they can point me to? Thanks!

I have the I have the Bescor one. It's wonderful when you are in a tight space. I think you can get it now for $100 or so? I recommend getting the longer cable for the remote control!

Frankly if they didn't ban him after finding out his past, what does it take to be banned on DPR? No community should be welcoming of someone like that.

I think both are confusing me. I've never really worked with nodes before. Nothing about it feels intuitive. It's frustrating for me and I get discouraged.

Fusion continues to baffle me. I'm quite competent in After Effects in that I'm pretty advanced, don't rely on templates, etc. But I have trouble doing even the most basic things in Fusion that would take me 5 minutes in After Effects. People tell me that Fusion is more powerful than AE, which is great, but that doesn't help me if the learning curve is too hard for me to wrap my head around!

We did live streaming, we usually only had regular cable internet connections because everything was so low budget/DIY. So there were times when a stream would crap out due to internet issues at the venue. I've live streamed a 6 hour wrestling event using a 4G hot spot before! ? Money is in short demand, expectations are high though. I kinda mastered getting the most out of little!

I think, at the very least, it's overblown. I know that Griffin Hammond has talked about his Sriracha documentary looking good on movie theater screens even though it's only 1080p. It's wild that we're hearing more and more about 8K, given I think most of us are still delivering in 1080p and I notice very little demand for 4K from my clients. Are there even stations that air in 4K in the US?

I have a 55 inch 4K TV. When I'm within 2 or 3 feet of it I see a difference between 1080p and 4K. Sitting a normal distance away the difference is almost negligible and I think has as much to do with the higher bit rate than higher resolution. 4K is still nice in post. I do think it results in better 1080p. I just think, in order to really appreciate 4K on a television or monitor, without being inches away from the screen, you have to have a giant television most of us don't have and can't afford.

Sports in general are very restrictive. You almost always need permission to use the content. Generally when there is money on the line they don't want you using their content. Unfortunately after that video came out the price of those technical tripods doubled. ? But they're still significantly cheaper than other options. I love finding out of the box ideas like that though. A PC and software set up is kind of cheaper and generally an all in one solution. Since the software can also do more advanced graphics, switch, stream, and record it's appealing to some. My preferred set up is a hardware switcher feeding into an external recorder (for a higher quality recording and clean edit) outputting to a PC where you do the graphics, streaming, and program recording. In the event something goes wrong, worse case scenario you've got a high quality clean edit to work with that you can add the graphics to and upload for streaming. You're also taxing the PC significantly less. With the PC VMix set up we always had something going wrong; the stream would go great but the program recording would have audio sync issues or in the summer the PC itself would overheat, resulting in a myriad of issues. We're not working in world class venues with air conditioning: we're in venues with no/insufficient AC with 500 to 1000 people in sweltering August weather. We'd bring high powered external fans with us and have them blowing on the PC trying to keep it from overheating! ? In controlled environments, with less intense workloads, I'm sure PC set ups with VMix or OBS are fine. I know that's a set up most live steamers use these days. But when you're producing an actual program, with dozens of animated overlays and lower thirds, etc. I'm just not sold. Yep. I KINDA get the NBA, NFL, etc doing it since they make insane amounts on TV rights fees, but these small pro sports leagues doing it are kinda silly. But whatever.

All of my most recent work is behind pay walls or pay per download / DVD. I'll ask my clients if they mind me posting something though! I've thought about that for my tripod but honestly it's not worth it. My hope is to soon buy one of those 12 foot tripods as seen here: Height is important when you're shooting above crowds I've done tons of live switching in the past and am doing multicam edits right now. My old company, for live switching, used PXW-X70's because of the SDI out. I haven't done any live streams since parting ways with them (long story, it's a legal matter now) but I'm actually looking into doing it with my GH5 & G85's once I'm in a position to do so. We used a custom PC rig with Vmix, though I've always preferred hardware switchers in the past since I've found they're more reliable.

I shoot a lot of sports with the GH5 and G85, mostly handheld and up close to the action: My go to lens for handheld is the Panasonic 12-35mm f/ 2.8. I use single point auto focus and it works really well. I find it to be very reliable, and the f/2.8 handles the less than ideal lighting conditions I'm usually shooting in pretty well. I use a cage with top handle and wooden grip. With dual IS I don't need a monopod or any other support, it's wonderful. I'm literally running around a wrestling ring and I'm still blown away at how stable my shots are. My "hard camera" shot is a G85 with kit lens. I'm saving up to get another 12-35 and the 35-100 f/2.8 to match. After next month I should be in a place to get both. For a tripod I use the Magnus VT-350; it's cheap and far from the best tripod BUT it goes up to 82" which gives it considerably more height than most tripods. I just wish that you could replace the tripod head. For audio I use the Rode Video Micro on the GH5, but it's mostly for scratch audio and crowd noise since commentary is being recorded live into a Zoom recorder that is also feeding audio into the G85. I also usually put a Zoom H1 under the ring to make the moves sound better. For me external monitors aren't ideal for sports. The lag for HDMI ones, though slight, is still enough to cause issues. I should note that I also shoot events from start to finish as opposed to clips, since I'm editing the entire event to be streamed online or on DVD/Blu Ray (yes that still is a thing!) So shooting slow motion, etc normally isn't in the cards. For your use I'd consider maybe a B4 lens with a x2 extender as a zoom option? Those can get great reach.

Most consumers don't know anything about sensor size, etc. It's really only in this prosumer/professional bubble that people are obsessed with full frame cameras. Meanwhile I'm happy over here with my M43 and next month is set to be my most profitable month ever!

Wild to see the prices drop so quickly from both Nikon and Canon. Whether it's due to slow sales or attempting to undermine Panasonic, I'd be very upset if I'd bought the camera before these price drops because the potential resale value has plummeted. Definitely not something I'd want to do to the early adopters.

Obviously not an ILC but the AG-DVX200 has a four thirds sensor. It's pretty popular as an ENG camera. Two of the local network affiliates use them. Like you though I'm surprised more video cameras haven't been released with those large sensors, both ILC and fixed lens options. Guessing people have decided the market for these aren't interested / don't care?

I am in agreement in that cinema camera means different things for everyone. I do though think there's generally an understanding as to what a cinema camera is, and what makes a camera a "cinema camera." I also though think that almost any camera can be turned into a cinema camera. Rig up a GH5 or GH5s with everything you need and it's a more than capable "cinema camera." Even a hacked EOS M can be made into a cinema camera.

For $14 I'd try taking it apart and see if I could clean it!

A monopod?! You cheater! Real pros go handheld, bro!