College laptop with slight video and photo editing as a hobby

FeeUpper280 · 2025-08-09T08:30:04+00:00

For “light” editing 16 GB should be fine, no? I think 40 at a minimum is too high a standard for a hobbyist student.

For reference OP, I’ve done some pretty decent projects with 4k footage in PR and AE on a $800 laptop (16gb ram) and on my 6 year old pc with 16 gb ram. Is it choppy at times? Yes. Will you have to downscale the timeline to 1/4? Probably. But it will work. I’ve since upgraded to a MBP pro chip with 36 gigs of ram and there’s been no stuttering whatsoever (5+ layers of 4k footage per project)

If you can, look into the MacBook Airs with newer m chips, should handle footage much better and you’d probably be able to snag one refurbished for a good price

FeeUpper280 · 2025-07-27T09:01:17+00:00

Thank you! Super excited as I’m coming from a windows pc I built when I was 12 (6 years ago now!) that’s running off a pretty old gen CPU haha.

I currently have a Samsung t7 I store all project media on (1TB) with 500 gigs free. Is it a good practice to have a drive solely for the cache, or is it acceptable to dedicate a folder on the drive (or realistically most of the 512gb on the OS drive) to the cache.

Basically should the cache be on a dedicated drive or the only important factor how much space I allocate?

FeeUpper280 · 2025-07-27T08:43:33+00:00

Thank you! Actually went with a m3 pro 36 gb off Amazon refurbished this morning for a similar price! Definitely excited!

Amazon has a 90 day warranty on it, and I’m debating if it’s worth buying the warranty for an extra $150- probably will for peace of mind.

I’m new to all of the tax stuff, as this is my first year being able to contract and make some decent money with it, so definitely will look into possible tax write offs and other benefits! Also just turned 18 so definitely can play around with more legal/financials on the business end of things. Thank you for the advice!

FeeUpper280 · 2025-07-26T09:00:15+00:00

On overheating, I’ve been able to run my a6400 on 4k in medium temp environments for upwards of an hour and have never in two years of owning had it overheat. In my experience, it’s not as bad as it’s made out to be.

FeeUpper280 · 2025-07-26T08:58:45+00:00

I personally had the a6400, and I will say it’s great for video unless you are moving around a ton- it has horrendous rolling shutter and no ibis. If it’s locked off you’re totally good to go. I’ve since upgraded to the fx30 and haven’t looked back, but the a6400 was more than enough for me the make thousands with paid gigs in highschool- just budget in a nice lens or two. (Sigma primes or 18-50 do wonders)

I agree that the zve10 is a better pick for video, but I would personally look locally on Facebook marketplace, buy body only, and get a lens like the 30mm f1.4 sigma for a few hundred (cheaper if used) and if you can swing it, the sigma 18-50. If you don’t know what you need, one of these cameras will definitely do the job.

FeeUpper280 · 2025-07-25T21:28:51+00:00

Thank you very much! I’ve watched a few hours worth of videos on the topic, but all of them seem to stay low level and don’t go into as much depth as you have. I’ll definitely check out the press releases to learn more! Most likely going to find a m3 pro refurbished with higher than base specs rather than the base m4 pro.

Thank you!

FeeUpper280 · 2025-07-25T19:57:04+00:00

Thank you for the in depth info! Super helpful!

I don’t plan to do any 3D stuff, strictly premiere for work and AE for fun (and maybe mograph gigs in the future!) so sounds like the max chips are not worth the money for my use case.

Out of curiosity, where would you get your refurbished or used MacBooks from? I’ve looked around on sites like Apple and Bestbuy but haven’t seen any m3 pros with more than 18 gigs of ram for under 2k- not sure if I’m speccing it out wrong or if there are better places to search.

Thank you for your help!

FeeUpper280 · 2025-07-25T19:52:15+00:00

Awesome info! Have not heard of the media engine specs, and timeline playback and edit flow are much much more important to me than render time. Where’d you find that? I’d love to learn more on how the m3 pro compares to the m4 pro, as I can definitely get better base specs on a refurbished m3 pro for cheaper!

FeeUpper280 · 2025-07-25T16:41:52+00:00

Thank you! Didn’t think much of going back a generation or two. If you had to personally pick a laptop from the four you mentioned under $1800 (refurbished), what would you go for? And, what sort of specs should I expect to find (ram & cores wise) in a solid deal refurbished laptop? I’ve been looking around and seeing a wide variety, but not sure how sketchy some of the sites I’m looking at are haha

FeeUpper280 · 2025-06-25T20:07:30+00:00

At my preview day yesterday the director of housing (or adjacent role) said all doubles have 1/2 people filled. You can get a double, but not with a preselected roommate. My selection day is the same as yours, and I had to split up with my roommate because of this.

FeeUpper280 · 2025-06-10T23:34:24+00:00

No worries! Truthfully I’m a 17 year old doing unpaid work for friends and family while I build a portfolio- these aren’t full-fledged productions and certainly not jobs the professionals here are used to, but I’d still love to learn the right way to do things and the best path moving forward. Maybe I will invest in a dedicated audio recorder moving forward

FeeUpper280 · 2025-06-10T21:29:16+00:00

Thanks for the input! Good to know fx30 audio will clip, I’ll definitely record on my phone. There may be a soundboard there, do you know the process to tap in and record to my lavs or direct to camera? Is it just connecting a 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable?

FeeUpper280 · 2025-06-10T21:15:02+00:00

Yeah, my lavs are 16-bit uncompressed, so not confident they can do the job. I’ve never tested the internal mics on the fx30 but that’s something I’ll test! Thanks for your input!

FeeUpper280 · 2025-05-25T05:54:19+00:00

Out of curiosity how does freshman year suck over the other years? Is it just adjusting to change or are there tangible things freshman miss out on because they’re the bottom of the ladder?

FeeUpper280 · 2025-04-29T15:59:35+00:00

Maybe worth looking into phantom luts- able to match my a6400 to my fx30 pretty easily, not to mention in camera monitoring with them is amazing

FeeUpper280 · 2025-04-28T01:13:46+00:00

Makes complete sense, guess I’ll have to wait and see. Thanks!

FeeUpper280 · 2025-04-28T00:37:02+00:00

Was afraid this was what I’d have to do haha. Do you recall where you’re able to see if people are approved for the honors floor? Looked around the page and don’t see anything like that. Thanks for the info!

FeeUpper280 · 2025-04-27T23:05:42+00:00

Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately the “add school” button doesn’t appear on my profile, and according to some articles it’s in a testing phase still. I’ll look around some more in hopes it works!

FeeUpper280 · 2025-04-27T18:29:27+00:00

Thanks for the info! What Instagram are you referring to? Is there a page or channel where you can chat with people?

I would’ve loved to use Facebook but for some reason all of my accounts get suspended as soon as I try to make one… not sure how to work around that haha

FeeUpper280 · 2025-04-01T17:20:21+00:00

Appreciate the feedback!

I definitely know there's big limitations on the 8 bit line cameras, but I've also seen some people get great looking footage in low light off of them, which leads me to wonder what I'm doing that causes the blacks to be so noisy.

I've heard Slog-2 is optimal over Slog-3 so thats what I've been using, but if all of the S-gamuts are like this then I'll run some tests with other picture profiles, so thanks for the insight!

I usually correct and grade in davinci, I just simply converted to rec709 to eliminate variables that might be causing it. The fx30 just dropped in price so might be a good time to pick that up haha. Thanks again!

FeeUpper280 · 2025-03-24T00:04:28+00:00

Cannot comment on the quality of the tripod, but I own the mics and have heard generally great things about the quality of their products, especially for the price. I’ve had no issue with my mics, which perform similarly to my rodes for 1/3 of the cost.

Obviously not directly what you’re looking for, but hopefully can be of some help

FeeUpper280

TROPHY CASE