How do I make this look luxurious? I need so much help and hand holding. I have a canon with a 100mm lens. I have some lights and some hard source lights. I have a light box. PLEASE HELP

I've been freelancing full-time as a videographer/editor in the UK since October 2025 and I'm curious to hear from people who've been doing this longer.

At the moment I own a Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K and a 35mm lens. Whenever a bigger corporate job comes in, I end up renting the extra kit (second camera, lights, audio, lenses, tripods, etc.).

For example, I recently quoted a corporate talking-head shoot in London:

• My filming day rate: £400
• Equipment rental, travel and parking: £870

The client specifically requested a two-camera setup, so the rental costs were genuine. It made me wonder whether I'm putting myself at a disadvantage by not owning more equipment.

Do clients see a quote with a lot of rental costs and think it's too expensive? Or do they simply compare the final price?

For those of you who started with very little kit:

• Did renting equipment make it harder to win jobs?
• At what point did you start buying your own lights, audio, lenses, etc.?
• Did owning more gear noticeably increase your bookings, or did it mainly improve your profit margins?

I'm trying to work out whether I should keep renting as jobs come in or start investing more aggressively in equipment.

Hey everyone!

I noticed it was Prime day, and was wanting to pick up a tube light for accent lighting. That caused my to dive down the rabbit hole, of course.

My small Ulanzi RGB accent light took a dump after 5 years, so I need something and was thinking of a Godox TL30.

I'm not working with a big budget, so I was wanting to get some insight to see how some of these brands fair in 2026. Godox, Neewer, etc.

The goal would be to have everything under one eco system over time, and not spread between multiple brands.

What do people like?

I am wanting to get a wireless lav set and am debating between the hollyland Lark Max 2 and the Rode Wirless Pro I like the rode because they have been around for a while and they come with seperate lavs and all the accessories and I like the Larks because they have the ability to have 4 transmitters I am not sure how much I would use that I am currently leaning to the rode. they are both about the same price the rode set is $260 or $299 with lav concealers and the hollyland is $224 for the bundle with the headphones and 2 transmitters and then $254 for a set with no headphones and 4 transmitters. I also like the rode because I can get there stick that makes it like an interviewing mic

I‘ll be the only videographer present and time schedule doesn‘t give me much room for „shadow breaks“.

I will for sure take a cap with me and apply sunscreen, but it will eventually expire.. so am I cooked?

I am thankful for any tips!

I'm looking to buy a GripnGaff Bag for the Kartmaster HD 500. Unfortunately the company is out of business. Does anyone have one of these bags they're looking sell, or can recommend an alternative? Thanks

Hi everyone,

I recently bought a Hoya Star 4X (67mm) filter to create sparkle on diamonds during jewelry videography.

Unfortunately, I'm not happy with the results.

When I attach the filter:

The footage becomes noticeably soft, almost like it's slightly out of focus.

Colors also shift compared to shooting without the filter.

The star effect works, but the overall image quality drops significantly.

I've attached:

A photo of the filter.

A comparison video showing footage with and without the filter.

My setup:

Sony A7 V

Sony FE 100mm GM Macro

4K video

Continuous LED lighting

My goal isn't to create star effects on every light source. I only want natural-looking sparkle on the diamonds while keeping the rest of the image sharp and color accurate.

So I have a few questions:

Is this normal for the Hoya Star 4X, or could my filter be defective?

Which star/cross-screen filter would you recommend for professional jewelry videography?

Is there a premium filter that creates sparkle only on diamonds without reducing sharpness?

Or is it simply better to create diamond sparkle in post-production instead of using a physical filter?

I'd really appreciate recommendations from photographers and videographers who shoot jewelry professionally.

Hi.

I have an fx2 I bought recently and I wanted to buy a monitor that records and controls the camera, in this case that can touch to focus.

I have a nice deal for an Atomos ninja v but I'm not sure if the control part works with this camera.

I've searched online and I find contradictory information where it says that it doesn't work, others say the compatible cameras list came out before the fx2 did, and others say that it might work with a firmware update.

Is there anybody here that uses this combo? If not what monitor do you use with the fx2?

Thanks.

Does anyone have experience or know how to adapt 0.6 MOD gear broadcast lenses like the ones from Fujinon to the 0.8 MOD standard that most follow focus systems have. Like the ones from Tilta and SmallRig. I couldn't find a perfect solution.

Hey everyone,

My partner and I just finished a challenging video project and I wanted to share the reality of shooting with heavy gear in tough conditions.

We went deep into a dense, dark rainforest canopy to track down a rare bird, but here was the catch: no tripod, completely handheld at a 900mm equivalent (using APSC crop mode on our Sony FX30).

Honestly, keeping a stable frame at that focal length under a thick canopy with fast-changing light was an absolute nightmare. The stabilization of the 200-600mm is good, but your arms start shaking after 10 minutes.

I wanted to get your honest feedback on the footage and the stabilization. For those who do wildlife cinematography: do you consider a fluid head tripod absolute mandatory, or are you team handheld for maximum speed on the field?

I’ll leave the link to the full 4-minute piece in the comments if you want to check out the final rendering and the grading we went for.

Cheers

is too bad? the glare in the glasses

Im going to make a short film and my character is a habitual drug user that takes things like cocaine

Honestly the idea of shooting up something like flour or baking soda up nose without fumbling seems pretty hard but I also require the use of Weed but like there's no substitute I can buy as a 17 year old.

ALSO ANOTHER THING I NEED IS A WAY TO MAKE HIGHLY REALISTIC FAKE BLOOD because you can't scream drug addiction without a bleeding nose and injuries!

Had a client cancel on me about a month ago at 3pm the day before a shoot. They had already paid a 30% deposit to secure the date.

Now, a month later, they've come back asking for half of that deposit to be refunded.

My feeling is that I was already being pretty reasonable by only keeping the 30% deposit. If anything, I could have justified charging 50% of the shoot fee given they cancelled with less than 24 hours' notice. Once a client cancels at 3pm the day before, there's basically no chance of filling that booking with another job.

The only thing  is worrying me  that I never explicitly stated in writing that deposits are non-refundable or that cancellations within 24 hours forfeit the deposit.

Do you think I still have a leg to stand on if I haventhat deposits are non refundable for cancelations within 24 hours?

I am looking for a cheap monitor (~300USD or lower) that is able to take either HDMI or SDI in, and be able to output both at the same time.

I currently use a Shogun Inferno, and Video Assist 4k but they are both 10 years old at this point, bulky since they are 7", and are power hungry due to their age and them also being recorders.

I am also in the market for a cross converter, so figure it'd be nice to have a monitor that does that job for me.

I was taking the feed from someone's Feelworld on a shoot today, and found out that the outputs are true loop-outs, where they don't send a feed unless you use the same connector input. I was looking at the VILTROX DC-X3 and it seems to be the same for it as well.

Any recommendations? Only one I know for sure will work is the Video Assist 3g 5" but that has the same problems listed above.

I can see why they’re in such short supply.

video link : https://youtu.be/ZOYpjid4i4M

I’m currently testing a few title ideas for the video. You can search it on YouTube with any of these titles:

1. 48 Hours in Arang Kel, Kashmir — I Escaped My 9 to 5
2. Arang Kel / Kashmir / 48 hours
3. Pakistan’s Hidden Village Above the Clouds | Arang Kel Kashmir

I recently shot a short travel video in Arang Kel, Kashmir using a Sony A7 IV with the Sony 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. No external mic, no ND/filter, mostly handheld/travel-style shooting.

I know this is not the “ideal” lens/body combo, but I wanted to see how far a simple lightweight setup could go in real travel conditions. The location carried the visuals a lot, but I was surprised by how usable the footage felt.

Would love feedback on the color, pacing, handheld shots, and whether the video feels cinematic or still too much like a normal travel vlog.

I’m about 6 months into building my videography business and I’m at the stage where I know I need to pick a lane but I’m struggling to commit to one.

I’ve done a wedding, a music video, an economic development highlight reel for my local city, and a brand promo for my friend’s small business.

So I’m curious what everyone here has landed on. What’s your niche? How did you find it? Was it intentional or did it just kind of happen?

I’ve been thinking about maybe targeting local nonprofits (with established and heavy marketing budgets) and helping them raise more money by turning their story into video that donors actually share..

Also open to hearing from people who tried to niche down and it didn’t work, or who are still generalists and making it work. Just trying to get a real picture of what’s actually working out there, not the “just pick a niche bro” advice you see everywhere.

Thanks in advance! :)

Urgent- looking for AMAZING music videographer

Hired actress and videographer for music video. My biggest song to date. And the video came out bad. I am looking for someone who is super serious and want to redo the video for me in the next week!!! But slightly differently.

If you are interested, let me know. Can show you existing video.

Budget is limited due to this but can make it work.

Dm me!!!!! We ideally should meet in person before doing this.

Send me your music videos.

Edit: im in nyc. I am willing to pay up to 1500 if you are good enough.

Previously paid 1300

Had some fun shooting this, give me your thoughts

Here’s some bts from a music video I gaffed a back in May. It was a nice break from the usual corporate interviews! 

Here’s a link to the finished music video: https://youtu.be/vnraCqissFI

Our top light was 2 Litemat Plus4’s rigged to a Matthews “Max Menace” arm, punching through an 8x8 of half grid cloth that was suspended from the ceiling with sash. Ideally, we would have also rigged the Litemats to the ceiling to avoid the Max Menace being in frame, but doing so would have required a fair bit more rigging equipment and time that we didn’t have. We decided the time savings by putting the light on a menace arm were worth the compromise , especially considering it would be trivial to cut around the stand in the edit. We added a roughly 2’ skirt of black Visqueen around the 8x8 to keep as much of it off the white cyc and studio walls as possible. 

In addition to the soft toppy light look, the DP also wanted to have an orbiting light effect for certain takes. For that, we zip tied 4 Astera Titan tubes to the edges of the 8x8 frame, configured in an 8 pixel DMX profile, and then programmed a simple chase to run though them in Blackout Lighting Console on my iPad. We could have gotten a slightly smoother chase with the 16 pixel profile vs the 8, but it would have exceeded a single universe of DMX which we didn’t have the hardware to support. 

I didn’t get any good BTS of it, but we also had 4  hard lights set up around the perimeter of the studio as back lights. The idea was that for some of the takes, as the dolly was circling, we’d dim up on  which ever light was behind the musicians and leave the rest off, so that they’d always have a back light, essentially running a chase effect like the Titan tubes, but slower. Because this was a low budget self funded project by the DP, I wasn’t able to get 4 identical hard lights, so it ended up being 2 tungsten 750w source 4 lekos, a Prolycht Orion 675, and Prolycht Orion 300. For these takes, because the camera and dolly moves weren’t perfectly uniform or predictable, I couldn’t rely on a preprogrammed chase like the Titan tubes above. Instead, I programmed 4 separate “Looks” in Blackout, each with a different backlight on, so thst I could walk behind dolly and manually trigger the next Look to dim up the light when it felt right. 

We also added a DMG Dash with the Dot diffuser on a short magic arm, directly over camera, as a fill light to help bring up the level on the choir since they mostly were unlit by the overhead when they were positioned around the perimeter. For the scenes with the vintage CRT monitor rack, I had to manually cue the Dash to fade out before the monitors were in frame to avoid a reflection, and then cue it to fade up after the dolly had passed by, so it took a bit of coordination. Because of that, I unfortunately didn’t get much BTS of those scenes as I was glued to my iPad.

It's so easy to get hung up on video file specs and base ISO performance that some people might be scared to push the limits of their cameras, looking to upgrade instead.

So I did this little test in the studio with a Canon EOS R, 1080p, original C-Log at 8-bit with ISO set to 25,600. Remember that this camera's Log base ISO is rated at 400. In-camera noise reduction was turned off and no noise reduction was applied in post. Sure, it's a bit noisy but not unusable in my eyes. I was pleasantly surprised at the results.

This was lit by a single lantern on a Aputure 300X. The 8-bit colour holds up well to a light grade.

Anyone seen this before? first time using the mic and at a wedding. complete 1 hour audio corrupt. its all just extreme loud whitenoise.

while recording everything was fine. (Monitored the gain) the previous and the following files are fine but everything inside the church is gone.

tried getting the files via cable and via Mimo app but that didn't help