[David Turner]

[Ryan Holmes] “you run the risk of instability”

That’s always been my thoughts exactly. But if there was an amazing feature I’d try it out. I heard you can run ML off the SD card slot and not overwrite any of your firmware on the camera.

[David Turner]

Hey Rick! Thanks for the suggestion. I was leaning towards the extenders myself until I just had a long convo with another DP who was arguing the benefit of having some nice diopters around. But it seems like the extenders would look best (no glass involved). I’d definitely make sure I get a set that allows me to communicate with my lenses.

Do you have an opinion on using diopters?

[David Turner]

I just want to say I’m happy to come across this thread and hear more on people’s thoughts.

I did check the M10 out at NAB and really liked it a lot. And it was still “beta.” I think I am rounding up a couple other freelancers I work with a lot and splitting the cost of this thing. I wouldn’t call anyone stupid for being interested in this.

I can’t speak for the existing stedicam ops and market, but for those of us who want this stability and movement (and have mostly been depending on sliders, dollys, etc for any dynamic movement) for the price I think this is hands down amazing.

I am also quite excited about using this for documentary applications to give much, much more cinematic quality to situations where we are literally running around in unpredictable circumstances.

Someone may have answered this already, but yes it it all gyros.

[David Turner]

I’d be interested in hearing what people have as suggestions for this as well. I work freelance, but will be advising a documentary company I do a lot of work with on what cameras to upgrade to shortly. They are still shooting on Panasonic HVX’s if you can believe it.

Ease of use in doc situations is a definite consideration for what I’m looking for. I was thinking of recommending getting a couple Canon C100’s (but I’ll admit this is in part because I own a 5D markiii and Canon glass that would be compatible for 3 camera shoots). I’d love to hear what other’s think.

[Ben Muehleisen] “We are also adding a high quality 4K camera (Red Epic or ARRI Alexa) “

Just my 2 cents between those two cameras is go with the Alexa if you can afford it. I have always liked the image better and a DP I work with just ran a comparison test this week and his feelings were that for anything other than situations where you are marrying the footage with a bunch of special effects, the Alexa came up with a better image hands down.

[David Turner]

Thanks for the responses guys!

[Ryan Holmes] “If you do green screen work with the 5DIII, then it might be more helpful for pulling keys.”

I don’t do much green screen work. I do a ton of Doc work with these cameras and it would be nice if it gave me anything more to play with in post. So I guess if anyone stumbles upon this thread and feels like they love something about getting 4:2:2 definitely join in. Thanks for the input Ryan.

[Ryan Holmes] “I would highly doubt Canon will ever equip the 5DIII to do this. Magic Lantern may figure it out, “

I should have figured that. Is there anything that you are using Magic Lantern for in a pro capacity right now? I’d love 1080 60p but it is prob a pipe dream

[David Turner]

Hey Joseph!

Thanks for your response!

I will definitely be checking out Mocha Pro and be doing the Free Trial.

Are there any tutorials you would recommend I watch to get the hang of the program?

[Joseph Owens] “Image stabilization within an oversampled frame and mapped to a lower resolution is a pretty common strategy and mostly what 4.5K is good for, since the common extraction is 4096, anyway.”

I figured this was the case, with all this large footage flying around these days! Are there any specific tutorials I can check out to do this with my footage with MochaPro? Or even with Shake?

[David Turner]

Hey!

Although it looks like you went with a lower budget option. I figured I’d weigh in quick for others who may stumble upon this thread later on:

I have the MBP Retina & the Apple Cinema Display (thunderbolt version)
– I went with this for the main reason of not losing a Thunderbolt port. Thunderbolt can handle tethering, but there are currently no Thunderbolt hubs for sale. So if you want to keep 2 Thunderbolt ports open, the Cinema Display is the only one that has a TB port on the back.

I would love to have an NEC 27in monitor. I’d highly recommend these and have always liked them when I used them. Look them up. They are also a bit pricy like the Cinema Display, but definitely worth it. It just doesn’t have a Thunderbolt loop through (although you may be able to go to this via the Retina HDMI port).

Cheaper options, I don’t have suggestions, because basically I think most cheaper monitors just totally suck. But if it’s a necessity go with an HDMI monitor. This can come right out of the Retina’s HDMI port.

– DT

[David Turner]

Hey George,

You are in a position that a lot of people are in, I think.

Question One: Are you looking to upgrade your hardware?
– Apple is now on Mountain Lion (and I think their new plan is to put out small but moderate upgrades to the OS every year now… probably under a new name). You will be getting kind of outdated pretty quick if you are using anything pre-Lion for sure (with new programs & efficiency mostly), but will lose a lot of your old programs like you mentioned.
– If you are looking to upgrade your computer, I’d put in my vote of confidence for the beefed up (highest options you can get) Retina Macbook Pro. It is definitely a pricy option, but makes your system mobile (and IMO still insanely powerful). Or you can always go with a new tower or one of the more powerful iMacs, which are cheaper, and the towers can be upgraded down the road to keep up with the times, while the Retina can not.

Two:
– If you go with just upgrading the OS and going for FCP7, it is still a decent route to take. I know very many editors still working on FCP7 until some major project pushes them to jump ship to a new editing program (for many it’s Avid or Adobe Premier). So although FCP7 is old and a bit slow, it still does the job… for now (and depending on what camera/footage you are shooting).

Three:
– Something to consider if your computer can handle it (or if you upgrade), is to try the Adobe Creative Cloud. This may be best for you, because it is a monthly subscription based service that gives you all of Adobe’s programs. I don’t believe there is a joining fee. This could be good if you are not sure how long you will be back in video and if you may take 6 months or a year off to work in music or other non-video fields, you just stop paying for those months and start again when you want it. This way you aren’t sinking money into programs that are just sitting there getting outdated on your machine while not in use. Also the Cloud service also gives you access to the most current version of all programs, so you are never outdated (meaning if you took a year off, you’d have the new CS programs when you came back, not the old ones.

[David Turner]

Hey! Just figured I’d revive my question. Does anyone know if there is an answer here? Is there a way to counteract the scaled 5d Mark iii external signal?

[David Turner]

Thanks for the info Andy! This will be my workflow shortly too.