Addendum:
Boyd01 makes the best point here. You just gotta get started now. The only wrong decision is not making one.
Boyd01 makes the best point here. You just gotta get started now. The only wrong decision is not making one.
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Final Cut Pro X vs. Adobe Premiere Pro vs. Other
- Thread starter TwoLaneHighway
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Do you think iPhone footage looks that bad?
Where does your Sony XDCAM-EX fall on the quality scale as far as digital recorders?
I have Filmic Pro but keep chickening out using it, because I find Apple's iOS Camera interface to be easier to use and faster to use on the fly.
I have considered eventually moving to either a mirrorless digital camera or a dedicated digital video camera, but for right now my iPhone seems to be yielding good results.
What exactly do you shoot, and can you talk more about how you feel the iPhone footage failed?
You are making me cringe since I just bought an iPhone 12 Pro Max for a DJI OM4 gimbal hat I also bought.
What do I do if I am stuck using a laptop for all video-editing?
Traveling around there is no practical way I could use an external monitor.
No, I have a pro shotgun mic and a wireless lav kit, plus a reporter mic. All XLR. I record into a Zoom H6 recorder.
But getting back to software, I understand you are trying to get an idea of your options. But at some point you need to just jump in and start making some decisions on your own. Geez, just install the free trial of Final Cut Pro, it is fully functional for 90 days. If you don't like it you can try the Davinci since it's free. IMO, you're over-thinking this. As a friend used to say "at some point, you just have to jump into the ocean".
True. True. I am just trying to do enough research so I don't waste time.
I would say at this point - thanks to everyone's comments here - I am 95% certain that Final Cut Pro X is a good place to start. (Unless it isn't!)
And all of this talk of M1's and external monitors and digital video cameras and color-grading is making me very nervous...
If I need all of that, then I'll never be able to do video editing.
It doesn't look "bad". For what it is it honestly looks incredible. The indie film Tangerine was also shot entirely on iPhone. An iPhone 4 or 5 or something like that even. But it's not exactly a Panasonic GH5, a Sony A7 or Cannon D5 or in the full pro end Red Dragon or Blackmagic URSA
I recommend you learn FiLMiC Pro before you get a DSLR honestly. Learning to set camera settings manually and understanding all of it well will help you with a DSLR and no better place to start than now. FiLMic Pro can also deliver higher bitrates and dynamic range than the standard camera app - though the dynamic range thing I don't know about when you shoot Dolby Vision with the standard app; Don't know if FiLMiC has an HDR solution yet. But it does allow you to shoot log footage.
You make the best you can with what you have. Besides, your laptop is a Mac. If you have to edit on a laptop display that's about as good as it gets almost. If you want to improve it without getting a brand new device you can look into calibration tools, but really - it doesn't matter right now. As long as you don't begin colour grading on a TN display with a colour space of 72%NTSC or something, it's fine, haha
Twisted Nematic. It's a display panel technology. About the only thing it's good at is high refresh rates. Image quality is crappy, viewing angles are *****. - Most Macs have IPS panels.
I'm sorry, my comments were a bit harsh. I think it could be fine for many things, especially if the whole piece is shot on phones. My problem was that it looked bad next to footage from a digital cinema camera with larger sensor, as though it came from a completely different world. The lack of depth of field is the thing that stands out the most, but that cannot be avoided with a tiny sensor. Apple's solution for this on the newer phones is "portrait mode" which uses their AI and lidar scanner to isolate objects in the foreground and apply a blur to the background. That is very impressive, but kind of funny since it involves a lot of computation and special hardware to do something that just happens naturally with a larger sensor.
But this feature doesn't work in video mode, only for stills. I read a rumor that the iPhone 13 (or maybe 14???) would allow video to be shot with this kind of processing. If they can pull that off, it has the potential to eliminate what is arguably the biggest problem with small sensors.
It falls in the "old" zone, as I mentioned, I got it in 2008. ? There are newer, fancier cameras in the XDCAM series, but I can't afford those.
Nevertheless, I still really like the image quality and am happy to work in 1080p. DSLR's are nice too and they have even larger sensors. But they are primarily designed for still photography and don't have the same ergonomics as a video camera. And photo lenses aren't like video lenses that are designed for precise control of zoom speed, etc.
I used to shoot a lot of live performances, also video that was projected on large screens in conjunction with my job, and other fun personal projects. But I have been retired since 2011 and now just do the fun stuff. So I can't justify buying expensive new cameras just for that kind of thing.
This recent shoot was with with my incredibly talented family - daughter is a singer, son in law is an actor/musician and granddaughter has been in a professional ballet training program since she was 9. We do these little "family concerts" which I usually just shoot with the XDCAM, but I decided to use the 12 Pro Max and old 6s Plus as additional cameras. The 6s Plus did just fine as a locked-down shot with a wide angle lens adapter from Moment and Filmic Pro.
I was trying out a motorized mount called a "Pivo Pod" with the 12 Pro Max part of the time. It actually did a pretty decent job of automatically tracking people, but the video just looked bad, very flat and two-dimensional, also very much over-sharpened or contrast-enhanced. Unfortunately, the Pivo app doesn't give you any control over this kind of setting. But I also used Filmic Pro part of the time with the 12 Pro Max and again, there was just a quality to it that I disliked. I need to study this further in the future however, it can probably be improved.
On the road, you do what you have to do. Presumably you get back home at some point where you can plug into a bigger/better screen. No matter how good your laptop screen is, it will get very crowded with everything in Final Cut Pro!
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My experience with good quality and satisfying photo and video with followup editing is that there are several orders of magnitude difference in cost for cameras and computer hardware/software, even at a hobby level. Time, much much more as it takes much more time to scan through a one minute video than an image. Then you are doing it over and over to get just that right effect.
You can get pretty good quality snap shots and video with entry level devices, but it still takes some time. So the quandary is that there is a danger of large investments and then finding its not for you. Perhaps buy used. Did I mention the time?
Note that video cameras with smooth zoom and optical stabilization shoot much better video than DSLR type cameras. When I am planning to shoot both but don't want to lug extra equipment, I take the DSLR, but then I have a $$$ Cannon that does video well.
I suggest you start with imovie and your existing equipment, try it and see if you like it. You can make pretty good stuff with an iPhone and iMovie if you have some talent/time.
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You want to produce "high end" video and you worry about $400? That is totally trivial pocket change in the world of "high end video".
The other thing I see here is a common beginner mistake, confusing learning an editor with learning to edit.
This is like if I wrote "I want to learn to write fiction and to become a best selling novelist. Should I learn Microsoft Word or use Apple's Pages? I like it that Pages is free."
Seriously an editor who has any experience at all is comfortable with any of the common software, including "Resolve". What the person brings in not an ability to remember what is under each menu pull down but his sense of story telling with pictures and his timing and if he gets the flow right and 100 other things.
I'd suggest starting with Apple's iMovie and use ituntill you see a good reason to not use it. You will find such a reason. Then if working with others, use what they use. One BIG advantage if Adobe and Resolve is you are not tied to the Mac and the software runs one other computers. But at this stage you really should be using different software and not lock yourself in.
How will footage from an iPhone 11 Pro Max and an iPhone 12 Pro Max look if mixed together in post?
Yes, this is why I eventually want to move to a mirrorless camera or digital video camera solution.
It will be offered with the iPhone 13 Pro Max , but I couldn't afford to wait that long.
So a 2008 video camera looks better than a brand new iPhone 12 Pro Max, huh?
I didn't see an sample videos there.
I never knew that iPhone video was so much lower quality. I have been very happy with my iPhone 11 Pro Max, but then I've never seen how things would look if I stepped up to a camera or video camera.
Actually, no. First, I don't own any computers. Second, because of life and the pandemic, I don't see that happening this year or next. I live on the road, and I can't fit an external monitor into my little car.
So is that a deal-breaker for doing video-editing? :-(
My experience with good quality and satisfying photo and video with followup editing is that there are several orders of magnitude difference in cost for cameras and computer hardware/software, even at a hobby level. Time, much much more as it takes much more time to scan through a one minute video than an image. Then you are doing it over and over to get just that right effect.
Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying about "orders of magnitude difference in cost" and your references to time.
Are you saying it takes longer to edit with lower quality gear?
Well, I love shooting video. I have been doing it for over a year and have shot over 6TB of video. However, I have never done video editing, although I did play with iMovie a little bit last year, but it doesn't do what I need.
I'll start another thread on this topic when the time is right, as I have lots of questions on that!
iMovie definitely won't work, so that is a non-starter. And since FCPX has a free trial and Resolve is free, I can't see why it makes sense for me to ever even look at iMovie.
I never said that.
I said, "I am leaning towards Apple's Final Cut Pro X because it is only $400, and I would owe it forever!"
No, it is like saying, "I want to learn how to build a table with turned wood spindles, should I use a wood lathe or a pocket knife?" (Hint: I have built such furniture, and a pocket knife is the wrong answer.)
iMovie will not do what I need, so it would be stupid to learn it. And so it makes total sense to pick the right tool for the right job BEFORE you try to learn how to do video-editing.
Not following your logic here.
As for writing a book - at least one that is non-fiction - you would again be making a poor decision to use Pages, because MS Word is superior doing things like bibliographies.
So tools do matter to a certain degree - especially when you aren't yet a master craftsman.
Right, but this isn't a thread about, "How do I become a good story-teller?"
But I am working alone, and I will never go back to Windows, so being tied to a Mac is kind of a given for me.
It makes total sense to ask about the merits of various video-editing software because I suspect that they are NOT all the same in how the menus are laid out or their workflows.
So why not do research, ask experts, and make a best guess before diving in?
I see this all the time in the software development world too.
"I want to learn to make an app" or "I want to learn Swift" or "C++" or whatever. And that's fine, you'll need to learn a tool or have a goal, sure. But really what you need to learn is programming, not a programming language. Learn programming and get good at it. Then you can jump between Java, C, C++, Swift, OCaml, Scala, whatever and it's not going to matter all that much. They're tools.
No. Go get started! In fact, why haven't you started yet?
I agree there's no reason to start with iMovie when you can just use Resolve unless you just want to do simple things and don't want to be overwhelmed by the features and options in the pro apps.
With that said, I'm curious what you've found iMovie doesn't give you.
Books have been written on typewriters. Books have been written by hand.
And honestly Word would be a poor choice too if we're going that far with it - just go to LaTeX already. But if it takes you a thousand hours to learn LaTeX and 200 hours to write your book in Pages, it doesn't matter that you could've saved 20 hours of clerical work if you wrote it in LaTeX instead of Pages.
Tools help you, give you options and are valuable. That's why we have them. Some tools are better suited to some tasks than others. But ultimately you get the book written by writing it. Not by wandering around the typewriter store for a month inspecting all the different typewriters to find the best one. And if you find out you don't like the typewriter after gaining some experience with it then that experience isn't wasted either. It'll make you faster at getting familiar with the next typewriter and the skills get you closer to expert status yourself.
Point of my weird little story and blabbering is just that - yes. You're right. There are different tools for different jobs, and it's all good to ask for advice there. But now you've been told about some pros and cons of all the tools and that all the mentioned ones are sufficient for the task at hand, so it's just about grabbing one and going to work
Let's say I need to haul building materials from the lumber yard to the jobsite. So, a 2008 Ford truck is better than a 2021 Tesla, huh?
But yes, FOR MY USES a 2008 video camera is certainly better. But your needs could be completely different.
No. Go get started! In fact, why haven't you started yet?
Drowning this week with a million things to do for my business. Feeling nauseous today.
I believe I mentioned this earlier, or maybe it was another thread.
I have been doing basic audio-editing in Audacity for about 15 years and feel I am proficient. Using Audacity, it is easy for me to edit out a clip/chirp/word and make it seamless to the listener.
And since good audio is more important than good video, and since a lot of my video is with me interviewing people, I need a way to be able to edit out words or the slightest sound.
iMovie does do give you the ability to zoom in close enough to the audio track to edit out an "um" or "er" or a nanosecond clip.
From what I have research, FCPX allows you to expand out the timeline so you can look at things in 1/10's and 1/100's of seconds which is what you need to properly edit audio tracks.
And as I recall, it is way more sophisticated if I am working with numerous audio tracks and channels and I need a tool that is much of an audio-editing tool as a video-editing tool.
There were some other things I didn't like about iMovie, but the inability to do fine-grained audio-editingw as a non-starter for me.
And back to the whole, "Worry about editing, not the editor..." is naive.
Nothing hamstrings beginners more than crappy tools.
Do you need a $10,000 wood lathe to turn a simple wood spindle? No. But would you want to teach someone with a dull pocket knife? Of course not!
Quality tools don't make the craftsman, but they sure can help a novice become an expert quicker. And nothing can sink a novice quicker than using poor-quality or the wrong tools for the job.
When I go into this, do you know how many yahoo's told me that all I needed was a 3.5mm "shotgun" mic that was the size of my thumb in order to get good sound?
Tools matter...
Point of my weird little story and blabbering is just that - yes. You're right. There are different tools for different jobs, and it's all good to ask for advice there. But now you've been told about some pros and cons of all the tools and that all the mentioned ones are sufficient for the task at hand, so it's just about grabbing one and going to work
And if I survive the next two weeks, I will try to download and install FCPX.
Of course I am having laptop issues as well, and I don't know that I have time to get them fixed so I can use FCPX.
So while this thread is invaluable, there is a chance I may decide to just focus on shooting and worry about editing later this year.
Lots on my plate...
Let's say I need to haul building materials from the lumber yard to the jobsite. So, a 2008 Ford truck is better than a 2021 Tesla, huh?
But yes, FOR MY USES a 2008 video camera is certainly better. But your needs could be completely different.
I didn't realize that video camera were so much better. Again, I will start one or mor etrheads on that topic down the road.
Right now, I better get FCPX installed before @casperes1996 comes after me! ;-)
Hehe; I'm sorry you're feeling ill and hope things go well with your business and everything. I didn't intend to come off pushy or hostile or anything and I hope it wasn't perceived that way. Just felt like it was time to get started because continuing on the tools thing; Yes - but at this point we're not arguing about the difference between a power drill and a shovel. We're arguing about the colour of the power drill and how long the cord it comes with is - if you need a longer range you can always get an extension lead
Just feeling sick because of stress and too much to do and not enough time to do it.
Not at all.
Just felt like it was time to get started because continuing on the tools thing; Yes - but at this point we're not arguing about the difference between a power drill and a shovel. We're arguing about the colour of the power drill and how long the cord it comes with is - if you need a longer range you can always get an extension lead
Ha.
What I need is a way to make time...