Post your camera set up

photo, video, graphics, music, web design, everything.

and if you say that a powermac is overkill for photo editing, then you've never used aperture on a daily basis. by far one of the most resource intensive raw editors on the market.
 
the 20" cinemas are a whole helluva lot cheaper now. i think if you can ever catch them on refurb they're only $499 - i bought them when they were 699 a pop. at that price, i could've saved up a couple more bills and gotten a 30", which is actually a better deal than 2 20's as the actual screen AREA is larger on one 30 than it is on 2 20's. i might be working at the apple store again this season so hopefully apple will drop new cinema displays so i can cop a refurb 30 for under 1300.

one thing i guess i've learned is to never short change yourself when it comes to screen real estate. if you can afford the largest available, get it. because in working with images anywhere from 8-16MP in size, i've definitely come to appreciate screens that can comfortably handle such sizes. same with FCP - i like having my viewers at 100%, and with HD footage, that just isn't possible with the 20's as they're BARELY under HD resolution (1050 high), as well as having ample room for all my bins, toolbars, timeline stuff. and while the 20's i'm currently rolling on are adequate for my work, i'm kicking myself now for not picking up either of the larger offerings (either the 23 or the 30) when i had the chance.

as for RAM - shop around. kingston sometimes has sales where you can see the price of a 2gig set go down as far as $110. crucial also usually has really competitive prices. if i had my way, i'd max this thing out to 16gb and be done with it - at any one time, i'm running illustrator, photoshop, dreamweaver, aperture, itunes at full tilt, 2 versions of safari (safari and webkit), firefox, the entire MS office suite, quicktime, transmit, and whatever else. 4gigs is barely scraping by at times.
 
im looking for a better lens - something that catches more action - possibly a fisheye or soemthing different

this is my camera

sony_dcr-hc36.jpg
 
Just because he has a sick mac doesn't mean he only edits photos on it.Alot of people like real fast computers and everything.
 
I asked that because I didnt see any video gear in his post...just still photo equipment.

And yea, Im not raggin on the computer. Im just saying not many people short of Poor Boys need a computer that maxed out. With HD becoming more affordable, you will see more computer built that fast. But for 19 out of 20 people, that computer is overkill.

And why have so much stuff open when you are editing. Its great to multi task, but I cant imagine really using all that shit at the same time. At the most, I've got Aim, Firefox, Word, Fireworks, and Premiere Pro open. (And if Im in Premiere, im not really using Fireworks...its just there. And vice versa)
 
high RAM increases speed and efficiency, and 2 monitors allows better viewing and somewhat more effecient editing (one monitor on full-screen preivew while the other is just editing controls

I dont think that is overkill at all, that comp fucking kills and I think if you're funning FCS or AE on any comp, its a good idea to get the fastest one you can (especially with Motion, that thing is a bitch to render in)
 
No, I know all the benefits of the various parts of a computer. Im just saying, there is no need to have that much shit open. If he didnt have all those programs running, he would edit render twice as fast.

And Im not saying the computer is overkill anymore, I just wanted to know what else he used it for, because for just stills...It is a tad overkill even at 16mp RAW.
 
oops, didnt mean to sound like I was talking down on you, I was just stating that for reference for when other people read my post.

and yeah it is overkill for photos, but for some reason when I first saw that photo, i just knew he was into video.
 
i'm just going to have to disagree with the multiple assessments that such a rig is overkill for photos. once you've worked with a library of over 12000 RAW photos (about half being 8MP and the other half being 16MP) with a workflow consisting of aperture, photoshop, imageready and illustrator on a daily basis (usually in that order), then we can talk. don't get the false notion that photo work isn't resource intensive - OC runs on a powermac much like mine and a 15" powerbook, and the last time i checked, he did primarily photo work.

but keep in mind, this system isn't necessarily dedicated to any one media (photo, film, etc.) - i use it for everything. clothing design (try working with 300dpi 20inx28in vector artwork on a G4, see how long it takes you), photo, video, graphic design, print design, web design, as well as plain old poking around the intarweb and school work. at some point, though, in order to do professional work, you need professional equipment. i originally ran on a G4 mac mini and a G4 powerbook. awesome machines, and it made for a great compact setup, but after about a year as more work and projects began piling on, i desperately needed to upgrade - when it takes 15 minutes to transform a path in illustrator, things need to change.

i keep a lot of programs open at once because i literally might need them at the drop of a hat and i don't want to wait for them to load - the 25MB of idle memory that illustrator takes up is preferable to the amount of time it would take to load from a dead stop.

as this is ns, i know most of you kids won't bother to read this.
 
one more thought - perhaps keeping more programs open is a mac thing. once you close the window, the program is still running and just kind of falls into the background until you need it again. i just mention it because when i worked at apple, you would see a lot of people switching over from windows and they weren't used to that concept - they're used to "once you X out the window, the program closes" (also you'll see people minimizing windows like crazy until their dock is huge - they're not used to the idea of expose and just pressing some keys in order to move from program to program...or just use apple+tab). so perhaps in coming from a windows mindset, it seems odd that i would have so may programs open when it's really common practice for mac owners.
 
yeah Im not doubting whether or not you need it, as I am sure you do, its just that for nothing but photos, it doesnt seem necessary (unless you edit photos vigorously like you explained)

fucking ill setup though
 
alll you guys seem to know everything there is to know about cameras and whatnot.

i have been editing on final cut on a macbook pro and am loving the computer and software.

I have been filming a lot of skiing and skateboarding and over the last year have gotten more and more into it.

but i am filming on about a 2 year old canon zr300 and i really want to get an upgrade on my camera to somthing more professional. I have been doing some research on many different cameras. my price range is around 2000 -2500 ish dollars (summer job will hopefully get me up there). I have been recently looking into the dvx100 but it is a prety expensive camera. It would be great to hear your thoughts on some different cameras that are not extremely expensive but still nice cameras.
 
Look into the dvc30, gl2, and sony vx series. if you went with one of these, you would have a lot of money left over for lenses, a tripod, and whatever else you many need
 
ive been looking into the sony vx1000 but have heard that they don't do well in the cold which could be bad cause im useing it priimarily for skiing
 
Amazon has DVX's in your price range I think. and after that I would say go with the dvc30 or GL2. a used GL1 is also not a bad choice making it less time untill you can upgrade which you will want to do sooner then you think. Right now I have had a GL2 for under a year and already want to upgrade.
 
Its necessary if you shoot a lot of RAW photos.

SkitheEast - Yes the Vx1k does get fucked up in the cold weather,the reason is because they are really old and arn't built good enough to support the cold weather.I would recommend getting one if you want to shoot in the winter.Look at panasonic PV or even a GL2,but I would by a PV over a GL2.
 
Oh ya and this week my D50 will be in along with my 50mm f 1.8 lens,so once I get that in ill take some pictures of my full setup.
 
Most camera mfr's list a "min operating temp" in the specs...Most will run under that, but you dont want to push them. The batteries suffer most, but some internal parts can be damaged, especially when they are brought back into a warm room, and condensation forms inside the camera.

I haven't used mine extensivly for filming skiing, and try to only take it out on nice spring days. But in the event of a cold day, a pocket hand warmer taped to the battery, and slowly rewarming the camera has worked well.

Just be aware, a camera is a precision piece of equipment and needs to be treated well. keep it in good shape, and it will last a while.
 
Batterys will die quick in the cold no matter what.Putting a hand warmer on it doesn't do to much.I have a 9 hour battery and it has worked fine for me on cold days.Only thing you gotta what out for is condensation.
 
I've used Canon cams at -20f with no issue. Bats drain faster indeed, but be prepared w/extras.

If you need to rapidly change your cam from cold to warm, bring a zip lock or any air-tight bag your cam will fit in. Condensation occurs on cams much like a cold glass of water on a hot day. If you seal your gear the condensation will occur outside of the bag and not your cam.

If your shooting a comp and you know awards will take place indoors immediately following, your best bet is to have another cam at room temp waiting. It's not economical, but it will serve you right.
 
Most people can't imagine that there is workflow behind every shoot. I do photo exclusively and 2G of RAM doesn't cut it for my lappy. Here is a little tech breakdown for y'all. In general, you want to use no more than a third of your available RAM on your D'top. That means if you have 2G of RAM you should only open about 600MB at a time, effectively. The more RAM you have the easier it is for your CPU to think.

In short, 4G RAM is not overkill, its the min.
 
idc what you say man, you dont need that much, i know people who do all the shit you do on a Powerbook G4 and a terabyte external, it is slightlly overkill in my opinion. I'm sure you put it to use, but 2 20 inch cine monitors come on dude....especially Mac ones, i do all my video on a 15 inch and photo's on a 15 inch anymore and it works. I think you could've saved a little bit of money and invested it in your camera rather....just me though
 
You guys are so funny. I'm going to chalk it up to inadequacies of one's own gear. It can't be that you really think using two monitors doesn't help or that having a quad core and 4Gs of RAM makes your CPU run slower. Of course you could edit on a single 12" monitor with a system that's running 1Ghz 256MB of RAM. You could also trade in your Porsche for a Taurus.

 
i knew you had a lot of good quality cameras from your edits and stuff but i seriously forgot to breath when i saw those pics
 
Case in point - I had a modeling shoot that I needed to do about 3 weeks ago, the deadline being the 21st of May; I wanted ample time to go through everything and have time enough to do a reshoot if at all necessary. The model kept flaking out on me until 2 days before the deadline date. We only did one of three scheduled shoots because that's all I had time for. Now I'm left with one day before deadline, and 600 images to sift through and 1) tag everything with metadata, 2) make my selects, 3) adjust the selects, and 4) any and all touchup work. Even on my machine, I'm feeling slowdowns left and right - Aperture takes a while to execute commands (lift and stamp, and there's lag in real-time adjustments such as saturation, brightness/contrast, shadows/highlights, sharpening, pretty much anything with a slider). I'll chalk that up to Aperture being a resource-hungry program, but nevertheless my system is still barely keeping up with it. On top of that, after my basic RAW adjustments, I export all my selects to 16-bit TIFFs (which actually takes less time to export than JPEG since it doesn't have to go through any compression processes), then open them (about 77 shots) in Photoshop and do all of my touchup work and save.

Shooting time was about 5 straight hours. Choosing my selects took about 2 hours. Adjustment and tagging time was about 4 hours. Touchup time, about 1.5-2 hours. I'd say with the lag that Aperture was seeing, I lost an average of 1.5 minutes a photo, maybe 2 minutes on the high side - that translates to about an additional 2 HOURS for 77 photos. If I was doing this on my 12" G4, I would've been dead - definitely less room to maneuver, touchup and adjustment work would have taken a LOT longer since I would be moving around the photo a bunch, and just pure processing power doesn't come close to what I'm working with now (which still has its hiccups, mind you).

So you're right - people don't really realize how much goes on behind a shoot. It takes more than 5 minutes in a studio and 2 minutes of basic adjustments to get the killer shots that you want and that other people will appreciate (especially if you're a bludgeoning perfectionist like I am). I can only feel awe (and maybe some pity, too) for guys like OC who go through an entire season's shots in the summer.
 
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