Good Practice

[PatC]

Hey Guys,

I thought it might be fun to have a thread about "good practices" if this is a repost than sorry, but if not might be a good read! Everyone add one...

here is an example-

Always eject drives before powering down the camera.

 

[PatC]

Always check what build your on- undo+joystick... come on guys add some!

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Shoot 1/2 less stop exposure that what the goalposts and/or common sense tell you, then bring back highs in post. This gives more precise post-control of falloff and better maintains highlight saturation.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

Test, test, test.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Test more.

 

[Thomas Wright]

Whenever possible, on set, sit down

 

[Martin Weiss]

If the camera acts up, try a reboot before panicking. Use the boot-up time to think about what might have caused the problem.

Delete the files after confirmed transfer, never format a magazine with files on it.

 

[Jay Gannon]

Whenever possible, on set, sit down

As someone with serious back problems I can't agree with this one more, if your a DIT or anyone who can sit for short periods of time, a good seat is invaluable, 2 minutes sitting can make the difference in the long run.

 

[Jay Gannon]

And from a RED/IT point of view, whenever the budget allows redundancy is paramount, backup bodies, backup DIT stations, backup everything you can afford to.

 

[hans de vries]

Delete the files after confirmed transfer, never format a magazine with files on it.

Martin, why's that?

 

[Julian Krause]

Always check what build your on- undo+joystick...

This is priceless Pat!
I always wondered how to determine the Build installed, when the camera is running. This helps a lot. GREAT!!!

 

[Julian Krause]

Oh, and if you are a DIT you want to make sure, that you have a uninterrupted power supply unit. Because there is nothing worse than someone pulling the plug, when you are right in the middle of downloading some files :emote_hanged:

 

[Martin Weiss]

Martin, why's that?

Just so you don't accidentally erase a magazine with footage on it that hasn't been backed up yet.

 

[PatC]

Delete the files after confirmed transfer, never format a magazine with files on it.

If you get rid of just the .profiles this will make the card unformatted in camera, but the media still readable on your machine. I do this as a safety in case for some reason I need to get back to a card before it is shot again...

Also, try to cycle your media appropriately, go through all your media before repeating.

 

[Joe Kleber]

When prepping for a shoot, always go to the maintenance menu and reset LOOK, USER, and SYSTEM.

If you don't know the cameras usage history and/or you just updated the software build, do a black balance as well.

Then go through your checklist of parameters and set them for the job.

 

[Nook Kim]

"undo + system" goes right back to the last menu page you were at. This makes you work very fast (ie. when change the varispeed setting back and forth)

 

[Julian Krause]

If you finish a job and you give back your media to the rental house, make sure you overwrite it with zeros, if you don´t want the next guy who picks up your drive to see all of your footage when he´s running redundead over it.

But only do so after you triple checked, that you have copied everything!
Once you overwrite your footage it can´t be retrieved!!!