I Tried the ATEM Mini Extreme ISO

Ant Pruitt December 6, 2021

The folks at Blackmagic Design were kind enough to send me an ATEM Mini Extreme ISO* to play with for a couple of weeks. MAAAAAAN this device. . .I won’t say much here. Just watch my video below. But before you watch the video, check out the tech specs:

8 inputs
2 USB-C outputs
Supersource
ISO recording
Camera controls for BlackMagic Design cameras

*Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.

Black Friday Discounts for Photographers

Ant Pruitt November 22, 2021

So it’s holiday shopping season and time for #BlackFriday deals. I just got an email from my friends at Lensrentals* which I think is a pretty good deal for photographers and content creators. I’m sure some of you are working shoots and projects for the holidays. So now is a good time to take advantage of the discounts offered. If you’re not working on a project during the holidays, no worries. You can still get the discount for items delivered by February 25, 2022.

The deals

So if you’d like to rent some gear, head over to the site here* and add the items to your cart. Then at checkout, enter code LRBF2021. That code will get you 20% off your order.

If you’re looking to BUY items from Lensrentals*, you can take advantage of their new “Keeper” program and get 10% off your order with code KPRBF2021. The Keeper program is pretty cool because items are discounted since they’re used. And in my experience, the gear I rent from Lensrentals* is always in GREAT shape regardless of how old the gear is.

I’ve been eyeballing a particular Sigma lens* to use with my Pocket Cinema Camera 6K. I’ve used it before for portrait work, but never for video. Part of me just wants to go ahead and buy it. We’ll see. That’s the beauty of renting first. Anyway, check out the deals. Let me know what you end up ordering.

*Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.

Sound Devices MixPre Firmware Update Available

Ant Pruitt November 8, 2021

If you’re using a MixPre audio recorder from Sound Devices, the company released an updated firmware today. Get firmware version 7.15 from the website here.

Update details

As mentioned on the site. The update addresses the following:

Last digit of the elapsed record time no longer displays incorrectly when the recording is longer than one hour.

Take numbers are now correctly reset to 001 if the take name is changed and the MixPre is power cycled before recording.
Loud pop in the headphone monitor no longer occurs when entering playback while monitoring an isolated channel.
Rare events where a channel suddenly experiences a brief crackle no longer occur.

I’ve not had any problems with the one I use for work. I love this dadgum thing. The dynamic range on it really helps getting audio dialed in for the show. Even though I’ve not had any issues, I’ll still update the firmware just to be safe.

Photoshop on the Web? Yes Please: Adobe Max 2021 Announcements

Ant Pruitt October 26, 2021

Happy Adobe Max Day, everyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I come off as a huge fanboy. So be it. I like what I like and the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription* works for me for most things I do in my day-to-day professional life. With that said, Adobe began its annual conference aimed to educate and inspire the content creators of the world. The keynote presentation is always noteworthy with some big updates to its software offerings. Let’s take a look at those new updates.

Photoshop Is Pretty Much Everywhere

The Adobe Sensei AI engine continues to improve as it will offer more tools to help speed up the photo post-processing workflow with just a few clicks. Creating selections in Photoshop gets easier as you can now hover over objects and preview what a selection would be in your artwork. There’s also more neural filters in place to help with enhancing landscape images beyond sky replacements. Lightroom also gets some new AI love. What excites me the most is a forth-coming (beta) Photoshop web interface with the help of a more collaborative Creative Cloud. This is all about speeding up the collaboration process as well as aid in helping train up someone you’re mentoring. Collaborators can use the browser to do some basic editing or provide feedback to the artist. No Creative Cloud account required for the collaborator. More on this beta and other photography app updates is available here on the Adobe blog.

Slick Update for Vloggers in Premiere Pro

Premiere Pro has had a few updates earlier in the year pointing towards performance and useful tools for your final video composition. Let’s face it, video is becoming more and more prominent the world of communication and branding. Platforms like YouTube and TikTok will favor your videos if you have certain behind-the-scenes elements in place with your workflow in addition to creating captivating stories to keep your viewers on their platform. Vloggers and film makers will love the updates. As a vlogger wanting to have music bed in their video, but the music track doesn’t quite match the length of the video. It’s a horrible experience to try to tastefully trim music to a video with cuts and trimming of the audio track. Now audio remix, which is found in Adobe Audition, is available in Premiere Pro. This is a great tool in Audition. Good news is this is coming to Premiere Pro. Bad news is this is a beta release.

Another useful update is the “simplified timeline” AI that’s available in Premiere Pro. This is yet another tool aimed at making collaboration more efficient. For some, a video sequence timeline can become quite messy when piecing together tracks, effects and markers. If the project is a team project, it may be helpful to minimize all the extraneous markers and layers when a collaborator is reviewing the sequence. Simplified Timeline does just that without destroying the project. This feature is available in the new update. More on the video updates from Adobe can be found here.

There are other updates available to the Creative Cloud suite this week. In Design, Illustrator, Character Animator and more received updates. I didn’t get into them all because, I don’t use those apps as often. But if you’re interested, more news on the all the Adobe updates can be found here on the Adobe blog.

Did you sign up for Adobe Max? I hope so. It’s FREE and full of information to help you better understand some creative concepts and fundamentals, as well as get a better grip on the Creative Cloud suite of apps.

(*) Affiliate link used. When you use my affiliate links, I receive a small commission from your purchase at no additional cost to you as the consumer. Thank you for your support

Sony's "Basic" A7 Isn't So "Basic" Now: Sony A7 IV Full-frame Mirrorless Camera

Ant Pruitt October 21, 2021

The rumored Sony A7 IV is now here for pre-order. Sony has kicked up the standards when it comes to what a “base model” full-frame camera can offer its consumers. Really great specs announced with the A7 IV.

Tech Specs

With this new camera body you’re getting a full-frame 33 megapixel sensor with Sony’s updated BIONZ XR image processor. You’re also getting:

4K 60 frames per second 10-bit 4:2:2 video with full pixel readout
7K oversampling full-frame 4K 30p 4:2:2
Eye auto focus for humans, animals and birds
S-Cinetone, S-Log3, HLG and other video profiles to record your footage
Up to 15 stops of dynamic range
Dual SD card slots (1 for UHS-I/II cards, 1 for both UHS-I/II cards and CFExpress Type A cards)
10 frames person second shooting still
Flip-out touch screen on the back
5-axis in-body stabilization

This body is available for $2499 on pre-order*. That price point seems fair considering the massive spec bump shown in this body compared to previous models. Compact, light weight which makes it great for portability. Of course I’ve reached out to see if I can get my hands on one. I’m curious to see how this body will feel in my hands. The A7C did NOT feel good in my hands, but the A7R-IV and A1 felt great in my hands. What are your thoughts on the Sony A7 IV?

**Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.

Vegas Creative Software Gets Updated

Ant Pruitt August 19, 2021

Am I an Adobe Creative Cloud user? Yup. Unapologetically. Am I someone that looks into other software tools that can help me with my content creation? Yup. So yeah, there are some other apps in the video creation world beyond Adobe Premiere Pro, One of those options being Vegas, which has been recently been updated.

All about the color grade

Last year, Vegas Creative had a big push in using AI in the creative workflow. In the latest release, version 19, the push is more about tweaking the user experience in addition to harnessing the power of AI and the cloud. More on the cloud in a moment.

Vegas 19 has added a more intuitive design of its app with a new color grading interface designed to make the color grading experience more efficient. The new color wheels are range-limited with precision control so you can target certain hues and tones to make your grade pop on the screen. Vegas Creative has also included 40 professionally developed LUTs based on different cameras and trendy looks seen in films today.

Unlike what I mentioned regarding Premiere Pro’s recent update, Vegas Pro video editor touts a text TO speech engine. Not the other way around. This tool generates natural-sounding voices from any text source fed into it. I’ve not tried this, but it sounds pretty badass. It’s only available in the Pro and Post package, by the way. Also, if you’re a Blackmagic Design shooter like me, Vegas Creative has announced beta support for the BRAW codec. THAT’s awesome. Raw video is so much better in post-processing when it comes to color grading and dynamic range.

So what’s the price of this stuff?

Pricing for Vegas Creative software varies upon each product SKU. You’re not locked to a subscription model, but you can choose to be a subscriber if you’d like. Each package includes cloud storage depending upon which package you choose. Vegas Edit is $12.99 per month or $249 for a perpetual license. Vegas Pro is $19.99 per month or $399 for a perpetual license. Vegas Post is $29.99 per month or $599 for a perpetual license. You can see a comparison between the packages here. All the other specs and goodies are listed there. It’s pretty extensive.

New Sony ZV-E10 Camera Announced for Video Creators and Vloggers

Ant Pruitt July 30, 2021

I’m still catching up on my emails, press releases and what not, but I didn’t want to go another day without acknowledging the latest offering from Sony. Sony has announced the new ZV-E10 camera. This is a bit of a step up from the ZV-1 that I reviewed last year. Here’s the tech info on it.

Interchangeable lens and “new” image sensor

So the ZV-1 was a point and shoot with capabilities to be a vlogging camera. This is not a point and shoot as it now has the option to swap out lenses. You’re also getting a larger sensor via the APS-C standard at 24 megapixels.

You’ll also get improved autofocus, UHD without pixel binning, 100Mpbs when recording UHD, 120 frames per second for slow motion in HD, time lapse mode and multiple picture profiles such as S-Log3 for optimal color grading of video.

It comes in two colors: black and white. Pricing and availability is “approximately $800,” per Sony and shipping at the end of August 2021. You can go ahead and get your pre-order in with my friends at Adorama right here.*

I’ve already gotten my request in for a demo unit, so stay tuned for that. I’m not the biggest fan of small cameras, but they do have their place. I get that. Stay tuned.

*Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.

Adobe Announces July 2021 Update For Video Creators and More

Ant Pruitt July 20, 2021

Adobe announced it’s forth-coming updates to many of its Creative Cloud software that’s bound to make the workflow of a content creator even better, but also, better for the consumers of the content being created. There’s quite a bit coming in the world of video and animation, but also the graphics world. I’ll share a few details of those updates. Let’s start with Premiere Pro and captions.

Captions and Transcriptions in Premiere Pro

Adobe previously implemented some AI tech to help get transcription in video products, but this is now updated and ready to go with the July 2021. I watched a demo from Mr. Patrick Palmer showing off the new features of seamlessly creating captions and subtitles with Adobe Sensei AI. Subtitles in particular are becoming more and more popular today because many people struggle with impaired hearing concerns.

A faster experience in After Effects (beta)

I’ve used After Effects here and there for simple motion graphics and noise reduction in video. And I gotta tell ya, After Effects is SLOW when it comes to pre-rendering your footage during your edit. Some things are faster than others, but it can still be a bit of a bear unless you have quality hardware running the app. Yes, Adobe announced a performance boost, as usual, but this is a bit different as After Effects will now do speculative rendering in the background. This is useful if you’re in the middle of dialing in your effects controls and parameters. No more adjusting a parameter, hitting enter to render, seeing that the parameter didn’t quite work, changing the parameter, hitting enter to render and hoping you got it right. This is a beta preview, but coming soon.

More for your iPad with Adobe Fresco

The beautiful painting/digital art app Fresco has been updated providing more tools for the creative artist. Similar to Photoshop on iPad, Fresco allows the artist to work in layers. The ability to move objects and change blend modes are key to getting the art to really come together. Adobe has enhanced this with better functionality in moving and rotating items as well as adding grid tools. More on this app found on the Adobe blog post, here.

Adobe has its full rundown of updates across it suite of apps via separate blog posts. Check out more on the Premiere Pro updates here, After Effects here, Fresco here, and Character Animator here. No, I didn’t get into the improved support for Apple M1 chips because that’s to be expected. But I DO want to give kudos to Adobe for becoming part of the Blender Development fund. Blender is an amazing 3D modeling app that’s FREE. It’s nice seeing proprietary companies giving back to the open source community.

As usual, if you’re interested in signing up for the Adobe Creative Cloud, you can do so for as little as $10 per month using my affiliate link.

CANON C70: Not Your Average Cinema Camera

Ant Pruitt July 8, 2021

So for about two weeks, I had the chance to play around with the Canon C70* cinema camera. I wish I had more time with it because during those two weeks, I was pretty busy with some other stuff. Lol! Funny how that works out, right? Anyway, I shot a segment for our show Hands On Tech at work regarding this camera from Canon. It’s a 4K cinema camera* that’s built about like a beefy DSLR. Click on the image below to check out my video and thoughts on this. I appreciate Canon* showing me some love by sending over the loaner for me to play with. I appreciate all of you supporting me and the content I create. Be well, yall. Do well, yall.

#CreateAndDominate

(*) Affiliate link used. When you use my affiliate links, I receive a small commission from your purchase at no additional cost to you as the consumer. Thank you for your support

Adobe "Modernizes" Premiere Pro With New Beta UI

Ant Pruitt June 22, 2021

Most content creators are familiar with Adobe’s video creation tool, Premiere Pro*. Yes, there’s a bit of a love hate relationship with this software, but it really does do a good job making high quality video creation accessible to many. The UI has been fine for me, but apparently, Adobe and the community thought the user interface could be improved. So, the Adobe video team is doing just that via a public beta.

Phase 1 of the beta update: removing the techno mumbo jumbo

When launching Premiere Pro, the existing opening dialog to create a new project is fairly extensive. You have the open to name the file, but then you also have scratch disk, ingest and processing options to address. Most of the items on that opening dialog really isn’t needed just to “create” a new project. Adobe and the community has realized that and is getting rid of this information. Adobe is streamlining this opening dialog for a more visual interface allowing you to see your media and set necessary project parameters on one screen instead of multiple tabs. It ALMOST looks like the opening screen of Premiere Rush. Almost.

Once you’re into your project, the timeline interface and workspace looks fairly similar with a few tweaks to the menus and panel headings. For example, the main header bar is not as big as it used to be. This now gives you a few more pixels of screen space for your source and program monitors. Adobe states that this is an effort to not only give a few more pixels of screen real estate, but also an effort to unify the user experience (UX) across other Adobe products such as Photoshop, Lightroom and After Effects.

Exporting the content you create is very similar to the Premiere Rush interface. You get a couple presets to handle the export based on the platform where the content will be viewed. Video formatting varies from platform to platform. Having presets allows your content to be viewed in its best format on the platform without a bunch of compression and artifacts.

As a Premiere Pro* user, I will have to ease into the new redesign. I’m a creature of habit when it comes to using my creative apps. Heck my current layout of Premiere Pro has a custom workspace that I set up to better fit my needs. Fortunately, this will still be an option for us old dogs struggling to learn new tricks.

This is only the first phase of the new interface redesign. Adobe didn’t specify a timeline for subsequent phases, but wanted to reiterate that phase one is all about getting started with a project as well as the export process. Adobe did mention that more updates are coming to the Lumetri color panel as well as background video rendering beyond using Adobe Media Encoder software. Find out more about the beta here on the Adobe blog.

(*) Affiliate link used. When you use my affiliate links, I receive a small commission from your purchase at no additional cost to you as the consumer. Thank you for your support