The Black Friday deal that I want this year is...

[TheRenaissanceMan]

4 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

If people wanted to rent them they would have them. Hard hard is that to envision. They are in the rental business. If they flew off the selves they would have 100's of them in stock. Times have changed. Better, probably mostly cheaper stuff, that is almost as good comes along to rent, and bam you can't give a certain camera away.

At least where I am, it's generally an owner-operator camera, or owned by agencies/production houses. Those entities sometimes rent it out, like for a couple Garmin/Harley shoots I've done. Anything with product shots loves the Varicam for accurate color. 

Even in Milwaukee, a rather small market, we have as many Varicams as Alexas (though more REDs than either). Chicago, you'll definitely see more FS7s (they have a virtual monopoly on doco/reality), but Varicams are out there working all the time, like on the Lifetime movie I worked on a few weeks ago or the Kohler commercial the month before.

Here's what I'm saying, man. Your experience in the professional sphere is limited, and in a small market, and your observations are purely anecdotal. So unless you have an article with hard sales numbers that back up your claim, then with all due respect I'm going to disregard your (in my eyes) baseless assertion. 

Let's try not to derail this thread any further. If we want to talk Varicam popularly, let's make a separate topic.

[Emanuel]

Markets vary according to national regions, go figure worldwide or industry segments. No need to set up a hierarchy in-between, nor hostile vibes neither showing off.

[kye]

11 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Nce find.

If anyone is interested in a hardware controller for Resolve then Tachyon also have a 40% off sale running on their interface software to run with affordable MIDI controllers.

The Arturia Beatstep version is ideal for keeping the footprint small and the Akai APC40 version has a ton of direct access controls.

You have to source the controller yourself, the Arturia is roughly £75 and the Akai APC40 (which has to be the Mark I) is about £40 used.

With the current sale on the software, the total solution is about £135 for the Arturia and £100 for the Akai.

https://posttools.tachyon-consulting.com/davinci-resolve-controllers/beatstep-resolve-edition/

This is a run through of it and at 06:00 there is a very cool feature to control curves.

Interesting.  Although by the time you buy all the things it's not a huge discount.

Do you use a controller to grade?

I've looked at controllers before and ended up not having much idea about if they're even worth it for me.  I see professional colourists constantly talking about their process being mostly to do very simple adjustments (LGG wheels) to every shot, so it's about speed and therefore a control surface with the large colour balls is the perfect tool.  Of course they also build a look, but in Resolve you can just do that in one location for the whole timeline so speed isn't important there.  If they're doing a feature then it might involve tracking windows across many shots, but for TV and doc work that doesn't seem to be the case.

For me, who shoots in less than ideal situations that require much more correction and attention, and also shoot fewer and much shorter videos so I don't really need the basic/bulk approach.

[BTM_Pix]

12 hours ago, kye said:

Interesting.  Although by the time you buy all the things it's not a huge discount.

I'm not sure I follow what you mean about buying all the options?

If you are talking about the different resolution options, then if you buy the €90 Multi Rez Stock Kit then you get all of them included.

Or are you talking about the overall cost when you add the controller?

As even with the more expensive option (the Arturia) its about €180, which is less than a fifth of the price of another option such as the BM Mini controller.

Having said that, the BM Mini controller is a very, very nice looking piece of kit.

12 hours ago, kye said:

Do you use a controller to grade?

I previously couldn't justify the cost of the available ones based on how much I did it but these and other lower cost solutions have given me pause for thought and I possibly will in the near future.

I'm very much in favour of anything that offers a tactile interface to applications, so I use numerous different MIDI controllers for controlling DAWs and synths and even Lightroom via the LrControl plugin. 

And, of course, who can forget my very own custom real time Panasonic picture profile tweaker

 

Maybe I should revive that for Resolve !

For keyboard shortcuts for Resolve and other applications like FCP-X, Logic and Lightroom I use silicon keyboard covers like these

They are about £5 each on eBay and just lift on and off when you swap applications.

I also have a generic one for when I'm working as it keeps the elements out of the keyboard.

The other thing I've used for editing for years is the Contour ShuttleXpress.

 

I used to use the original one but the more compact one is enough for what I need for jog/shuttle and marking in and out points etc. 

12 hours ago, kye said:

I've looked at controllers before and ended up not having much idea about if they're even worth it for me.  I see professional colourists constantly talking about their process being mostly to do very simple adjustments (LGG wheels) to every shot, so it's about speed and therefore a control surface with the large colour balls is the perfect tool.  

I'm not a colourist so I can't speak about it with any authority or insight whatsoever but I can definitely see where the wheels and trackballs would be a big boon, analogous as they are to the controls inside the software.

If you want to dip a toe in then Tangent (who make a series of lower cost hardware controllers for Resolve) have an app that can turn an android or iOS tablet into a virtual version.

The full price is £80 but they do a free version which you can use for an hour a day to see if its something that works for you.

I wasn't actually aware of it before myself so I think I might have a go as well.

Video about it here

 

[kye]

18 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

I'm not sure I follow what you mean about buying all the options?

If you are talking about the different resolution options, then if you buy the €90 Multi Rez Stock Kit then you get all of them included.

Or are you talking about the overall cost when you add the controller?

As even with the more expensive option (the Arturia) its about €180, which is less than a fifth of the price of another option such as the BM Mini controller.

Having said that, the BM Mini controller is a very, very nice looking piece of kit.

I previously couldn't justify the cost of the available ones based on how much I did it but these and other lower cost solutions have given me pause for thought and I possibly will in the near future.

I'm very much in favour of anything that offers a tactile interface to applications, so I use numerous different MIDI controllers for controlling DAWs and synths and even Lightroom via the LrControl plugin. 

And, of course, who can forget my very own custom real time Panasonic picture profile tweaker

 

Maybe I should revive that for Resolve !

For keyboard shortcuts for Resolve and other applications like FCP-X, Logic and Lightroom I use silicon keyboard covers like these

They are about £5 each on eBay and just lift on and off when you swap applications.

I also have a generic one for when I'm working as it keeps the elements out of the keyboard.

The other thing I've used for editing for years is the Contour ShuttleXpress.

 

I used to use the original one but the more compact one is enough for what I need for jog/shuttle and marking in and out points etc. 

I'm not a colourist so I can't speak about it with any authority or insight whatsoever but I can definitely see where the wheels and trackballs would be a big boon, analogous as they are to the controls inside the software.

If you want to dip a toe in then Tangent (who make a series of lower cost hardware controllers for Resolve) have an app that can turn an android or iOS tablet into a virtual version.

The full price is £80 but they do a free version which you can use for an hour a day to see if its something that works for you.

I wasn't actually aware of it before myself so I think I might have a go as well.

Video about it here

 

I was referring to the physical controller, the software itself, and the controllermate software you have to buy on top of that.  I remember jerry-rigging a midi synth programming box to my computer and using a virtual MIDI driver and a MIDI processing program to change the MIDI commands from the programmer into MIDI control messages, and it was a mess to setup and install and the above setup doesn't seem to be that much different.

During the demo video the guy mentions a few different menus that seem to be controlled in different ways via different methods.  I'm also a bit reminded of the PC days when you'd put a computer together and it wouldn't work and the support for each product would blame the other products and you'd be stuck in the middle with "have you tried restarting it?" as your only logical approach!

I guess that's maybe why the other controllers are so much more expensive - because they can be.  Resolve has brought cutting edge tools to the masses for a ridiculously cheap price but I guess the hardware options are still price gouging for what is essentially some drivers and a hardware controller worth a couple of hundred dollars.

Your controller video is impressive, but I couldn't work out how you were steering the ant walking across the colour checker?  ?

I think with all of this stuff there's a learning curve and you need to use it enough for that time to be paid off, and you need to use it enough to even remember what buttons do what.  I use Resolve enough to remember the basic stuff, but I find that I have to solve a problem two or three times to remember that I've already solved it and to remember what hotkey I set it to!  and remembering the button combination on the controller is probably just as difficult as remembering the hotkey on the normal keyboard.  Then again I'm not grading often, and when I am it's more in-depth troubleshooting rather than simple and repetitive, so I'm not really the target market.

What I would pay for ahead of a hardware controller is something that would let me use my iPad as an external monitor while editing.  A 13inch laptop doesn't have the ideal amount of screen realestate for Resolve and its a lot tougher to take an external monitor travelling with you than to pack an iPad too!

[BTM_Pix]

1 hour ago, kye said:

Your controller video is impressive, but I couldn't work out how you were steering the ant walking across the colour checker?  ?

 

Oh that that where the only bug in that project.

1 hour ago, kye said:

What I would pay for ahead of a hardware controller is something that would let me use my iPad as an external monitor while editing.  A 13inch laptop doesn't have the ideal amount of screen realestate for Resolve and its a lot tougher to take an external monitor travelling with you than to pack an iPad too!

Have a look at Duet.

I use mine with the Mountie clip system that attaches it to the side of the laptop screen but any old stand will do.

They have recently fixed the issues they had with Mojave.

 

[kye]

43 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

Oh that that where the only bug in that project.

Have a look at Duet.

I use mine with the Mountie clip system that attaches it to the side of the laptop screen but any old stand will do.

They have recently fixed the issues they had with Mojave.

That looks interesting, but lots of reviews talk of bugs and the In App purchases don't make it clear what functionality you get with the app purchase.

How do you use it for video editing?  Just to extend your desktop?

[BTM_Pix]

As I say, they've recently updated it in the past few weeks to fix issues they had with Mojave so a lot of it will be related to those previous problems.

I have not switched to Mojave so can't comment but I'm on High Sierra 10.13.5 and it works fine for me with the latest version installed.

It even gives me a Touch Bar emulation at a cheaper price than upgrading my MBP

With regard to price, it is a one off price for the regular version ($20-ish) and a subscription add on for the pro version which lets you use the iPad as a digitiser.

I use it in a few different ways, depending on what I'm up to.

In FCP-X I have the iPad Pro handling the interface and the MBP full screen as the picture monitor. 

For work, I will be editing pictures on the MBP and use the iPad Pro to view and control the FTP application so I can keep an eye on the transmission of the pictures to the agency without having to swap applications. As Duet works with any iOS device (and the one off payment covers you to use it on all the devices linked to your Apple account) then I tend to use an iPhone more than an iPad for that as it saves space and is an appropriate screen size for a smaller application.

There are other similar products out there though so have a look around.

 

[IronFilm]

On 11/26/2018 at 3:02 AM, webrunner5 said:

If people wanted to rent them they would have them. Hard hard is that to envision. They are in the rental business. If they flew off the selves they would have 100's of them in stock. Times have changed. Better, probably mostly cheaper stuff, that is almost as good comes along to rent, and bam you can't give a certain camera away.

The local rental store I've been to this week (actually, not just once, but twice for two separate productions) has not one but two EVA1 cameras in stock. They're certainly out there in use. 

On 11/27/2018 at 2:02 AM, BTM_Pix said:

If you want to dip a toe in then Tangent (who make a series of lower cost hardware controllers for Resolve) have an app that can turn an android or iOS tablet into a virtual version.

The full price is £80 but they do a free version which you can use for an hour a day to see if its something that works for you.

I wasn't actually aware of it before myself so I think I might have a go as well.

Video about it here

 

That looks pretty cool, thanks for sharing

[Jadesroom]

I sold my A7sii and purchased the X-T3.  So far I like the change.

[kye]

On 11/25/2018 at 9:24 PM, BTM_Pix said:

Nce find.

If anyone is interested in a hardware controller for Resolve then Tachyon also have a 40% off sale running on their interface software to run with affordable MIDI controllers.

The Arturia Beatstep version is ideal for keeping the footprint small and the Akai APC40 version has a ton of direct access controls.

You have to source the controller yourself, the Arturia is roughly £75 and the Akai APC40 (which has to be the Mark I) is about £40 used.

With the current sale on the software, the total solution is about £135 for the Arturia and £100 for the Akai.

https://posttools.tachyon-consulting.com/davinci-resolve-controllers/beatstep-resolve-edition/

This is a run through of it and at 06:00 there is a very cool feature to control curves.

 

Just a follow-up to say thanks, and after a long time I've now pulled the trigger and bought the Beatstep Resolve controller software.  It's now only 100euros, normal price, so that's cheaper again.

After much more experimentation in grading I've realised that often the best approach is just using lift/gamma/gain controls straight-out on LOG footage, without converters or anything else, but adjusting these is a PITA if you're not using a control surface and therefore able to control two at once to kind of pull against each other.  

The learning journey continues!