I put together some stuff that either workarounds some of mac OS problems/limitations or makes specific tasks easier.
Your most welcome to add your own

01 Afloat

 
I wanted DigitalColor Meter to remain on top of all windows as is very anoying to have to call for the app to see/copy values.
This is the solution I found: afloat • case you want to I attached SIMBIL 0.9.9 and this Afloat direct download link HERE should work. BIG thanks to Chris Van Patten

 

 
See in the screen grab below how DCM it is not active as safari was selected and yet it remains floating on top, like a good girl ;-)
 

It works with many (not all) applications including finder itself, below's another example
FYI with multi-window apps, i.e stickies, IF you decide to pin one window to the desktop, you'll have to circle through (finder then stickies) to then select window from the menu, be sure that the correct sticky is selected and then adjust effects, that'll make dialog desapear. Have a look at guide that comes with afloat installer as there are shortcuts for almost everything. The "Make this window an overlay" (clicks fall through) and "Make it opaque while I'm working with it" options are also useful

Thats the credentials out the way..... I wanted to start a topic that could act as a powerful resource tool for anybody wishing to enter into Wedding Videography. A collective center of useful tips, past experiences and success stories by way of sharing inspiring films from other members. This could be useful then for someone perhaps wishing to start filming weddings, or perhaps someoe who has been given that difficult challenge of filming their friend's wedding and doesn't know where to start. Useful also to those that have been doing it for years and are looking for some inspiration and a fresh set of eyes that newcomer's bring to the table.

With this in mind, I wanted to share the trials and tribulations we have encountered over the last year or so, the bad decisions with equipment we made and the ones where we got it right. Of course I add the caveat of everything I write being my own opinion and may of course not work for you. Every area in the world has accepted styles of what a Wedding Film should be, and what maybe works here doesnt necessarily work elsewhere. My focus in the business is the Techinal side, therefore I will only share my experiences and opinions with the equipment. As for the running of the business and interfacing with customers, maybe someone else will go into that.

We started in the business because we saw a growing demand for Wedding Films in our area, and yet not enough people to meet that demand. In our local area exists some guys who had been doing it for many years, and were able to provide a very traditional approach to filming a wedding, but there were not a lot of companies that would cover the day with a more cinematic flare. This need combined with my wife's insatiable appetite for watching wedding videos created our business.

We filmed our first wedding with a Panasonic SD-700 and a Panasonic SD-900. Fantastic camcorders for our first time. (We have changed cameras quite a few time before we ended up with GH3s.) We filmed a lot, maybe a lot more than we needed but we made sure we got everything we needed. We arrived early and left much later than we had planned for, but overall we are still delighted with our first film we put out. We used a RODE Videomic for the sound and generally this worked well. Where it was not so good, was when we used it directionally over one of the guests tables during the speeches. Had one of the children at the table sat somewhere else we might have picked up more of the Grooms' speech but the lesson learned was that always get your mics as close to your subjects as possible. Buy a Zoom H1, a little stand, and place it in front of your people on the top table. Sync later on and now you are free to focus on the shot and not worry about the sound. Want to be even more professional, get a wireless mic set up like the sennheiser G3 wireless kit. Mic your groom and feed the sound direct to the camera. Now you can monitor the sound through the camera.

One of the other lessons we learned at our first few weddings was how important it is to be FAST. Using tripods all day for every shot is going to make you slow. If you are not slow, then you will be squint (not level). We quickly learned that a Monopod with the added stability of some little feet was going to be our solution. Have a look at this topic....

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/7003/monopods-with-legs#

This allowed us to be quick but not at the expense of stability. In my opinion there is no excuse for going handheld all day, unless you are going for that specifically "documentary" type style. We still use tripods, but only for the Live stuff. Ceremony, Speeches and the evening dance. However we have other cameras that we use on monopods during these times and the tripod stuff is mostly used as a fall back shot (a shot to cut away to when you don't have anything else). Don't try to save money on tripods, a £35 Hama job is going to be a struggle and just bite the bullet and go for the well-known names. We use Manfrotto, not to say that they are the best, but it happened more organically. We bought a manfrotto tripod and then when we got quick plates for all our cameras we then wanted to make sure all the other tripods had the same quick release mechanism. You need to be able to go from tripod, to monopod and then back to tripod fast. So if you do buy lots of different brands of tripods or monopods, you are going to have to buy lots of quick release adaptors. Such as this one.....

http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/eng/product/calumet_quick_release_video_head_adapter/ck9007

You will need Lights, whether you go for the fill the room with light tactic, or maybe the more subtle approach, a good light is going to give your footage the added clarity it needs. Handycams and low-light are a disaster without good light. Just search for video LED light and make sure it has at least 160 LEDs or above for a reasonable amount of light. Watch out for size though, if you want it mounted to your camera hotshoe, dont go too big. If you intend to put it on its own stand, then think about how you are going to connect it, power it and operate it.

Backups, backups, backups. Always think, what if this doesnt work? Have another camera running, use one more sound recorder. Take plenty of batteries, cards and more cameras if you can afford to. Dont go small with cards, if you can afford it, save yourself a lot of hassle by buying big (64gb) and trusting a good name like Sandisk. Brandless types make me very nervous.

Putting equipment aside, there is only one bit of advice I can offer that is more interpersonal related. No matter what happens on the day, try your best to stay calm and in control. Nobody wants to see the video guy getting stressed while he screams at the guests to just hold still for one more second. Things will break, shots will go wrong, photographers will get in the way, but through it all you need to be relaxed and able to deal with whatever is presented to you. (I'm still practicsing this bit :S)

Well, im going to leave it at that just now and see what other contributions we get. I joined this forum about a year ago and it has been my one stop shop for help, advice, information and inspiration. I hope that maybe I can pass this on in some way to someone else who was in my same position.

My needs is lightness, quality and look, I do not like that look digital lenses.

• At first I thought the Nokton 25mm 0.95 seems a superb lens, but I think it would have to last much saving, keep in mind that no cinema live, my investment is to make my short films that also costing my pocket and projects future.

• The PanaLeica 25mm 1.4 lens seems interesting, but almost all the references I find are still photo and price does not seem so high. Does anyone have references to the?

• The other option was the SLR Magic 35mm T1.4, but I read of problems for autofocus.

• While I have read that the Samyang is not recommended.

• I think SLR Magic comes with a 35mm and a 25mm both t0.95, but I think his price will be close to Nokton.

Thanks in advance!

I'm saving up for a G85, and with that I'm looking for a new 4k screen.

The screen is going to be used as a monitor for my pc. I like to have 40" +.

My priorities are:

1. viewing angle
2. colour accuracy
3. NON flickering when set to low brightness
4. latency
5. HDR ready

My budget hovers about € 700.

Any recommendations?

• Thanks!

We can argue whether it’s easier or harder for the young cinematographers today to display their work to the wide audience. No matter which point of view each of us takes, we can agree over one thing – it’s definitely very different today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. In a video by Cooke OpticsTV, some of the world’s most renowned cinematographers discuss the advantages and disadvantages of being a young cinematographer today.

Cooke Optics interviewed Paul Cameron (Westworld, Collateral), Roberto Schaefer (The Kite Runner, Monster’s Ball), Michael Seresin (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Angela’s Ashes) and Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire, Snowden), asking them about the opportunities and drawbacks young cinematographers have today. Considering that they have been in the industry for several decades, it’s very interesting to hear their opinions.

ADVANTAGES

• You’re young: according to Paul Cameron, the advantage of being young is simply that – you’re young. I believe this means you simply have more energy to make an effort to rise to the top and succeed.

• Editing tools are more available: another advantage young cinematographers have today is that everything is available. You can make a 4K video directly on your cell phone, transfer it to the computer immediately and do all the necessary editing right after the shooting. A few years ago, Nokia even ran a competition for short movies made by cell phones.

• Video equipment is more available: the choice of the equipment is also much larger today, and video recording devices are simply available to more people. This means that it’s easier for those with an idea to create something and share it with the world.

• It’s easier to reach people: if you are cinematographer today, it’s much more probable that you’ll get the message out than it used to be. Even if you don’t reach the wider audience straight away, there are so many channels you can use to display your work, reach people and gain audience. This is one more thing veteran cinematographers didn’t have.

DISADVANTAGES

The main disadvantage is in a way connected to the advantages, and it’s the matter of availability: availability increases competition. While the availability of video equipment and editing tools can be a good thing, at the same time, it can also be a disadvantage. Wider availability means more people can and want to be cinematographers. As Roberto Schaefer points out, everyone thinks they are a cinematographer (photographers, does this sound familiar?). This means that the competition is much bigger, and it may be more difficult to get attention, showcase your work to a wider audience and achieve success.

At the end, the interviewed videographers advise the young ones to work, to study from the professionals and from their own experience, and to do their best. As Paul Cameron suggests – good cinematographers do rise to the top.

Banding:

example: i´m shooting a sunset with the gh2

1. set the proyect settings to 16bit
2. double the layer
3. on the upper layer isolate the banding area, can be rotoscoped, or keyed out, in this example is easy to key out the sky as it is only made of one color
4. on the bottom layer use a blur effect

--pros: it truly gets rids of the banding

--cons: is useful only for soft areas with not much detail, but then again, banding almost always appears only on these areas

Dynamic range:

example: im shooting an actor on a bedroom, and a window is in frame, therefore i´m in backlight against the sun, so either i blow up the window or i underexpose for the actor, unless i increase the light of the bedroom, i have to choose, here is a trick:

1. Camera must be stationary (over a tripod)
2. Shoot the scene, exposing for the talent
3. Without changing the frame, shoot again with no actor, exposing for the window
4. Mix both shoots on the editor, rotoscoping the window against the actor.

--pros: increases the dynamic range of a camera, gives more information for color grading

--cons: the camera shouldnt move, and rotoscoping is tedious

I've got a local band interested in shooting a music video or two with me after I showed them some footage I got of a small gig of there's shot handheld live with a single camera.

I need to flesh it out with them some more, just exactly what sort of things they're looking for but thought it'd be a nice thing to ask if anyone here had any tips about attempting my first one?

I think we'll be shooting multiple takes with the band miming over the top of a sync track which will be used for the actual audio in the final video. I guess I'm wondering first about the best way to tackle the syncing issue. I'll record with the camera the sound in the room so should be able to here this sync track and sync all the clips to the actual music properly before I start editing... Wondering the best way to go about that tho, obviously can't rely on a clapperboard as such, and when the artists start miming to the track I'll likely hear they're instruments over the sync track so I wonder if having a small bit of un-mimed to music at the front of every take may be the best idea for having something clear to sync with.

I'll try to edit with FCPX, I guess it's multicam work of sorts, not sure if that update dropped.

Who knows how it'll go, I look forward to trying, and would greatly appreciate any suggestions from anyone else on here who's more experienced in these matters.

Cheers

Jim

I'm always shooting my video in 24p mode, which I'm guessing is the reason that any form of still shot whilst shooting video is impossible. A bit of a shame.

I was using my Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95 and was experiencing quite a few rubbish shots when trying to take them in program mode. I guess it wasn't working out so well having no control over the aperture. In the end i was forced to go for shutter priority and dial in something fast enough to be sharp... 1/40th or faster basically. I believe then i still had problems with auto ISO, and ended up having to manually dial in isos to get a result that looked close to what i wanted.

It seems quite a struggle really. I'm assuming with coded lenses the experience would have gone a lot more smoother?

I have a few wedding shoots coming up in the next few months, and i wonder if i could manage to shoot stills and video all with just the GH2.. if not i'll rely back on my old trusty Nikon D3 for stills, but i just don't look forward to the hassle and weight of that, as well as the GH2!

Anyone got any tips?

Cheers!