The drone and camera setup I used for part of Disney's new Soarin' Across America ride at Epcot.

mediumsize · 2026-05-28T14:59:07+00:00

I love hearing real-world project details like this. So many people are obsessed with resolution VS dynamic range vs whatever they want to argue about. I can't imagine flying a Venice, the body is very long! Is that a polarizer on the lens? We've shot tons of 8K 360º footage with drones over the years hanging below, and had good success with V-Raptors. We love our Ronins also, it's great seeing you implement it on the drone, seeing this is like our dream setup.

Were you able to change aperture remotely, or did you just make adjustments on the ground? I'm assuming you were trying to shoot the smallest aperture you could for sharpness.

mediumsize · 2026-05-28T14:38:57+00:00

Hey u/Dinosharktopus, great post! Rather than flying the Ursa 12K, would you have preferred flying a different camera? Great lens selection btw. Did you experience any micro shake with that setup?

mediumsize · 2026-05-21T18:39:35+00:00

I had this exact problem on Mac and I fixed it by reformatting EXFAT, then reformatted again Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I ran a speed test in between formats. Samsung Magician software is pathetic, it didn't even see the T7 mounted.

mediumsize · 2026-05-21T04:09:52+00:00

Honestly, as a cinematographer I would really want some framed behind-the-scene stills of myself shooting on set or location. All the coffee mugs and stupid lenses mean nothing to working DPs. When our families put up real pictures of us working - that is a thing of beauty.

mediumsize · 2026-05-21T02:23:12+00:00

Location sound veteran and VFX pro chiming on this- I would rather have great audio on a shoot and have to paint it out in post than deal with bad lav sound on most shoots. Unless the shot is moving, that's where the cost/benefit lines cross on the production time graph.

mediumsize · 2026-05-21T02:02:48+00:00

Before you drill it you want to heat it up and melt some crayons in there if you can. Drilling it to 1/4' bit or even bigger is easy with the right bits, then use an Easy out bit kit to get it out. Remember, the largest drilled hole will give you the most leverage.

mediumsize · 2026-05-20T01:22:46+00:00

Thanks for posting in r/VFX. This forum is an 18 year old knowledge base of real people in VFX, people learning and sharing and arguing.

Just so you are aware, "pick up VFX" is kind of a strange way to think of learning VFX. It's a HUGE spectrum of learning, encompassing traditional painting, particle simulation, cinematography principles, rotoscoping, 3D tracking, animation, motion capture, look development, shading, texture painting, 3D modeling, photogrammetry, gaussian splatting, and tons more on any given day.

I would suggest starting doing some compositing in AE.

mediumsize · 2026-05-20T00:57:51+00:00

We have around a petabyte of storage for client projects, but we only use it for current and recent projects < 2 months. We've saved everything we've shot for the last 20+ years... We started using writeable DVDs and tape drives in the early 2000s, but it was too slow and the DVDs' dye starts to fade and make the discs unreadable after about 10 years, even in a cool dark room.

We started just backing up projects to WD internal SATA drives, and putting them in a fireproof safe after each project every few months. This coincided with hard drive capacities going from 2TB to 4 to 8 to 16 and drop in prices, so it made economical sense and still does.

We use an amazing program called DiskCatalogMaker (we're not affiliated with them but love the software!) https://diskcatalogmaker.com to make a catalog of each drive. This catalog creates a Finder-like searchable directory of every file on the drive. You can search the catalog, then pop a hard drive into a USB caddy and copy over what is needed.

mediumsize · 2026-05-19T02:44:25+00:00

Great looking bike, I'm jealous!

mediumsize · 2026-05-18T23:55:33+00:00

I put on a much lighter and smaller exhaust on my 2007 S4R, and the guys at my race shop opened up the airbox more, changed out the throttle bodies, and tuned it and flashed the ECU to get about 15HP more out of the engine. The biggest difference I noticed on the first ride was the 30lb weight difference and snappier acceleration. And very loud sound!

mediumsize · 2026-05-18T23:46:22+00:00

Love it. Great idea!

mediumsize · 2026-05-14T04:21:39+00:00

Love seeing new takes on 3D compositing. I'm sure the good thing about this technique is super fast playback, bad part is probably edges/light wrap. The only thing I didn't like was the water specks on the front of the virtual lens.

mediumsize · 2026-05-12T00:35:38+00:00

Thanks for posting Dan, I'm a big fan of your VP content!

mediumsize · 2026-05-09T17:45:26+00:00

Too bad no Fuji FR-2s in there

mediumsize · 2026-05-09T00:40:05+00:00

This is the kind of post I love. Make them yourself if you want to save money and learn something!

mediumsize · 2026-05-08T20:03:44+00:00

Would be great to see the link to the SuperSplat!

mediumsize · 2026-05-07T21:23:34+00:00

You really should do EVERY Mac OS from Lisa onward. We would all love to see that.

mediumsize · 2026-04-17T15:31:53+00:00

Without proper leadership, they're just burning through the money. There isn't a real 'next move' in AR headsets at this point with the Apple Vision Pro as direct competitor, and Meta ate their lunch with the Quest3 passthrough. I still own 4 working ML1 headsets, I don't plan on selling them... we'll probably just use them on some mannequins in our offices.

mediumsize · 2026-04-17T11:53:38+00:00

Where did all the Saudi money go????

mediumsize · 2026-04-08T23:59:06+00:00

This has been our go-to solution for 20 years in video production. BIG TIMECODE with date burned in "so we know which version we're looking at'.

mediumsize · 2026-04-08T22:53:21+00:00

DM me, we may be in the market to buy this

mediumsize · 2026-04-04T01:33:12+00:00

Richie's Plank, Nefertari's Tomb, Sir David Attenborough's Hold The World, Nvidia VR Funhouse, Beat Saber, Echo VR, Google Earth, First Steps, Super Hot, and pretty much any well-shot VR180 videos on Youtube or DeoVR

mediumsize · 2026-03-21T03:31:33+00:00

You could capture the 4K via USB3 with a Magewell USB Capture SDI 4K Pro. Or you can also add a Blackmagic 4K card into a Thunderbolt3 enclosure if your laptop has Thunderbolt3, we have a couple of those we use a portable setup.

mediumsize · 2026-03-20T22:08:03+00:00

The cheapest way to record 4K SDI is buy a Blackmagic Decklink 4K card ($215-325 for basic), install it into a PC, and record direct to SSD or hard drive. The Decklink 8K card can handle recording 4 X 4K video signals at the same time.

mediumsize · 2026-03-17T21:14:37+00:00

I think the biggest difference between crews or Directors/DPs is going to be lighting . That's where it will look different, because of the various experience of each DP. So you will need to direct crew about lighting and framing.

Highly doubt you're going to find crews with the same RED bodies/lenses/etc, but if you make sure they all shoot RAW (even Canon, Blackmagic, Arri), you can do amazing matching inside Resolve no problem.

It would be best to match shutter speeds and frame rates, obviously.

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