[Craig Alan]

The small unit in that family is 3 feet and under $1000. Looks pretty cool. Reminds me of artifacts from the industrial age.

The Small Glides weigh between 5 and 15 pounds depending on length, and are mountable on tripods, baby feet, c-stands, and other grip alternatives.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Things that can slow a Mac down: its more than 80% full. directory corruption. a ram chip died.

repair permissions.

Run disc warrior. that could do the trick.

run hardware test for ram health.

suggest that you could back up everything even clone it and then reinstall all.

all the stuff from the app store loads pretty painlessly.

migration assistant works for most people to get documents and the like back in place.

don’t know how old the Mac is but if the system drive is over three years old it could die and all the work with it unless you’ve backed it up.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

after opening and closing both apps some more … they showed up on their own. weird. In “ilife” window of FC the all photos button does not show anything but the individual folders within the aperture folders within FC do.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Do a google search for c100 vs 5D. Canon clearly meant the c100 as a video shooters step up from the 5D and reviews agree with Al. It is more expensive but can use the same lenses.

Hard to keep up the way things keep changing. I love the 5D for stills. Which of course is off topic.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

I’m not seeing iPhoto and Aperture. What are the steps? Both programs have been opened and closed.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

I was, in OP, just kidding cause

“Projects in Aperture are called Events in iPhoto. Likewise, Events in iPhoto are called Projects in Aperture”

is pretty Alice in Wonderland for two Apps that have been married at the hip.

Bottom line: these are just folders and sub-folders that can be named whatever you like. What’s in the library? Media. It’s a media folder, just like we have media drives.

Libraries have been the database name for a collection of stored data in the finder for a long time. Many Apps can only open one library at a time. FC and Aperture can open many. So the libraries become Master folders or collections of data that you wish to open when you work on a given “project.” To me that makes them FC Project folders even if they contain more than one related project.

The purpose of the library was so end users who didn’t know what they were doing wouldn’t start moving files out of them. Leave that for the app.

BTW many apps are databases. In spreadsheets, I don’t see anyone renaming columns rows and cells. And each use of the spreadsheet app produces a document. A spreadsheet document. Or perhaps an Excel document or a Numbers document. That’s the spreadsheet version of a timeline.

And these are stored in folders on my hard drive as I wish depending on my needs. I have master folders and sub-folders.

I like having each library be one project or perhaps several related projects (three performances by the same band). That becomes crystal to me when I name it. I don’t mind knowing that the actual container is a database ‘library’ under the hood. But a timeline is a timeline and its a beautiful name for it. It’s linear in a nonlinear world.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

The 70 D is better for video than the 7D but given the type of stuff you want to do I would get a camcorder. FCP X works fine with most camcorders and DSLRs. And for an extra $50 you can get compressor. But mostly you won’t need it. I have FCP X ingesting P2 clips, Canon 5D clips, Canon HV40 clips all without a problem. Sony, Panasonic, Canon all make good camcorders at different price points. For the most part you get what you pay for.

Go here: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Pro-Camcorders-Cameras/ci/16763/N/4256818817

and enter the variables that matter to you. You’ll get a good idea of what you get for how much. Don’t forget the tripod, the camera bag, the media cards, the card reader, etc.

You’ll need to learn the techie stuff enough to get the results you want. Google searches help a lot. And don’t be shy about calling tech support. And the cow. The more specific your question the easier it is for people to give you a solution.

[heidi schrodinger] “I picked up a H4n recorder super cheap”

You can’t zoom a mike. You need to get your mike close to the source. You can use the built in mike or better get an external mike and plug it in to your recorder. Use the built in mike on your camcorder as a reference so you can line up the audio in FC. I know that sounds hard but do a search. You’ll get a ton of hits. Find one that makes sense and practice.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

You might want to take a look at the canon 70D if you already have all those lenses. It really is like the 7D only designed with video in mind. It’s still not a camcorder. But Canon developed a camcorder style focusing system for it. And a pull out LCD which works well on a tripod. As far as matching the look of shots between cameras, I think an awful lot can be done with color matching in post; and if you are using them at different focal lengths I can’t imagine the viewing public would care. If you are doing multi-cam within the same scene, then you might as well have matching cameras. Looks to me like you are very good with the 5D. You could get another one and a sound devices mixer/recorder for audio. The mkiii does, however, have decent audio compared to most. I wish I had your collection of L series lenses. Just got a 5D and have begun using it for stills. Love it.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Simon,

I looked into Pixelmator by reading reviews and checking out their site. As well as other apps. I went with Aperture. Aperture not only gets good reviews specifically about processing raw files but for its organizational ability. And it interfaces with iPhoto and can share their libraries. Its a pro app and was only $80.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thank you, Bill. Interesting post and very relevant to the workflow that I’m trying to develop. Now question: certainly on a small screen there would be very little difference. But what if the exported project was destined for projection on a large screen? I know it will be exported as a 1080p movie, but would the image quality and size within FC make any different to the final product?

I took a look at the various programs that can actually process the raw files and have decided on Aperture. It’s reasonably priced. Lots of tutorials on how to use it. And I’m not buying in to the CC subscription plan.

Also I’m not finding any real problems with using raw files in FC but obviously I’m not reaping any great improvement using them either if the program is not able to process them. When I load the jpegs into my projects there is a slight difference in detail and exposure levels but it would be very similar to your post in terms of a side by side. And once they are exported to a source they are compressed and really I can’t tell the difference.

That said, if i were to process the raw shots in Aperture what do you feel is the sweet spot for exporting to FC? What about a photo slide show on a large screen? Or an 11 x14 print?

Still don’t get what the [Bill Davis] “pixel raster density 300dpi”would have to do with screen resolution. I use these dpi settings when printing but have not heard them discussed in terms of video editing. For an accurate side by side, shouldn’t they be set to the same settings? I guess I’ll learn more about the export choices when I start playing with Aperture.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.