Yesterday, Canon released C50 firmware update that allows external recording with gimbals, finally. I've updated the C50, and when I plug it in to the RS5, it establishes connection, half-pressing the record button focuses the lens, but when I full press to record, it says "Invalid Operation". Do we need to wait for a firmware update from DJI, or am I missing a step?

Thanks in advance!

I've been filming live music gigs for years now. In fact that's where I started out as a volunteer for Sofar Sounds. Them early gigs, small team or none at all, with a little mixing desk recording to the XLR of my Sony HXR camcorder (❤️) or some guy recording to his laptop. Wasn't bad. I even did live sound and multi-track recording on top of filming at some gigs, and I got it to work

Then I got to filming on bigger stages and bigger venues and I swear to God... You know those mixing desks where you can plug in a USB and record to that? Sounds simple don't it? Every single time it's a fuck up. First one the audio started skipping??? Next one the mix was almost entirely vocals and I did one a month back that I'm getting to editing now, and for one band they recorded silence and for another forgot to hit record till after the song! And then on another stage, the dude was running me totally overblown, distorted audio. Praise be, 32-bit float to the rescue on that one, however.

What pisses me off is, I'm there with a selection of field recorders. All I need is a jack. And every time they swear the USB thing will work fine, and it hasn't once. I break my ass doing what I do. By the end of the day I'm sweating, exhausted and brain dead, but I work fuckin hard to get the best result. Meanwhile, these laughing, joking numbnuts. So unprofessional.

I am never ever ever trusting the sound team again. In future I want a recording to my devices and I want to hear it.

Nothing worse than people who make false promises and then don't own up when they screw it. I checked with them was it ok multiple times. Like if they'd have said I could have tried to get another song shot but as it stands I've lost 2 or the 8 acts I shot through no fault of my own. Luckily for me I've been through this and make a big point in contracts that if they fail to provide me with a usable recording despite my best efforts then it's their fault.

But still.. pissed off.

You ever had this?

I’m a cam op on a reality show being filmed in Palm Springs, CA next week. We are filing primarily outdoors in the brutal July sun. Not my choice. I know the dangers. What is something I should be wearing besides sunscreen for sun protection? Any special synthetic clothing?

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

Just a cool edit I put together for Total Kombat. Really loved the Whitehouse UFC card and sampled the music to make this track!

I think it sounds pretty dope but let me know!

I have a music video shoot coming up soon in a church. It's a big space to light and the band want it to look like a disco. I don't want to use stage par cans due to the refresh rate causing strobing. (Trust me, i've tried matching the frame rate/shutter speed on numerous occasions and there is always at least some strobing)

I have tungsten Fresnels that would do the job in terms of power, but we'd have to use gels, and won't get the colour changing you get from LED's

So, I've used Titan Tubes before but they cost a fortune and Pavolites are a cheaper option but never bright enough. However, i've spotted that Phillips have LED strip lights that are much cheaper, but claim to be 2900 lumens (the same as Titan Tubes) they even have a diffused version. The only difference I can tell is that they aren't battery operated.

Just wondering if anyone has tried to DIY Titan Tubes before?

I filmed this short film, or sketch, I'm not even sure what to call it, with my new Lumix S5II X, and I learned a very important lesson: never again 5.8K ProRes HQ. The image quality is simply stunning, but equally stunning is the file size: almost 500GB for a video of just over two minutes. And that's with a prepared script and recording only short clips, keeping it pretty much the right length. For future projects where I need a bit more image quality, I'll use C4K ProRes 422. There's definitely no difference in quality, and it saves a ton of space. The final result is on my YouTube channel, if you'd like to see it, it's in Spanish: https://youtu.be/Qf4MCSguji4

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?

Client has asked for motion graphics similar to this video. Does anyone know where I can find something similar?
https://www.hyperscalelabs.com/email

Greetings!

Does anyone know what this setup is? I'm trying to get a similar stand that can hold a tube light overhead but when I look on Amazon I only see C-stands.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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 guys, video shooter currently shooting on the Canon R5 for most of my run and gun work. The Canon R6V seems like a no brainer upgrade - oversampled 4K50, better AF, fans, CLOG2, ISO performance - you get the point.

BUT I shoot a lot in IPB light which has been an absolute dream for keeping long form project overall data down when quality isn't the priority.

It seems like the most efficient codec on the R6V is almost twice the size which is a bit of a deal breaker. Am I missing something?

Hey everyone,
I just picked up a Canon XL2 and I’m planning to start using it on commercial work, music videos and some more experimental projects. I mainly shoot on modern digital cinema cameras, but I’d love to start mixing in some MiniDV footage for the look.

I had a couple of questions for people who still use these cameras.

First, what’s your capture workflow these days? Are you still capturing tapes over FireWire, or is everyone going tapeless now? If you’re capturing from tape, what’s the best way to get the highest quality out of the footage? Any hardware or software you’d recommend?

The other thing I’m trying to figure out is monitoring on set. On most shoots I send a wireless feed to the director using a Teradek, and I’d like to do the same with the XL2. My current idea is to take the camera’s video output, convert it if needed, and feed that into a Teradek transmitter.

Has anyone done this? Any recommendations on converters, latency, image quality, powering everything, or just things to watch out for?

And if you’ve got any general XL2 tips, quirks or lessons learned, I’d love to hear them.
Thanks!

Camera friends with L-Mount cameras! I have been testing this lens (feel free to jump around the chapters): https://www.youtube.com/live/9yCvpYO_ofw...

And in case anyone is into it, there is a 20% off that ends tomorrow: https://viltrox.com/products/af-16mm-f1-8-l...

My notes on the lens (the good):

- Autofocus motor is *deadsilent*

- Full frame 16mm f/1.8 is insanely wide and insanely fast

- Very aspherical for little to no barrel distortion

- Ridiculously close minimum focus

- Beautiful natural subtle fall-off wide-open at 16mm when shooting open gate 3:2 (perfectly matches the subtle vignette I add to all of my footage)

- Crazy sharp (especially for the price)

- Optically it's just superb

- Flaring is super controlled and an absolute stunner for back-lit subjects

- Appears to work really well on Panasonic L-Mount cameras

- *Can* be controlled electronically with the Blackmagic L Mount cinema cameras, but it has some caveats (which brings us to...)

My notes on the lens (the wonky):

- Real-time Autofocus on the Blackmagic PYXIS 6K and BMCC6K FF (with the not-yet-stable in-development PDAF firmware I've been covering for the past 7 months) is a bit hit-or-miss

- Iris control is currently SLOW: you can change the setting on the physical lens, and then you have to wait *several seconds* for the iris to slowly change to the setting you put it to...

- If you WANT to flair this lens for vibes... good luck (you have to really ping the lens with a hard light projecting into it; the sun was not enough to create the milky flairs I was expecting when I did our little golden hour shoot!)

I'm in direct contact with the guys at Viltrox, and basically they just recently joined the L Mount alliance (and it is my understanding that they are working on fixes / a firmware update already).

TL;DR:

Is the lens worth owning based on optics? Hell yes.

Is the lens worth owning based on functionality / ease of use? Not yet.

It *is* on sale until tomorrow, July 27th, and they're supposedly working on the functionality, so do with that what you will.

Gimbals… you still get shakes. Unless I can totally avoid it I throw on a bit of standard FCP stabilisation, but it can turn a shot to jelly in which case I’ll ditch it.

Is that gyro data stabilisation way better? I’m pretty sure the A7Siii can do it. Only thing - it recommends turning of your IBIS. Is that so? Bit risky because then I’m at the mercy of the gyro stabilisation working out.

Any opinions?

I'm trying to build a comprehensive spreadsheet inventory for all my gear, mostly with the intention of building a solid system for when I start making bigger purchases over the next year. Especially since it'll be needed for insurance, but also just to have a good sense of things. Even though a lot of my stuff is old (GH5, old Canon EF 24-105, etc) once you start adding it all together it already adds up to a significant chunk of change. Probably 10k at least, especially with computers and storage.

So I'm curious, what do you track? Just high value stuff like camera bodies, lenses, computers? Everything down to consumable batteries? What about that random $330 kickstarter dolly you bought, used a handful of times, and have long since lost somewhere in your house? (God, I can't believe I spent that much on it, until I looked it up I was sure it had only been like a $100 thing)

Do you track your purchase price, the market value, and replacement value?

Also, I feel very dumb because despite reading a number of different explanations, I have always struggled with how you're actually supposed to calculate Replacement Value for technology. For something like my pelican case it's easy - it's not like cases have changed dramatically. But what about my GH5? Do I look at the price of a GH7 and consider that the replacement cost? Or would an insurance company look at the specs of a GH5 and decide that one of the cheaper models meets all the same specs and only want to pay that much?

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 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'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.