[Brian Klassen]

hmmmm. thanks JPo

You’re right. I suspected as much. I guess the DSLR I have is kind of worthless. While I’m getting better at proper exposure, no one is so good as not needing to color correct. It looks like I gotta spend more money. (Or do something else with my life.)

[Brian Klassen]

Thanks for the response

I guess I’m wondering whether I would actually make matters worse (lost time and energy, inferior/unusable output) by correcting with a consumer grade monitor in a non-neutral room that has lots of natural light.

I’m shooting a short this summer and would love to enter it in some film festivals. Am I doing the film a disservice and reducing the chances of getting it into festivals by correcting it myself in a non-industry environment?

[Brian Klassen]

Thanks for the reply, Dave.

I don’t know. I am shooting with a Canon 7d, Zeiss 35mm. The individual frames are fine. The composition clip looks fine in AE when previewing. Runs well, smoothly, no pinwheel breakup. When it starts to render you can see the problem. Also in the final rendered clip. I thought maybe it was an artifact of the rendering process. Simply the way it “looked” as it rendered. But it’s in the final re-formatted/compressed clip also. And the breakup only seems to occur within the pinwheel. The rest of the frame looks fine.

An acquaintance recently told me not to download from camera into Bridge, as it changes color data. So I don’t. Though, once again, the individual frames seem fine, prior and after editing.

I tried to use a piece of software called LRTimelapse to smooth out the flicker and exposure, but it kept freezing up. I don’t know if I dragged something along from there into AE. But, once again, the composition clip looked fine in preview.

Sorry this is so roundabout. I like a good puzzle, and this is baffling me. I’m assuming there’s some setting or combinations of settings that I have wrong that is throwing things off.

[Brian Klassen]

I recently purchased a Sandisk Extreme Pro (90 mb/s). Probably overkill for me, but I got a great price on it. And I want to be able to shoot (RAW)time lapse at a 2 or 3 second frame rate, so wanted to make sure I wouldn’t have buffer issues (have the card not be able to process the data as fast as the camera was inputing it). No problems yet. It may still be overkill. I also have a Sandisk Extreme (60 mb/s). That may have been enough. But those two (both 16gb) and an inexpensive Transcend 16gb I feel like I have enough speed, memory and options to do what I want to do.

I’m not quite technically inclined enough to crunch the numbers to know exactly what I can and can’t do with the above Sandisk cards. Perhaps someone else more mathematically driven can post some guidelines in that regards. Information I myself would like and benefit from.

I always find that being thoughtful and specific about exactly what I want to accomplish leads me to an informed decision, and keeps me from buying accessories (all of them cool, and probably very useful) I don’t need.

[Brian Klassen]

Are you shooting in Manual? I don’t believe it should occur if you are.

[Brian Klassen]

By “pay to own” I meant that once I had paid in the sticker price of $1699 I then would no longer have to continue to make monthly subscription payments. Adobe Customer service says it’s essentially an installment plan and ends when the sticker price is met. Sounds good to me, though I will double check on that. There doesn’t seem to be an outside credit card company involved, and the total of each monthly payment goes toward the 1699. (Once again, I’ll double check all this. The skeptic in me wonders what’s in it for Adobe beyond capturing financial fringe elements like me, and also capturing market share. I guess that’s enough.) And if one commits to a one-year plan it’s $85/month (penalties if you unsubscribe); 129, month-to-month (no penalties, obviously). Seems like a good deal given the breadth of the software.

[Brian Klassen]

Thanks for all the input everyone. I do believe that the CS5 Production suite is what I want. I need to talk to Adobe about their subscription plan. I can’t tell if it’s “pay to own” or money down the drain. Unfortunately, I think it’s the latter.

[Brian Klassen]

Thanks, Joseph. I appreciate it. I’ll definitely look into it.

[Brian Klassen]

Thanks, Jason. I Didn’t know about the subscription plans. I’ll look into it.

[Brian Klassen]

I’ve been impressed with the Zoom H4n (new to me). Three or four weeks ago I took 30 minutes of audio-only with the on-board mics near Lake Champlain in Northern Vermont as the ice broke up. You could hear every crack, snap, crash, and groan. Played back later I was impressed. I’ve also used it plugged directly into my Canon 7D, also good results. If you go with it, I’d highly suggest the remote and a split cable (male/male camera to H4n and female for plugging in headphones). Also the hot shoe adapter.