[Dave Klee]

Hey Jonathan, what connectors are you using to hook everything up? All Firewire 800? Do you have the power switch turned on with the G-RAID when it’s first in the chain?

Pretty sure that your G-RAID would need to be turned on in order to pass the firewire connection through to the Mini. Just want to make sure that’s the way you tried it.

[Dave Klee]

Now why didn’t I think of that? They DO playback in VLC! Thank you!

I could probably convert everything with FFMPEG to DV, couldn’t I? Any other suggestions for batch conversions — the normal (QuickTime dependent) packages like Episode and Compressor don’t recognize the files.

Thanks again for the help!

[Dave Klee]

Hey Stephen, looking nice! What were the setting changes (if any) that made it work for you?

That timer looks great, by the way — looks like it has the right plug for the Rebel. I’ll be interested to hear how you like it!

[Dave Klee]

Hey Mike, depends on what your needs are, but last year we moved our SANs to new XRAID units made by Active Storage and have been very happy with them.

[Dave Klee]

Hey Stephen, it’s getting there — cool that you could post some progress. It’s hard to say for sure what’s going on without seeing the original images, but manual white balance is definitely important. Worth trying again.

It can also be useful to pull time lapse images into Adobe Bridge (or that Canon file browser that isn’t bad) and scroll though them looking at the EXIF metadata. Sometimes you can see subtle shifts in exposure, ISO or white balance from frame-to-frame that explain problems like these. So, if you look at your white balance frame-by-frame and see different numbers, you know that might be causing problems.

I’d be interested to see how things look with manual white balance — I haven’t shot with the T2i, so I’m actually very interested in the results.

I’ve heard there’s an Auto Lighting Optimizer feature in the menu, too, and I would imagine you would want this set to “off” if it’s not already. Saw it in a review here: https://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/eos_rebel_t2i-review/using#alo_test Also, any kind of auto exposure compensation that can be turned off should be turned off. I’m not familiar enough with the T2i menus to know what all the options are, so maybe all you need to worry about is that Auto Lighting Optimizer.

Hope that helps, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing more!

[Dave Klee]

Hey Stephen, thanks for the tip on that specific timer — might have to try one of those myself!

As for sunsets, they can be tricky. Most of the time I’ll go full manual like you did, but then you have to choose the right exposure, ISO and white balance.

I generally shoot at ISO 100 unless I have a good reason not to for a sunset — I feel like you get the best colors that way.

For white balance, I’ll generally pick the “cloudy” or “shade” setting.

For shutter speed and aperture, you’ve got to do a balancing act. If you expose for full sunlight, it gets really dark really quick and you miss all the great colors that happen right around sunset. If you expose for near darkness, then your sunset is completely over-exposed and all the good colors are blown out.

I like to target those ten minutes or so right after the sun goes over the horizon for the best coloring in the clouds. In general, that means I’ll over-expose at the beginning of the sunset when there’s full sunlight by 2 or 2.5 stops — that’s maybe 45-minutes to an hour before the sun actually goes down. I tend to just use the exposure meter in the camera as a rough estimate of what 2 or 2.5 stops over-exposed is. Then, when it gets down to those great colors, the exposure is usually pretty close for me.

Of course, part of the fun is messing around and seeing what works best for you! Hope you enjoy it and post some of your results.

Dave

[Dave Klee]

Hey Stephen, I know it’s been a little while but I just saw this thread and wanted to chime in.

You’re smart to avoid a laptop for time lapse control. It certainly works, but doesn’t give you nearly the portability and flexibility you want. I think a wired timer remote is the way to go.

Canon makes two basic wired remotes — the Canon Remote Switch (RS-60 series) works with the T2i and the lower-end canon bodies. However, it’s just a really simple, manual, “push the button” kind of remote. Not ideal for time lapse because there’s no timer. But, it’s cheap — $30 or less.

Canon’s higher end Timer Remote (TC-80 series) is a great time lapse controller. However, it has two big drawbacks: it’s a little pricey ($150), and only works with the higher end bodies (20D and up).

The problem is the physical remote connection — the Rebels have a stereo micro-mini (2.5mm), while the higher-end Canons use an N-3 connector for their remotes. The e-bay link earlier in this thread appeared to point to a remote with an N-3 connector, so I don’t think that will work for you.

Now, for years I’ve seen what appears to be an off-brand timer remote with the correct micro-mini connection to work on a Rebel. An example (of one I haven’t bought) is here: https://www.amazon.com/Satechi-Remote-Control-Digital-Cameras/dp/B001CCH2MO

If you can verify your camera has that remote jack that looks like it accepts are really small headphone connector, then a timer remote like this should work for you as long as it says it supports interval shooting.

There’s also a company out there that makes digital camera interval timers with cables that interface with a variety of cameras. Again, I haven’t bought one, but they have a good reputation. Their low-end model is around $150: https://www.harbortronics.com/

If you’re handy, there are a lot of DIY options out there for a timer remote. Since the micro-mini remote plug for the Rebels is relatively standard, a few people have made instructions for how to cut up some wires and make something that will work. Really, you can use almost anything because the Rebel is simply setup to take a “contact closure” to trigger the camera — which is the equivalent of two wires coming together to complete a circuit loop. When the wires touch, the camera takes a picture. I use a lot of industrial and security timers for long-term stuff because they’re inexpensive and reliable. But, I can’t make anything as compact and easy to use as the Canon timer remote — and maybe one of those off-brand timer remotes with the right plug will be just as good.

As for exposure settings, like you already found, full manual mode is generally — but not always — the way to go. If you’re doing something really long term, you may want some version of automatic exposure. But, if you’re doing a shorter time lapse (3 hours or less), I’d generally recommend full manual mode to avoid that exposure “pop” that you see in a lot of time lapses where the frames seem to flash slightly brighter or darker from time to time. Honestly, that is unavoidable to some extent — most cameras these days have some degree of “exposure compensation” built in where the camera tries to correct a picture for you if something is out of range (and sometimes it’s very difficult to completely turn off). However, the I believe that Canon is one of the better brands at minimizing this effect, so you made a good choice with a T2i.

It’s also worth thinking about your power consumption if you’re looking at doing a lot of time lapse. I’ve found that a battery grip (so you can run the camera off two batteries) is a great investment. Older Canon batteries gave me about 4 hours max, but I know they’ve improved in the last few years. It’s not necessary, but if you find your camera running out of juice too quickly you might be happy with the extended capabilities.

But, one word of caution is that I’ve heard (but have been unable to verify) that the Rebels are built to work for 25-30,000 closures. I have certainly worn out a lot of Rebel shutter-boxes over the years. Not saying it’s not worth it, just know that you will be shortening the life of your camera if you use it for a lot of time lapse.

Hope some of that helps, and have fun!

Dave

[Dave Klee]

Hey Josh, well that makes things a little more interesting, but you should still be okay.

Let’s say you format those three disks inside your Mac Pro as a RAID-5 set. That’ll give you roughly 1.8TB.

If you format that whole Promise RAID as RAID-5, you’ll get 2.7TB or so. Those are both rough guesses.

Essentially, I’m taking the raw capacity of your drives in each RAID set (3 X 1TB = 3TB internal, 4 X 1TB = 4TB in the Promise), subtracting one drive because RAID-5 essentially removes a whole drive for backup, and then subtracting 10% for overhead (because no hard drive gives you the full capacity it SAYS it does). So, your internal RAID will be (2 X 1TB) – 10% = 1.8TB, and your Promise RAID will be (3 X 1TB) – 10% = 2.7TB. That overhead number can be higher or lower depending on a few things, but it’s closeish.

One thing to keep in mind is that no RAID (or hard drive, for that matter) likes to get totally full. You want to keep things below 80-85% if you can. Nothing will blow up, but performance goes down.

So, if you’ve got 225 hours of Mini DV, you’re getting close to filling your Promise as a RAID-5. There’s an alright storage calculator here that shows you at 2.41TB for that much footage: https://www.digitalrebellion.com/footage_calc.htm?format=dv_ntsc_f&frame_rate=f29.97&length=225&length_type=hours

Best thing I could tell you is to pair down your footage on capture. When dealing with big projects, it can be very tempting to digitize everything and sort it out in your editing software (because it’s so much quicker and easier to scrub through QuickTime files than raw tapes). But, I would imagine that in 225 hours of footage, you’ve got at least some stuff you won’t use. If that’s true, try to leave all the outtakes and stuff that’s clearly not helpful on the tape — that will cut down the space you need to capture, and might make that Promise RAID more than enough.

But, if you really do need to capture every moment of that footage, your Promise could probably handle most of it. The last 50 hours or so you could capture to your internal RAID, and then use the internal RAID for rendering during your edit. I don’t like to split a single project across multiple devices like that, but if you really need the space, it should be fine.

Your other option would be to completely maximize your space and go to RAID-0 on everything — which gives you more space but if any drive within your RAID set fails, all your footage is lost. I don’t like it. I think you’re better off with RAID-5 and trying to split your footage across that Promise and your internal RAID if you truly need to digitize everything.

So, this is a really long way of saying I’d still recommend the same general setup — just be more careful about what you digitize. I hope that’s helpful, and good luck with it all! Have a great weekend!

[Dave Klee]

Hey Josh, lots of ways to go with this, but you probably want to do a lot of RAID-5. RAID-5 gives you a mix of protection and speed — one drive can fail out of your RAID set with no data loss, but data is split up across all the drives in the RAID to make access quicker.

Personally, I always setup editing computers with a single system drive that is NOT in a RAID. So, with your Mac Pro with four drives inside and a RAID card, I’d recommend the following:

Drive 1 = System drive where your operating system is installed along with all your software
Drives 2-4 = RAID5 set that you would use for media files, capture scratch and rendering

If you have big problems with your computer some day, or want to do a major upgrade in the future and reformat, it’s nice to have the flexibility to keep your system drive with all your applications completely separate from your documents and media.

Are those G-Tech disks single drive enclosures? If so, I’d use one to backup your system drive if you have a problem (once you get your computer working the way you want it). Carbon Copy Cloner is a great little (free) drive backup utility you might already know about: https://www.bombich.com/

As for that four-disk external Promise RAID, I haven’t used one of them before. It should be plenty fast enough to edit with, and for Mini DV, you don’t even have to mess with eSATA if you don’t want to. Firewire can do Mini DV just fine. However, if you’re capturing from Mini DV over firewire, it’s generally best to capture to a non-firewire drive (the built-in firewire ports don’t like to handle a video device AND anything else at the same time). So, you could capture via eSATA to the Promise or to your internal RAID from a firewire source.

For your Mini DV tape backup, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If you do a good job of logging and capturing (giving all your tapes clear numbers so you could re-capture from them if necessary), then keep those tapes in a safe place, they’ll last for quite a while. If you figure that your tapes will last at least 8-12 years (depends on a lot of conditions), and a hard drive can easily die before that, your ultimate backup for everything right now is tape.

Sounds like you’ll have plenty of space for this project. 125 hours of Mini DV should be around 1.5TB. I’d lean toward putting everything for this project on your Promise RAID because it’ll have a little more space and be slightly portable than your internal RAID (you could plug it into another computer if you needed to). But, the ultimate choice is up to you about where things go.

My only real advice is to do a great job of logging your footage and stay as organized as you can. With a project this big, you’ll thank yourself later.

Good luck!

[Dave Klee]

Hey Victor, I just wanted to second the motion for Active Storage. I was in almost your same position a little over a year ago — nervous about a SAN made up of four Apple Xserve RAIDs (and some Promise gear that we bought when the Xserve RAID was initially discontinued in 2008).

We bought two Active Xraid dual-controller boxes, and our SAN actually got much faster. And, I do not miss having to deal with the Promise gear — which I have since given away to another department. Both Active’s products and support are excellent.

As for the math, I’ve always been told to budget 80 MB/s per controller in an Xsan for those old Apple Xserve RAIDs. So, if you have four (eight controllers), 80 X 8 = 640MB/s. While you could theoretically get this kind of bandwidth out of a single Active box, we went for two and have been very happy with the big speed jump. If you can swing the budget, I’d suggest two.

Good luck with your upgrade!

Dave