Make that an Asahi beer please DRONE ..... ha

The Lytro/Lightfield cameras already take care of the "exactly what do you want in focus" thing, or soon will.


As for the rest. . .rest easy gents, at least we know that if no one wants to hire a pro videographer with gear to shoot their project, they still have to edit all that footage down to a nice tight package, and once they realize what a pain that is there'll be a huge market for editors!

Oh wait, I hate editing. Damn. . .

Hi Josh

I hate editing too which is why we live stream our events now so we can edit on the fly etc etc.

Did you not see the 2 x phone and 1 x tablet system that Andrew posted from cinamaker? You don't have to stream your footage with that set up ..you can simply record it and STILL edit live from the tablet ...Voila ..no editing !

I must admit it's really great to go out nowdays and shoot a wedding and when I come home I'm finished the entire job (OK except for sending the bride a USB backup on the Monday) BIT no editing!!!

...More info on the product is here: Cinamaker (http://cinamaker.net/)...
!!!REVENGE OF THE SOUNDIES!!!

You camera ops with your gadgets that you have to buy new every year or two... your comeuppance has arrived!

If you review the "we-have-a-solution-now-what's-the-problem?" video at the cinamaker site, you'll see a pretty pedestrian multicam demo... with bad indirect sound!

Apparently we'll all need to be location sound mixers in the future.

We might have the Lytro technology to designate focus point in post, but there still is no cure for indirect and off-mic sound. Other than a lav of course... (http://a.co/1ZhK3Rx)

Well said Seth

That's a very significant point since although cameras have been jumping ahead in leaps and bounds, their audio has actually been getting progressively worse.in comparison! Audio systems haven't really changed that much yet video producers seem to mess it up anyway. We really do need some drastic advances in the audio field now ... Add some lav mics, transmitters. receivers, shotguns and booms plus a decent mixer and that simple setup becomes quite complex. A decent audio setup can make a huge difference to any video footage and at this stage, as fancy as they are, cell phones don't have the technology to provide it yet!

Hi Josh

I hate editing too which is why we live stream our events now so we can edit on the fly etc etc.

Did you not see the 2 x phone and 1 x tablet system that Andrew posted from cinamaker? You don't have to stream your footage with that set up ..you can simply record it and STILL edit live from the tablet ...Voila ..no editing !

I must admit it's really great to go out nowdays and shoot a wedding and when I come home I'm finished the entire job (OK except for sending the bride a USB backup on the Monday) BIT no editing!!!

I was thinking more of all the other types of projects out there. . .corporate video, commercials, etc. etc. Things where you couldn't really edit on the fly, but have to go out, shoot footage, edit into a final product.

Hi Josh

Unless it's an event, be it a wedding or a corporate presentation, I think corporate promos still entail heaps of raw footage and heaps of editing to convert an hours raw footage into a powerful client message lasting no more than 60 seconds ... Advertising or even getting a message to new prospective markets is totally non structured and requires creative thinking and tweaking whilst a scheduled event runs (hopefully) to a timeline and is pretty easy to live edit.

So let's say this sort of live edit is pretty much restricted to carefully prepared events ...I don't mind editing promos at all it brings out the creative juices and I can easily handle short form video ...I just don't like trying to edit a full blown wedding,recital or concert manually where live edits would make the job so much easier!!

right...

the point/joke that i was making was even if smartphones and amateur videographers replace us all, someone still has to edit all this garbage footage into a watchable final product. Unless it's just a highlight video (that an algorithm could pontentially handle)you still need a talented human to do that. That's where we become relevant again.

A good example of the threat cell phone can be to camcorders, I was asked to shoot a musical with kids, while I was filming a woman on the left side of me in the back row of the theater was standing up the entire show shooting video with her smartphone, guess who is not buying a dvd copy? I also saw a lot of lights from smartphones light up in the room. Now I didn't care as I had a fixed price for the shoot but this is a example where the parents are ok with the image quality of their cell phone which probably will look good if there is good light on stage and even if the soundrecording will suck, they just want a memory from their child and might prefer to have it on their phone which eventually will upload it to "the cloud" for safekeeping and/or sharing.

Well, you see, this is where the water squirter (otherwise used for naughty cats) comes in to play. :-)

Andrew

Hi Noa

Glad you mentioned that! I did a wedding last month and the first dance was on a portable dance floor outside ..my cam handled the lighting no issue but the whole ambience was totally ruined by a guest shooting her wobbly video with her iPhone that had a bright "video light" ...that just killed the whole thing as those lights are amazingly bright!! Sadly cells will be a part of weddings whether we like it or not ...I really think they should call them "multimedia devices" not phones as people rarely use them to make phone calls!

Here is the part I am laughing about. There are at least a few of you on this thread that have been buying new cameras every 12/24 months or less for the last ten years. Some of you probably have hundreds of posts about it and they all say "I went, smaller, lighter and cheaper. Isn't that great!" Some of you are using hybrids and even mirror-less point and shoots. Cell phones are the last step down from that. Where did you think it would stop? The market drives technology. What are you shooting with now? Just saying........

Kind Regards,

Steve

They are here already Steve!

Polaroid brought one out as per the image below but I can seriously see the day when you slide on a 20x optical Zeiss or Leica glass lens onto the phone body, slide a full EVF onto the edge and then clip in a two channel wireless micro XLR audio module and you are good to go!! Take off all 3 in less than 10 seconds and you are back on Facebook

Actually, I did stream a 90 minute funeral service on Facebook for a friend using her I-Phone. I was attending the funeral and she said "Hey Roger! You're a pro videographer. Can you stream my mother in law's funeral on my phone to the out of state relatives."

I told her it would be my first live streamed video, if it worked, but sure! I borrowed another friend's USB Power Brick device so the phone wouldn't go dead. Kathy dialed into her account, and off we went. Saw the other daughter in law in a small window watching on another phone more than a thousand miles away.

Anyway, the process worked. Not a single hickup. The far away daughter in law remarked at how steady and easy to watch the video was. Just held the phone in landscape position, was careful how I framed the shot, turned slowly using my body just like when I go handheld with my cameras.

No kidding. It was seamless. Only had to plug in that power brick. Audio was good because of where I was sitting (carefully chosen because I did a quick test and realized the fixed lens limitations of the phone etc.)and the acoustics of the church.

Only a matter of time before there's a small camcorder with similar circuitry to the phone built in. I'm using JVC HM-170s. The next step up, the 200 series, have some streaming built in. Not planning to offer streaming just yet, but monitoring where things are heading. Just noticed the new Sling device for I-Pad...

Quite scary Roger!! Yes I'm positive the corporate shoot where they have a $50K budget won't be affected neither will the $10K high end weddings but I can honestly see budget weddings being shot in the near future with hybrid camera/phones ... If you look at the two videos at the start of this post can anyone honestly say that a budget bride wouldn't be thrilled with footage of that quality? We already have cameras that cost thousands that have terrible audio preamps (Canon 5D) so there is no reason a wedding videographer couldn't have dedicated audio gear and shoot the video at 4K on a Galaxy 8 .... after a bit of Noa style editing no-one would know the difference .... drop a phone like that into a good quality 3 axis gimbal and you could have a pretty good result ... protest all you want but in the domestic market we will see better and better quality in the coming years ..maybe I need to retire now and leave all this cell shooting to the kids?

Not even in my dreams I would consider shooting a wedding with smartphone, no matter what the IQ is. A phone is a disaster when it comes to functionality, try changing shutter, iso, f-stop or focus on the fly while holding the phone in front of you swiping the screen, even more fun trying to do that in the glaring sun with it's reflective screen. Just the thought of it is ridiculous. I draw the line with using dslr's, would much prefer to shoot on a real videocamera but I can't ignore the advantages my panasonic dslr's have for my personal use, eventhough they are no real videocamera's either and lack functionality that a video oriented professional camera has I at least can change all settings I need while holding the camera's viewfinder against my eye which is where a camera should be if you shoot a non repeatable critical moment while handholding the camera.

Im with Noa all the way. I made my only real point in my first post. Now were just having fun. At least I am not serious about this stuff. As said, my clients would run me off the set if I showed up with even a DSLR.

Chris, The market is already offering what you just said (almost). Here is the clip on Haselblad camera for your Motorola phone:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=1274335&gclid=CjwKEAjw9MrIBRCr2LPek5-h8U0SJAD3jfhtysUK71hcr-U6bXu1TkCHatwWt_KJeXAYMRZKhVXyGRoCv6jw_wcB&is=REG&ap=y&m=Y&c3api=1876%2C%7Bcreative%7D%2C%7Bkeyword%7D&Q=&A=details

Steve

One of my favorite truths in business and life is "Just because you can does not mean you should." I have hired a ton of freelancers in my time, some amazing ones I learn from and some green ones I train. I am always teaching that statement to the green ones. That is really what we are talking about here. Some times technology provides us with multiple options to achieve a similar result. But the correct way to do things is rarely with tools and options from the bottom of the food chain.

Steve

I'm in the process of selling all my cameras and switching to Cell phones for video. I have one in each hand, on my belt, and my head band. Any angle, any time. That's how I roll

Hey Steve

I was, of course. having fun too just as Pete is. Yep the IQ is pretty darn good but practical usage sucks! Dunno about you guys but when my phone rings I have to swipe the little "lock" icon to the right to answer it and try as I might it just stays put and will not move so I end up having to call back, very frustrated. Imagine shooting a bride walking down the aisle and the phone refuses to comply with your finger as the music starts..sheer panic ....To be honest I'm not too happy with the touch screen controls on my new Lumix now either ....What happened to buttons??? I'm used to buttons and I like buttons that you can physically press and know something will happen ...my old cell (all of $35.00) used to have an answer button and I loved it!

I still miss my shoulder mount cameras ...to me that's a "proper" video camera not a smallish DSLR form factor that's almost impossible to hold steady without a rig! As a parting shot you will be delighted to know that on my current smartphone I have never taken a single still shot or video ..couldn't be bothered !! I won't be switching to phones for video anytime soon but sadly I still think some might just do it!

I thought you were going to say filming the bride coming down the aisle and the phone rings.

If it has a quality screen and can work well like Canon dslrs. But in bright sun touch screen buttons become worthless.

I just noticed Vimeo Cameo (https://vimeo.com/cameo) on their site.

If the world is a community of mobile filmmakers, they need an easy app to "edit" and post their films on Vimeo, right?

It's all about marketing Seth ! If there are 6 million phone videographers near your market and only 500,000 camcorder videographers you would be stupid not to target the bigger market with your product or service!

We got what we affectionately call "junk mail" in the post box yesterday and browsing through it I was quite taken aback that a Samsung Galaxy 8 plus cell phone is nearly $1400.00 here ....you can actually buy a nice bridge camera or camcorder for less than that but people are opting for the phone!

Just remember even if you are an iPhone hater when it comes to video, the brides really don't care what you shoot with at a wedding as long as you make her look pretty ...In 25 years of video I have yet to have ANY bride ask about cameras and format and in fact, most still want a DVD!! I think I had one groom last year who was insisting on 4K cameras and when I asked the bride to be she had no idea what he was talking about. It used to be "we shoot your video on the latest broadcast quality cameras" and it might just be a marketing point to now say " we shoot on the new iPhone12 8K cameras"

Hmm...

Good points Chris.

New media literacy coming to a market near you! Literacy is not just reading printed material. Literacy is not just watching and listening to video. Literacy is writing and shooting and editing and delivering.

Video cameras are in the schools, and for good reason!

Which doesn't exactly threaten pro cameras or pro standards of shooting. I think there will continue to be more casual production, more user-generated video content.

You know, it's not just YouTube & Vimeo that love this for the market growth. Video drives growth of internet bandwidth. Video drives computer processor speed/threads, and GPU hardware support. There are lots of companies worldwide that benefit. That's not profits, that's economics...

And then this came out just today:

Is the camcorder dead? Mirrorless cameras are plotting to take its place (http://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/cameras/is-the-camcorder-dead-videoready-traditional-cameras-are-competing-for-its-place/news-story/91230b92d8badcc08a56d3aa7074bdf2)

"Video cameras are rarely devices held in palms or rested on shoulders any more but increasingly they’re small, waterproof blocks mounted on bicycles or, for more professional shoots, devices cunningly disguised as traditional cameras.

Imaging leaders including Sony and Panasonic are tipping these hybrid cameras as the future video leaders and sales figures appear to back them up.

Plus, the hybrid cameras are adding features and power more commonly seen in professional video cameras."

Andrew

Most telling, if the manufacturers stop making VIDEO cameras for the consumer market, that's all there is to it.

No demand = no sales = no market to serve = no more camcorders.... it's not rocket science.... no one makes 8 track tape players anymore, AFAIK.

There is still a market for "enthusiast" level cameras with higher image quality and traditional camera controls, as well as a professional market, but we are talking lower production numbers, and higher prices that the average consumer will not be interested in paying when his iGalaxy 12 just was advertised with all the whiz bang bells and whistles and takes "pretty good" pictures and video.

Compare "pretty good" of today with "professional" of just a few years ago, and you can see why manufacturers are not likely to be putting a lot of development into dedicated devices when the consumer expects more from their phone, probably takes 99% of their photos and video with it, and has for a while now.

So what's the difference? Camcorders have bigger lenses and sensors. Why not use the electronics from the phone and the sensor and lens together. Would not me much bigger than a good SLR zoom lens.

It would probably make a lot more economical sense to make a super sensitive sensor in a phone but make the case so you can slide on an adapter that will take dslr lenses ...you could do the same the a viewfinder and that could be smaller production runs as the base phone is the mass produced one.

"Turn your Galaxy 15 - 12K phone into a 12K professional video camera with our simple adapters!"

It's all about the market demand of course and the manufacturers are really only interested in big sales not pleasing a small group of enthusiasts,, sad but true

Seth, Sorry buddy, but your theory that our advanced audio skills might save us from the cell phone is dead. I can now throw away my 9 foot boom and Senni shotgun mic. As I write this there is a $50.00 cell phone boom pole with its own mic built onto the end of it. But wait! At the moment it is in the Deal Zone today at B&H for $17.00. The end is here. We are all doomed!!!

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1276786-REG/resident_audio_rarcs2_rcs_2_microphone_stick.html

Steve

Och.

Maybe the next great innovation will be like the Cinamaker system, but designed to sync in the smartphones we'll use for sound only. Smartphone on a stick!

What I'm getting from this rambling discussion is that when you have a computer in your pocket, hardware will matter less and less. The power is in using software to harness some basic hardware.

I'll repeat for those that have claimed a phone will never match the capabilities of a prosumer/pro camcorder because it's all automatic that a $15 app *will* let you lock focus, rack focus, manual focus, lock exposure, paint/lock white balance, etc. And rack digital zoom, with a little "bad resolution" flag if you try to go too far. That's Filmic Pro. It's really quite impressive.

Customized cases allowing more stable attachment of wide and tele lenses - already on the market.

What hurts Steve is that you could probably kit yourself out with a bunch of Galaxy 8 Plus phones, audio sticks and also shoot live stream too all for less than the price you paid for your Senni!!

Oh well we are at least old enough to "semi-retire" if things get to bad ... the young guys moving into this field will probably never even know that a video camera looked like.

I guess I need to sell my Lumix cameras now and live stream with a phone and Mevo camera .. seems to be the way things are going!!

Does not hurt me a bit. I am only looking at stuff in this thread for the jokes and banter. At least for now, my market is safe from any moron that wants to compete with me and use a phone. Its years away from being a consideration.

I have allays had an absolute rule about never talking about money. A post on this forum is going to change my mind about that. My website sucks it always has because I don't really need it, or so I thought. I put zero time and effort into it (big mistake). .My work comes word of mouth because I do not deal with the general public. Listening to Doug Jensen's recent posts and looking at his website has totally changed my mind. It is not unusual for me and an assistant to fly out for a one day interview or continuing medical education shoot and I charge $10,000.00 for it. Anyone with a cell phone or other cheap stuff does not work in my market. And my clients know the 10G is a bargain. I charge less than my real world competition. My point is, if thats what I charge, and I do, I should explain it on my website and use it to my advantage.

Kind Regards,

Steve

Just teasing Steve!

I know you are not only set up for high end corporate work but you are also well established in your market too. Since your work is mostly word of mouth and very corporate surely you don't need extra business from a website anyway?

I couldn't imagine someone like you cruising into a huge organisation with a cell phone or two anyway!!

As mentioned before my cell exploits are limited to answering a couple of calls a week and that's it!! I think I must I must be one of the few people left who actually uses my phone as a phone!

Just teasing Steve!

As mentioned before my cell exploits are limited to answering a couple of calls a week and that's it!! I think I must I must be one of the few people left who actually uses my phone as a phone!

I'm just the opposite. I carry a clamshell design dumb phone for taking calls. I only bought a smartphone recently because I needed one for the DJI Osmo. I don't give out the number for that phone, so it sits in a drawer, turned off, unless I need it for an application. I also use it if I'm taking a road trip and need the navigation help. The dumb phone can do all I need.

I am giving citizens the benefit of the doubt for now, but I swear, the smarter the phones get, the dumber the people seem to get. Walking into the street with their eyes glued to that screen, fondling it like it's a life support system.

We're all doomed, doomed I tell you!

W, out!

Probably a good thing that there is a more readily identifiable medium for the vidiots to get excited about and latch on to. If they are using mobile phones for video then it can only be good for the rest of us.

... unless clients can't tell the difference.

Andrew

There are a number of issues and restrictions that can arise when shooting with mobile phone.

Variable frame rates are a reoccurring issue for professional NLEs, although I gather FCPX will handle iPhones. FilmPro seems to improve things by controlling the exposure, so the phone isn't using the frame rate to control exposure, although I gather it's not perfect.

The physics will limit sensitivity because of the small sensor size, so noise will be an issue in low light levels.

If you're into shallow depth of field, just wait for the ground glass adapters as per the 1/3" video cameras!! However, there are software solutions available, although these may not suit everyone or those with more demanding tastes.

The codec is highly compressed, so artifacts can arise, especially on larger screens..

There is an element of fashion in this, the same thing happened with 1/3" camcorders being used on TV productions, even when they were not the best choice for a particular production.

the smarter the phones get, the dumber the people seem to get.

Yep, that pretty much covers it....

To be entirely realistic, you can't expect a small, tightly integrated sensor/lens camera module in a cell phone with additional bandwidth/storage limitations to match ALL the capabilities of a larger DEDICATED camera.

It comes back to what is "gud enuf" for "Joe dance dad" and "Jane soccer mom"... and the companies designing the smart phone camera modules pack as many bells and whistles into them as possible, so that the new whiz bang cell phone advertisement can say "LOW LIGHT", and if "bokeh" ever goes mainstream, you know we'll see that in a cell phone ad too...

I don't pretend that the camera module in any of the smart phones I've owned is a "professional" camera (then again, I don't buy top of the line smart phones either, for the most part). BUT, if I need to shoot something, it's right there in my pocket, and yep, I DO use it for convenience (AKA I'm not getting paid, or it's a "casual" situation). Are the results "good enough"? For most people, the answer is yes, I can compose and squeeze off "good" pix and video...



I'll toss in a curveball to fire up the thread... IMO, a PROFESSIONAL can get good results on ANY capture device, if that's what's at hand.... even if it's not the greatest capture device ever made. AND you can hand a thousand monkeys a thousand "pro" cameras... and you get YouTube! <wink>

It's not always the camera Dave, but who is behind the camera that really counts . From what I have seen of cell phone users doing "selfies" we have absolutely nothing to worry about.

I quite often have a quiet chuckle to myself when I'm doing wedding speeches about 15' directly in front of the podium complete with a softbox lighting the area and I spot a guest at a very remote table near the back sitting down with his palmcoder in his hand filming the same as what I'm doing. I even offered one guy to come up and stand next to me so at least he could take advantage of my lighting but he politely refused saying he was fine sitting at his table.

Hi Mark

Love that comment of yours! We currently have an ad on National TV with a guy trying to set up all the menus of his new Samsung Smart TV .... his neighbour casually passes by the window and offers some advice and the correct sequence to start it up to which the guy replies "Yea I have done all that... over and over and it does nothing" .... Final bit is the neighbour asking "You have turned it on haven't you? "

I don't think we have any issues with people like that around us!!