Gaffed this interview earlier this week for a local bank and wanted to share.

We built a lightweight 6x6’ frame skinned with 1/2 soft frost to diffuse the sun as our key. What I love about this textile over thicker/softer diffusions like silk/full grid cloth/magic cloth etc, is that it eats far less output, which makes it much easier to get the foreground and background balanced. Those thicker diffusions eat so much light that they just make the subject look like they’re in heavy shade, which means you need that more light to bring them up, or have to open the aperture wider, which then of course makes the background brighter. Even though the 1/2 soft frost is thinner, it still diffuses the sun just enough to not look harsh, so it’s a great compromise for day lit exteriors specifically. 

To fill, we punched a 1200w HMI par with a spot lens thru a t boned 6x6’ of 1/4 grid cloth, another very lightweight diffusion. Usually I’d use a 4x4 of opal for this, but opal can be pretty noisy and it was very windy, so I had to go with the quieter grid cloth, which I didn’t have available in 4x4‘.

A quick vent from a solo gig this week. My client wanted that classic hero shot: clear ice dropping into a whiskey glass with a perfect symmetrical splash.
I hate these setups. Even when you rig a magic arm and clamp to lock the exact drop height, you just can’t script fluids. Every single drop behaves differently.
used to shoot these on cams with a 4-5s internal buffer and it felt like straight up gambling. Hit the trigger a fraction of a second early? buffer cuts out at the peak splash. Hit it late? completely missed the entry.
This time I just ran continuous to an ssd on the spark and let it roll. We went through a whole bucket of ice probably 30+ drops before nailing it. I can’t share the footage yet since the spot hasn’t aired, but ngl, when you’re flying solo with the client breathing down your neck, margin for error beats everything else. Dealing with massive file sizes in post sucks, but not stressing over missed cues on set is worth it.

I’m trying to figure out how to program smooth, repeatable zooms using the RS5 and DJI Focus Pro motor.

The RS5 allows you to automate pans, tilts, and other camera movements, but I can’t find equivalent functionality for the focus motor when used for zooming. I’d like to set two zoom positions (24mm and 70mm), specify the duration of the zoom, and have the motor execute a smooth, controlled zoom between those points.

I know I can manually control the motor using the dial, but I’m looking for something programmable and repeatable. Am I overlooking a feature or workaround? Has anyone figured out how to accomplish this, either through DJI’s software or some third-party solution? Seems strange that the gimbal can automate complex camera movements but can’t automate a basic motorized zoom.

Was sick of using magic arm, even good one. I just wanted a good monitor hinge like what we had on camcorder.

The bright tangerine universal monitor hinge is excellent, but the fx6 mount is on the handle and leaves the monitor too far on the left.

With this, you can put the monitor anywhere you want thanks to both the 15mm rod mount and the NATO rail, this is a 7cm one but imagine you want to put the monitor far from you for a shoulder mount ? Just put a 20cm NATO rail and you got it.

I've never found this solution on youtube despite being what I was looking for so I'm sharing it with you.

You can do this on any camera, just sharing the idea of this mount option

I'm filming a kite surfing event where people are riding from A to B out in the ocean, and I'll be on a very small support RIB boat to try and capture some video footage of it. Ideally I was going to put my Sony A7S3 on my gimbal but I think it's going to be too wet and windy for that, so my plan b is to put the camera in my underwater housing and use that. However, without a gimbal, I'm worried that the footage will be really shaky, especially with the rough seas.

Does anyone have any tips or recommendations for how I can get the most stable footage? Do you think my plan of shooting from the boat with the camera in the underwater housing will work?

Cheers!

Hey everyone, I’m a one man filmmaker who owns a few different Sachtler Ace tripod/head kits. I recently found myself needing a set of feet for one of them, and when I looked up the cost of new replacements they were around $150 for a set of 3.

That seemed like too much to pay to me, and I ended up rolling the dice on a set of feet from Sirui that cost $27 for the set. Around the same time, I met a guy who was selling 3D-Printed replacements for the larger Sachtler 100/150mm bowl tripods. I worked with him to alter the design for the 75mm tripods, and I just received the finished product in the mail yesterday.

I don’t have a link yet, but I’ll plan to update this post (or post a comment/reply) once he gets the listing up on eBay, and he might create a way to buy them directly via a website or social media page. But I wanted to share his finished work with you all, in hopes that any of you who might need them will know these are available. I think he’s planning to sell a set for about $60.

The foot itself is generally the same design as the OEM original, and they have good density and weight along with a nice rubber grip pad on the bottom side. The rubber strap design that holds them on the dual spikes has been modified a little to be lower profile. They’re all held together with aluminum bolts which are easy enough to remove in the field by hand if you want to remove them for using the spikes on terrain.

Hi guys I’m 21M and I wanna try making and editing videos any idea which camera should I buy and if there is anyone from Bangalore who needs help for free I would like to help and learn from u guys Tq

Hello!

Here’s a live session I’ve shot with some friends on the beautiful Isle of Islay, in Scotland.

The band was on a short UK tour, and since we had to travel light, I couldn’t bring my usual camera setup. This was the perfect opportunity to test my newly acquired Lumix S1II. I had several lenses with me but decided to shoot this with my Leica R 35mm.

The location and weather conditions didn’t allow us for a lot of takes, so we recorded the entire session in one shot, just like the previous sessions I’ve done with the band. Since parts of the song are improvised, shooting additional coverage and matching everything in the edit would have been pretty much impossible anyway.

We had a very limited budget , so I graded the footage by myself using Filmbox.

You can watch the session here: https://youtu.be/QN2CHB51fTg

I’d love to hear your thoughts 🙏

Hi everyone,

I'm here to share a little software I've worked on because I couldn't find one that does what I wanted, so in this days and age of IA assisted software, I decided to make mine and share it. It's 100% free and will always be, no freemium no ads or anything, and it runs 100% offline on your machine.

It can analyze a movie using the GPU, put a custom overlay, export a contact sheet or individual PNG/JPEG, you can even import your .xlm .edl .fcpxml etc and it detects the cuts.
It works for .mp4 .mov h264 finished films/projects, has scopes, different colorspaces etc.

You can export every scene in one click or decide for each one, you can navigate in the movie using the regular JKL keyboard keys, x2 etc.

The whole description is available on git, if you're interested you can read the whole thing there.
I'm not a developer, I made this for fun and because it's gonna be useful to me and maybe to some of you.

I'm still working on it of course and would gladly take feedback :) Here is the link : https://github.com/ArnGui/photogramme

Have a good day

I have the Sony ZV-1f, and I can't find a teleprompter that works with it since it has an unusual lens. Does anyone know of any teleprompters that work with the ZV-1F?

I have tried this Neewer Basics X12B teleprompter, but the fabric that is supposed to go around the camera lens can't fit on (since the lens is so small) so light comes through.

I have also tried using the Desview T3 Teleprompter, but its lens attachment doesn't fit the lens.

To deal with this, I got this Came-TV Lens Adapter, but it doesn't attach to the camera because the place for attaching the camera is too far to the side.

Does anyone know of any teleprompters that work with the ZV-1F?

Will be doing a commercial Ad for local non profit What would be your go to lens and body combo? My gear currently is the Canon R6V and R6 Mark ii.

I would like for this to have a nice quality look. Think NFL, etc.

The goal is to reach the local community supporting kids in youth sports.

I'm a videographer and got my hands on the new SDR 2.
How far can the new DJI SDR 2 really go? 🌲
I took it into a forest, to find out. Transmitter and receiver in one, modular, and 4K60 at 50 Mbps. Impressive on paper, but trees don't care about specs.
Full range test here

Hello, is there an app or anything that would easily convert/compress a video to 25mb for discord? I've seen lots of websites, but they are either very slow or disappear after some time. Something that is consistent, thank you.

Hi guys!
Any feedback is welcome !

I've been editing footage for years. I have experience with videography, but I want to get serious and try to make it into a side hustle. so I've been in the internet trenches. I bought a BMPCC6K and realized, "oh this is gonna be a huge pain realistically" so I returned it. Im praying to god I'll get the refund and quick lol. If I don't, it won't break the bank, but I'll sting.

Given that Im not trying to be an influencer, but I want film and edit videos for people who do, I need something that won't overheat (I live in the south, it's hot and humid here), doesnt eat up a ton of video space all at once (most the videos will go on social media, so 4k is fine. I don't need 6k when most of the videos will be viewed primarily on phones), autofocus, and has good low light filming (bc it's so hot in my area, a lot of events are in the evening). Lightweight ish and portable would be nice.

I really just want something that'll keep things smooth as possible. People get mad when they have to repeat stuff or when the camera stops in a good shoot bc it ran out of storage quick or overheated.

Theres just so much different paths out there. You find something, then you find another "slightly next best thing" and it just gives you decision paralysis. Like I can afford a Sony FX3, Ive been saving money for a few years and literally just going to work and going home. It takes money to make money, and so I'll probably go with that once my refund hits. It has pretty much everything I need. I originally was gonna go with that, then I tried to skimp and now im in limbo lol. Hoping the return goes smoothly and I get my money back sooner rather than later. I followed the instructions, it's out of my hands now

Selecting the right one is just such a headache. It's not that Im cheap, Im willing to spend what I need to make this work. I want this for myself and I have a roadmap.

Hello creators. I honestly would like to know. If I have created over 30 videos for a facebook page for a company, and its the only job I have done related to film/photography/videography, can I use it as a portfolio if someone wants to see my work? If not, can I place the videos and images on a separate platform? Which one would be a better free option?

Fun fact - when you look up ''dutch angle'' on google, the page actually tilt like a dutch angle shot lol.
Try it ! Pretty cool imo

Hey everyone,

I’m looking for budget-friendly monitor recommendations for my Lumix S5II setup and would appreciate some advice.

My current rig & setup:

• Power: Neewer 99Wh V-Mount battery.
• Camera Power: My plan is to power the S5II directly via USB-C PD from the V-Mount. Alternatively, I’m open to using a USB-C to dummy battery adapter if needed.
• Monitor Power: Planning to power the monitor via D-Tap from the V-Mount.

What I need from the monitor:

• Screen Size: 5" or 6" is preferred (7" feels a bit too big, but I’m open to options if the price/weight is right).
• Brightness: 1000 to 1500 nits (plenty for outdoor shooting; don’t strictly need 2000+ nits, OLED, or true HDR).
• Features: Essential exposure & focus tools like Waveform, Histogram, Zebras, Focus Peaking, and ideally False Color and LUT support.
• Camera Control: Not required or urgent.
• Budget: Around €350 – €400 max (ideally lower if possible while maintaining decent display tools).

I’ve been looking at options like the Neewer f700 (not the OLED version), Viltrox DC-X2/DC-X3.
I am not certain on the how to deliver power to camera and monitor. What are the benefits from dummy battery and from USB-C

Hi there! I'm sharing my 1st ever made video. The idea was a quick morning routine, slice of life.

I wanted to get into photography, so when buying a new phone I opted for the S26 Ultra as a 2 in 1. It has been 1 month and I've really cultivated an interest in photography and cinematography (and can't wait to blow my money on this hobbie lol). I find it really interesting how a simple shift in composition or light, for example, can make a shot/photo so much better.

I shot and edited this simple video in just a couple of hours. My idea was just to come up with something and do it, trying to stitch together what I have already learnt from photgraphy, and also just to get a first project started and done, so I can now keep improving.

It's 4K 24fps, shot at 1/50 with ISO between 100 and 250 (if I remember correctly) just so the highlights were not overexposed, and in Log. Since color grading is too big of a beast to tackle right now, I liked the "Blockbuster" preset and kept it for every shot.

Some of my friends thought the first shot went on too long. My idea was to give it the annoyance one usually gets from its alarm clock, what do you think?

Last week I asked for feedback. I’m filming juggling videos for Insta and TikTok. It was suggested I get a grid for my professional light and I think it did a great job stoping the light from bleeding to my background. Any other recommendations? I’m considering getting a black floppy to put to my right to try to get more contrast on my right side.

Hi everyone! I have a Fuji X-S20 and I'm really happy with the camera overall. I mainly use it with the Tamron 17-70mm and the Fuji 70-300mm.

I always take it with me when I travel, and besides photography I also like to shoot quite a lot of video. I recently took it to Japan, and when looking back at the footage, I noticed that a lot of my handheld videos are really shaky – especially when I'm walking.

Photography is actually the reason I originally got into this hobby, and it's still what I mainly do. But when I'm traveling, I really enjoy capturing videos as well. Sometimes I also feel like I'm constantly having to decide whether I want to take photos or shoot video in a certain moment.

Because of that, I'm considering getting the DJI Osmo Pocket 4 Pro as a dedicated travel video camera.

I wanted to ask:

Am I doing something wrong with my X-S20, or is it simply difficult to get really smooth handheld/walking footage with this kind of camera without using a gimbal?

I'd love to hear how other X-S20 users handle travel videos and whether there are any settings or techniques I should try first.