EphraimP

I look forward to seeing them once things go back to normal. I've always used cheap fluid heads for basic pans and tilts, of course. Just recently, I bought my first pro-level, fully adjustable fluid head and it has really opened up a whole new level of locked down movement now that I can balance the camera and adjust tension levels correctly to get the most out of the head.

Those are some great images. I'd love to know more about your technique. Are you shooting locked down on a tripod? Are you delivering real-time game footage or just b-roll style highlight packages? Stuff like that. Just curious.

Ugh, my nascent video production company just took a real hit. Two weeks ago I pitched a substantial video project to a consultant in the nonprofit world I've worked with, and he has very eager and asked me to send him a proposal. I just did and he immediately replied that he's getting out of the business because he fears a major recession is coming. That job would have really set me up to launch my new company. Luckily I haven't quit my day job....

Don't worry, not all Americans, as I've said on another thread, have drunk so much of the Trump Cool Aid that they believe this garbage. We know we're not exceptional in this regard (getting through this pandemic via some cockamamie pseudo-scientific "American" miracle) or many others. We're shutting down our events and schools, working from home if possible, maintaining social distance, and BUYING ALL THE FUCKING TOILET PAPER IN THE WORLD!!! Also, we know our health care system isn't great and the magical free market won't fix it, hasn't so far. At the same time, it is a pretty damn nice place to live. So there's that.

Don't worry, not all of us 'mericans are drinking the oddly orange colored Kool Aid currently being served up by the Cheeto in Chief, along with his usual sides of confusion, baseless self-aggrandizement, ruthless politicizing and swindling the gullible. But those who are drinking it... well you've read the results of that right here.

I just had an event I was going to film next week postponed. It's small potatoes for a nonprofit I support, so no big deal. The nonprofit I work for at my day job just had to postpone a major two-day conference at the local university next month. It's going to be an interesting spring (but not for those who get ill, of course).

My question is: if this isn't a data sheet for the about to be announced Fuji, where did it come from? Did someone go though all the trouble to create it just to mess with people. Or, is it a data sheet for a proposed camera or in the earlier stage of development? I know a lot of folks want to insist that the forthcoming T4 with IBIS will be a defacto merger of the T and H lines, but the FujiRumors guy keeps insisting that an XH-2 is still planned for the future. Just something to think about.

Interesting. What ram speed and what GPU are you using?

Seriously? To be able to slow down pans, tilts and other camera movements so they are smoother. Also, if I want a slow-motion look to make things appear dreamier. It's a super common technique.

Let us know how that turns out. Better yet, make a demo video.

Yeah, I'm definitely cognizant of the benefits of airflow. On the bonus side, the reviews indicate that the 3950X runs a lot cooler than expected. For the MoBo, I'm most likely going to go for the X570 AORUS ULTRA. Puget used the board for their test build. For ram, I'm looking for 3600 mhz with low latency because the chip specs support ram speed that high and sounds like it's pretty tune-able for those who want to mess with it.

I'm familiar with proxy workflows and have used them. My question here is really about making the best spec choice when building a new system. I'm going with a 500Gb NVMe for my boot/program drive and I could go with either a single 2TB NVMe drive for project files and scratch or, say, two additional 1TB drives (one for project files and one for scratch). I'm trying to find out which is the better choice. Back to proxies for a second, the problem I have run into with them is working with h.265 4k 60p b-roll files in a 24p timeline. If I create proxies for the 60p files, they work great. But when I toggle proxies of to do renders or export, the in and out points have changed. The work-around I found was to work with the 60p frames in a separate 60p timeline, find my in and out points, color grade the footage and then render and export to a more manageable codec for use in my real project. That's kind of a pain in the ass. Lately I've just been converting my h.265 to ProRes before I add them to a project, which is less hassle but more storage intensive, especially if I keep the original h.265 files on a backup drive.

The SL60 fan replacement is definitely doable and actually not hard at all. I'm clueless when it comes to electronics and didn't know how to solder before I did my replacement. This step-by-step video was the ticket for teaching me how. The fan was cheap and I picked up a simple soldering iron from the local hardware store for less than 20 bucks and had the new fan installed in a jiff. It's been about six months and I've hauled the light around and set it up in multiple locations without a problem. Funny thing is, it's whisper quite now but I started using a Ninja V, which has a pretty damn noisy fan of it's own. Oh well. I'd love to know if anyone had replaced the fans on Godox's SL-150 or 200. And if you're curious about fan noise comparisons, the same guy from the first video I linked did a shoot-out between the Godox, a Genaray and a Jinbei. Sorry for joining in the thread hijack. If you can get an X-T3 for under $1,000, I'd say go for it. It's a great little tool for the budget filmmaker.

Specing the build for my next editing machine has been a good exercise in thinking about the editing process from a technical standpoint. We geek out over cameras and lenses all the time, but I spend at least 70-80 percent of my time in front of my monitor, not my viewfinder. So I think it's worth while to investigate every aspect of how to squeeze performance out of my computer and increase my editing efficiency. That said, lately I've been using the ssd inside my laptop for program files and keeping my Premiere project files and assets on external ssds. My scratch files have bounced around between the two. I know the recommendation is to edit on at least two drives and I've heard some people use three or more -- one for programs, one for working files and one for scratch files. I'd love to take a poll and see what's been most effective for other editors.

After a lot of research, I think I've narrowed my choice down to a Ryzen 9 3950X and a RTX 2080 Super. Puget, Linus Tech and Gamer's Nexus all rate the 3950X highly and it seems like a real value to performance sweet spot. I've got a local freelance tech who I've worked with a my day jobs for the last 5 years who will build my system for under $200 while I watch and learn. I should be able to put together a machine that will handle 6K footage (come on X-T4 or R6!) for less than 3K. I think the biggest things left are to narrow down the motherboard and pick the right DDR4 sticks. Looking forward to this box.

Man this camera is going to be a banger. Can we get ProRes 10-bit 422 and a mini-XLR on this thing, or is that a dream to far?

Systemic racism is real. He called it out and acknowledged that he's been part of the problem. That's legit.

Interesting. I've run mine for more than 4 hours straight at a concert off of a v-mount without problem, as well as various other long shoots without heat issues.

I have the same questions. I've used my T3 on a couple of multi-hour shoots without any overheating problems. This was at 4k 24, so maybe 60p would be different. But since most of us shoot to a 24p base timeline, we only use 60p for be-roll and thus takes are much shorter, thus lessening the potential for overheating issues.

There is a lot of wisdom here about things to focus on above camera choice. I'd add this thought exercise to help you determine when to upgrade your camera. Is the camera holding you back from pulling off the shots/camera movements you want to make? Do you nail composition, exposure almost every time? Can you focus better than the camera can? Is the camera going to make you money? If the answer to these questions is no, then keep cracking with what you've got. If you answer yes to all of them, are you able to create the overall look you envision if you have the proper lighting, frame rate and shutter speed dialed in (ask discussed above)? If you get to this point and answer no, then maybe it's time to start think about an upgrade.

Good article. I'd love it if you could expand on why 8 cores is the point of diminishing returns. Puget rates some monster 18+ core processors pretty highly and puts an 18 core unit at the top of their list of recs for Premiere. Thanks for link to Puget, btw. I was meaning to look them up but hadn't gotten around to it yet. I know they are highly regarded for their builds. As I've been told, the trick is to rip their specs and get the actual build done cheaper (if possible). Also, is it really beneficial to run two lower tier cards, such as the RTX 2060 or 2070 units over a high spec card like the 2080 super or an RTX quadro card? I'm reading as much as I can on these topics, but it's good to ask questions and get responses from folks who've had experience.

Yeah, that's the standard info on Resolve. I do have the free version, but haven't had a ton of time to really play with it. For my new system, I want to get something that works reasonably well with both NLEs. And with the specs I'm looking like, it should blow my old box out of the water either way. Which will be good, especially with what's coming down the pipe this year in terms of new 6K and dare I say 8k cameras.

I'm surprised no one has posted this link already -- a whole documentary about our favorite YouTuber. Sounds like he really does hustle.

I have been thinking a lot about the imaging pipeline and where the bottlenecks might be/where the lowest hanging fruit of the upgrade will be. I've been keeping my task manager on while I edit, and when things get laggy (lots of effects, h.265 files, rendering) typically the processor will be maxing out while the GPU is not overly taxed. The Ryzen 9 3900x does benchmark really well against the price equivalent i9 9900K for mulit-core tasks . The i9 actually does slightly better for single core stuff. My question is, and this shows what I know about computer processing, are most non-gpu video processes mulit-core or single core. My accountant 😉 is very leery of the value proposition of me building my own box, though I haven't ruled it out. I found a desktop/workstation build that has couples the Ryzen with an RTX 2080 super and the board can be upgraded to support Thunderbolt 3, so there's at least that option at the top of my price range. I need to look at the memory and storage (2 SSDs) to make sure they'll be up to snuff. It's a machine targeted at gamers, so it has all kinds of silly RGB lighting, but as long as I'm not paying any extra for it, not a big deal. Like I said, definitely sticking with Windows, so no need to discuss Macbook options. I have looked for Ryzen laptops, but they don't appear to have hit yet. I like the possibility of being able to port a box around to show clients work, but I don't know how important that will be to me in the future and other than that I don't have a big need for a mobile workstation. So most likely it will be a desktop/workstation.

The Ryzen could be a good choice, but I have a 2 Terra external drive for editing that supports Thunderbolt. I definitely want at least one Thunderbolt slot to take advantage of it's speed. After a quick look, I found one motherboard that supports the Ryzen 9 3900x and Thunderbolt, but it would be nice to have some choices.