UPDATE: I did the full download and re-install option from the recovery options when you boot in command+R. It took a little less time than an hour total.
I’m letting my system come all the way up for about 15 minutes and then will try a restart after I back up a few things from today’s project. The question is still there… Do I want to go to Mavericks as I have already done the big change from 10.6.8 or do I wait until a few weeks have passed and the tree has been shaken a little. Time will tell I guess =)
Thanks for stopping by.
Until next time – Good shooting
TDTrey
Mavericks update vs Mountain Lion 10.8.5
Well it looks like we have a new OSX. And Apple has left the “big cat” naming convention behind… Ironically I just gave them $20 for the last Mountain Lion version 10.8.5. I slurped the Cool-aid last week and joined the Adode family with the Creative Cloud solution. I’m a little ticked that the sales person said “sure, you can run CC in 10.6.8” and you can – as long as you don’t work in the video or audio business… So off to the app store I went and upgrade I did. And, everything was going swimmingly until about an hour ago when I restarted and was met with a big grey screen on all my monitors. The lovely shade of grey (just one) seem to permanently stick there forever.
- I gave it a few minutes and then powered off.
- Restart.
- Restart….
- Shutdown….
- Restart with P+R+command+option – no luck.
- Now Restart with command+R and go for a recovery…
I’m now in the last 20 minutes of reloading a whole new OS from the recovery options. I’m hopeful… If no joy I have a full back up I did last week and won’t really loose anything important. I’ll just have to bump back down to 10.6.8 and then find a copy of 10.8.4 or jump to Mavericks…
So I’m open to thoughts and suggestions here. I’m running most of the usual suspects from Adobe: Ps, Pr, Ae, Au, Ame. I have been told by someone who was using the developers version of Mavericks that it’s awesome with CC. I have also had the last hour to read on blogs that people are having problems with their CS6 and Mavericks. So I don’t know if I want to make the leap just yet…
I did have the Adobe Applications Manager auto update this morning on the CPU in question… so maybe that has something to do with it???
Anyway. Just thought I would put this up as I have a little time to kill (5 minutes remaining)
Hope you all are doing well out there and having a great day.
Until next time – Good Shooting (and editing or at least computing)
TDTrey
SmallHD AC7 Field Monitor
So as I said I was going to be in the field (or actually on an island) for 5 days shooting mostly “Run and Gun”. We weren’t going to be able to charge batteries during the day and the rig had to be really light and nimble. Pictured here is my Hand Held rig:
I found the easiest thing was to set up the 5D3 on a Manfrotto raiser with 12″ rods and use a Ultralight 15mm rod accessory to add the monitor via a cine arm. (Say that 3 times fast =) This put the monitor almost right over the camera body and still left access to the battery door and CF card slot. To keep the weight down I used the Canon battery plate from SmallHD. This allowed me to use all the same batteries for the monitors and cameras. In this config we really didn’t need a follow focus and normally left the mattebox off as well. At night we could run without the sunshade leaving a much wider angle of view for the shooter and any one around him. I didn’t have it at the time but have since added a LockPort to protect the mini HDMI connection on the side of the camera.
The monitor was flawless. The HDMI port is on the bottom so it was very easy to run the cable under the lens and straight up into the monitor. It is very light weight. The screen is quite bright and clear. The shade helped the daytime shooting immensely. We could make it about 4 hours on one pair of batteries. ( the plate is set up for 2 batteries to run together extending the over all running time.) When the batteries are down to about 10% the screen changes to the AC7 logo and starts flashing. (Can’t miss that warning =) Pop two fresh batteries on and you are ready to go another 4’ish hours. You can get a variety of different battery plates to match your kit batteries and needs.
The monitor comes in two versions: an HDMI only version or an HDMI / HD-SDI version. I went for the HDMI version at the time but am now thinking about getting the combo HDMI / HD-SDI version. That way I can hang it off my EX3 or the H2S converter on my 5D3 / Blade kit.
The menu is easy to navigate and has a dial entry approach along with two assignable button for shortcut features and menu functions. There are a number of guides that can be assigned as well as false color, etc. Truly a well thought out monitor.
Well just my first impressions of the monitor. Very happy. It now lives in the 5D3 bag. I’ll give an update as I use it more this year. Thanks again for reading my post.
Until next time, Good shooting
TDTrey.com
Blackmagic Design has big announcements from IBC
- Resolve Live-live grading of the incoming video signal from the camera
- Enhanced editing features
- Multitrack editing with support for up to 16 tracks of audio per clip
- Expanded support for more NLE’s via XML and EDL
- Support for OpenFX plugins
- Support for mixed frame rates and media types
- Fantastic updated to limiting, qualifiers and power windows
- Outstanding workflow features for window burns, file naming overlay and audio syncing of secondary tracks to picture
- and much more
“We are extremely excited to have this public beta of DaVinci Resolve 10 ready for download from the Blackmagic Design web site,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “This is an important update for all DaVinci Resolve customers and dramatically boosts the ease of workflow in the television industry. This new public beta is available for high end DaVinci Resolve systems as well as the exciting free of charge DaVinci Resolve Lite edition which now includes support for UHD timelines and rendering. This is an exciting moment for DaVinci Resolve because its the biggest update to a DaVinci product line in 30 years!”
Please check out all the new goodies at BlackmagicDesign.com
Until next time, Good Shooting
ATOMOS Samurai Blade
I went with the Blade.
- It’s 5.5″ screen makes it a nice tiny recorder to hang on any rig.
- It has a non proprietary storage media solution. (the Odyssey uses Convergent Design’s own SSDs to ensure compatibility with the recorder)
- With the Blade, you can use SSDs or spinning 2.5″ hard drives right from your local computer store (as long as they meet the specs required by Atomos) The fact that you can use spinning drives is one of the main reasons I went with the blade. I can use a 500 gig laptop drive for tripod shoots and it will only cost me $60 or so and yields almost 5 hours of ProRes HQ. For “run and gun” I’ll probably want to use SSDs because of the risk of shock to the drives.
- I can run all day on a couple Sony NP-F970 batteries.
- The Blade works well with both my EX3’s SDI out and my 5D3’s HDMI out. For the HDMI from the Canon 5D3 I use the Atomos H2S converter. It converts HDMI to HD-SDI and does 3:2 pulldown removal in real time.
- The focus assist features work like my Zacuto EVF and SmallHD AC7 monitor. I can see the focal plan coming my way as I roll through focus.
- The waveform feature is very handy and pretty much a necessity these days on DSLR shoots.
Adobe CS6 Production Suite and The Animated Fairytale
Rokinon Cine Lenses-Second Look
My F3 Christmas Wish List
Here’s my wish list for my Sony F3 from Sony in 2013:
- Could we get an upgrade for 4:2:2 internal recording with 50 m/bits throughput?
- Is there enough processing power to give us RAW out of the F3?
- If the sensor is 4K can it be De-Bayer’d down to 2K to an external recorder?
- Can we us the new faster SxS cards with an upgrade to the firmware?
- If not free, could this be done for a purchased upgrade under $2000?
Seems like there is ‘a storm a brewin’ for the 4K market but we won’t know anything until it passes. If these cameras can be upgraded for a few bucks now and stay relevant until the new crop (no pun intended ) of sensors is released – could be a good thing.
Rokinon Cine Lenses-First Look
All in all a nice lens so far. More to follow…
Until next time, good shooting.
Which Camera?? Decided… Sony F3
Most used this year: 5Dmk2
I’m not being asked to go 4K just yet. If need be I can rent an EPIC from VR and go crazy with resolution. Super Slowmo is great but likely to get overused in my circles and burn out quickly and again — EPIC if needed. Super Shallow DoF nice but not the end all be all. The F3 seems to fit the bill right down the middle.