I recently talked to a company I’ve worked with before about doing some work for them again.

What I specifically said was that I wanted to help create some video content. I mentioned doing interviews with employees and clients. I have an understanding of three point lighting and audio much better than I did before. They said interviews plus some other content would be good, and I also said I could take some photos when needed (headshots, guys around the office, etc,.)

Based on that conversation, I thought I was agreeing to basically be a content creator/videographer: come in, film interviews and other material, shoot some photos, edit the content, and potentially post some of it.

I’ve worked with the company before, and previously I was mainly doing some filming, making videos, editing them, and minimally posting content to Facebook. They had other people who were actually dedicated to social media/marketing.

I’ve already recently made two videos and employee headshots for them. I still haven’t been paid for that work, haven’t received any gas/mileage reimbursement, and now they want me to redo the headshots.

The rate I was offered going forward is $18 an hour in middle TN.

Then I was sent a huge social-media strategy document that describes me as essentially the "Content Owner/Social Media Manager"

According to the plan, I’m apparently expected to:

• Film interviews, jobsite footage, B-roll, before/afters, customer material, employee/personality content, etc.
• Take professional photos.
• Help/direct 2–3 hour batch content shoots.
• Produce roughly 30–50 usable vertical B-roll clips per month.
• Capture 8–12 expert-answer pieces and 10+ personality moments.
• Edit around 3 Reels per week.
• Produce another ~2 feed/proof posts per week.
• Write/prepare captions.
• Schedule and publish content.
• Maintain a two-week content calendar.
• Post Stories daily.
• Check social-media engagement twice per day.
• Respond to comments, DMs and questions.
• Interact with local accounts/partners and do community engagement.
• Run polls/questions and use audience responses for future content.
• Repurpose content across platforms.
• Track reach, retention, shares, saves, followers, profile visits, DMs, inquiries and appointments.
• Determine what content is and isn’t performing.
• Participate in monthly analytics/reporting and recommendations.

There is a marketing person above me who appears to handle the overall strategy and direction, but from what I can tell, I’m being assigned most of the actual day to day execution.

This is where I’m confused. This isn't remotely what I thought I was agreeing to. I agreed to shoot interviews, do drone videos, as well as filming job sites (on my a7iv), make some other videos and take photos. I didn't realize that meant I would effectively be responsible for operating the company's social media presence on top of that.

Before, he had someone doing this role WITHOUT taking any videos, only handling the marketing/social media, at $100K a year.

After that person was let go, someone else managed the social media. The most I did with social media before was uploading videos and photos to facebook.

I also own my professional camera/video equipment and editing setup that I would presumably be using for this work.

I understand that one person can handle video production and social media for a small business, but this seems like several different responsibilities bundled together: videographer, photographer, editor, content creator, social-media manager, community manager, scheduler and some analytics/marketing work.

And again, this is for $18/hour, while I haven't even been paid yet for the two videos and headshots I already completed over the past two weeks, while all I get in response is "I'm going to pay you."

Am I overreacting? Is this a normal scope for an $18/hr content position, or are they asking one person to cover multiple roles for significantly less than this work would normally cost?

I’m not opposed to working with the company. I actually wanted to make content for them. I just feel like what I originally agreed to do and what I’m now apparently being made responsible for are two completely different jobs.

I'd be happy to send someone over the scope that was sent to me. It's about 20 screenshots of roles and responsibilities.

The main point is, before, I was still working extremely hard to keep pace. With editing videos, filming, on job sites, etc,. That alone takes so much time. For $3000 a month basically, plus all these responsibilities on top, this seems unreasonable.

What would your response to the owner be?

Is this good? What do you think?

I'm Part 107 certified, and the owner has a major construction project coming up involving a large number of houses. I'd be documenting it from beginning to end for roughly 4 hours a day, 24–26 days this month. About 4 - 5 hours a day, plus two hours of drive-time realistically.

I'd be mapping precise drone coordinates to make before and after shots, capturing multiple angles, filming ground level and close up footage throughout the project, and documenting each stage of the process.

Afterward, I'd still need to organize a month's worth of footage, edit and color grade the final video, script and record a voice-over with the owner, handle audio, music and graphics, and deliver the finished project.

My counteroffer is $4,000 for documenting the project for the month, producing the finished long-form video, and taking any new employee headshots needed. The long video can also be cut into shorter horizontal videos. Separate vertical re-edits would be $150 each due to the additional reframing and editing involved.

Anything substantially beyond that would need to be priced separately.

The scope I was originally given went far beyond this for $3,000, which is why I wanted to hear what other videographers consider a fair rate for this kind of work in Middle Tennessee.

We are doing a shoot where we want to follow a car driving at high speed on a road with a lot of turns and bumps through the fields. We are filming this using the Tilta Hydra Alien Pro Car Mounting System, with a DJI RS3 Pro mounted on it and a Blackmagic PYXIS attached to the gimbal.

After doing a lot of testing, we found that the camera works best when mounted in the position shown in the photo. However, when taking some of the tighter corners, the gimbal has a very hard time keeping up and rotating with the turn through our remote-control system.

We assume that the wind resistance during the sharper turns is causing the gimbal to struggle to rotate back into the turn. We were wondering if anyone has any tips or experience with this kind of setup.

We were also thinking that it might be better to try filming with a Ronin 2 instead, but we are not sure whether that would work with the adapter/mounting piece shown in the second photo.

Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated!

Would like some feedback on the colors

Reddit def compressed the quality

To create a practical visual reference for lighting ratios, I ran a controlled test cycling through different fill and background exposures. I also made a quick lighting diagram.

• Camera: Canon C300 III (C-Log 3)
• Base Exposure: ISO 800, 180° shutter, f/4, 2-stop ND - The readings are ND-compensated, so they match go from the aperture on the lens.
• Lighting: Exact reflected f-stop readings and relative stop differences (e.g., Fill -1 stop, Background -2 stops) are burned into each frame.

Let me know if you have any questions!

I love nerding out about exposure and this has made it much easier to talk with crew about it.

EDIT based on feedback.

Clarifications

1. A quick note on reading the burned-in numbers: I want to clarify the methodology. The contrast ratios and relative stop differences are accurate and represent reflected readings. However, the raw f-stop numbers I wrote down are "ND compensated" to visually relate back to the f/4 lens aperture. (For example, my actual meter reading for the key was f/11, but I wrote down f/5.6 to offset the 2-stops of ND because I compensate in th light meter).
2. It also says "+1 from key" on the key, which can be confusing so it should instead be "+1 from middle grey."

A Mistake!

1. On the first two images it says f/8 // +1 from key but that is of course +2 from key. I unfortunately can't edit the images now.

Apologies for any confusion.

If you want to see them with another grade and the straight rec709-version, I threw them up on my site here: https://exposurenotes.com/exposurereferences/

Hey everyone!

I'm a wedding videographer and I've filmed three weddings so far. Honestly though, I'm not satisfied with the results at all because it was just me winging it with half knowledge, you know? Now I really want to learn intensively and systematically all the important areas that a wedding videographer needs to master.

The stuff I still need to learn about:

• Sound design
• Storytelling
• Structure / editing flow
• Those powerful beats that always hit (you know, those certain templates that the pros use)
• Basically everything to create those amazing films like you see on YouTube

My problem: I know some really great YouTube channels, but when I see their thumbnails, my ADHD brain literally freaks out. Then I'm like "bro, do I have to watch EVERY single video from that channel to get good?" and my head just explodes. That doesn't help me if I'm totally overwhelmed.

I know that a lot of it is learning by doing, but you can still prepare yourself systematically and build up the knowledge beforehand, right? Now I finally want a proper system on how to really master wedding videography and create those fire films like the ones you see everywhere on YouTube.

Can you recommend any courses from experienced wedding videographers? Or are there any structured learning paths so I don't feel completely lost?

Thanks guys so much and cheers from Germany! 🇩🇪

Lenny

Looking at buying a Rode Wireless Pro as I'm getting a bit of corporate work later this month and they might want some talking head type stuff, so it would make sense to buy a decent wireless mic.

But I mainly shoot DJs and I'm wondering if this set up would work -

One transmitter plugged into the back of the mixer using a phono to minijack, second transmitter attached to the camera.

Does this make sense or am I getting this wrong? The transmitter on the DJ mixer can take a minijack input into where the lapel mic plugs in right?

Just would make it way easier for syncing audio. Plus I've had a nightmare today as I got around to editing some silent disco footage from the weekend and if the DJ and crowd wasn't singing along to most of the tracks, I'd have been stuck!

They are cheaper ones from K&F and both units behave the same. At 30% the connected LED light turns of. It draws around 95 Watt and is set to 100%.

After I reach the 30% mark I can still power the light at 60% output until the battery iis empty but of course I bought the V-Moutns to power my light at 100%. Basically I have 30% less capacity than expected which makes the costs savings compared to small rig v-mounts pretty small.

Is this normal behavior? (Both batteries are rated for 100 Watt Power Delivery Output)

Thoughts?

Hey everyone! I don’t know if anyone remembers, but about a month ago I posted a little edit called “feel like home” to ask for some advice and feedback. Thanks again to everyone who liked my style!

One of the main things you guys pointed out, luckily, was the color grading. Looking back at it, I also felt that the image was way too saturated. On one hand, I wanted to add more color to the footage, but thinking about it again, I definitely went a bit overboard.

So lately, after coming back from vacation, I started practicing a bit more by watching some YouTube tutorials and, eventually, decided to recolor my latest video.

Above among the photos the comparison between the original video, the one posted a month ago and the one with the new color grading.

What do you think? Have I improved? Does it still give off those summer vibes? Is there anything else I could improve?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

p.s. If you want to see it with the new or old grading I leave you the YouTube links:

feel like home (new color grading)

feel like home (old color grading)

Hello, I am going for a long trip and I am looking for a setup for recording ambient sounds while travelling. Basically, I would like to capture the atmosphere of the place. I watched for example Morten Hilmer video, but I am not any wiser.

I am using Nikon Z6 III.

I mainly want to capture things like birds, forests, waterfalls, campfires, restaurants, wind chimes in temples, etc. I'll be moving around a lot, so I'd like to keep the setup compact and practical.

I'm not sure whether I should get a small field recorder and omnidirectional mics like Clippy EM272 or an on-camera microphone.

If on-camera, I'm also unsure whether I should be looking at a stereo mic such as the Sennheiser MKE 440 / RØDE Stereo VideoMic Pro Rycote, or a directional shotgun such as the RØDE VideoMic NTG, or something like Zoom M3 MicTrak (M/S system with mono, 90° and 120° stereo modes).

Budget is around €280 / $330. For a field recorder route, I could stretch it to $430, as I think it is perhaps more future proof.

What would you please recommend for my use case?

I want to light a small stage and I suggested we rent these types of light as I found a reliable source for them and it's a economical option for the day (1 day rent 40 dollars)

There are several options but I found these Dracast lights with a fresnel.

I made a post a few days back asking for ideas and people suggested I get something with a fresnel lens because I need to throw the light far (3 or 4 meters) and the other options (Like a 300C only have the stock refector and people told me I would loose a lot of light)

Is this a better option vs a 300C? Don't get me wrong I would love to have the option of the APP and rgb with a 300c but if it's not enough light then It would suck.

Does it really make a difference for a beginner that just wants to shoot talking head videos?

Would it not make more to save up for something like a Osmo Pocket 3 or 4 if one is on the go or needs stabilization when it comes to movement?

I guess I am missing the point of OSS when there are, what seem to be, in my opinion, better alternatives?

Thanks for all of the help/advice.

I always love my work and never stop learning, i rate this vid 7/10.

Shot on: Sony A7IV and Dji osmo pocket 3
Edited on: Capcut Mobile (no log profile)

Be bluntly honest about your feedback but don't just say it's a bad video, analyze it please and Imk things i can improve please.

For exact shot details
( shot on dji: clip 1 / 2 / 3 / 7 / 8 / 10 / 11 / 13 / 15 / 16 / 17) ( shot on sony: clip 4 / 5 / 6 / 9 / 12 / 14 / 18 / 19 / 20)

I know this isn't the sub to post edits but this is the only sub i've seen real professionals in real estate filming and editing..so yea i would love to get your feedback on what i can improve!! (Re-edited video)

i love this camcorder/2000s look! it zooms in and out pretty fast too, what could it be? similar ones too of course. thank you!

Hello everyone! I’m 19 and I recently found a video camera that my parents had before I was even born and I’m hoping to find out how I can get it working again! It’s a Sony Handycam DCR-SR82 and it only works while on the charging dock. I don’t have any prior experience with video cameras but my best guess is that it needs a new battery. The one it currently uses is the Sony NP-FH40, which is 7.2V with 4.9Wh. I want to mainly know if I should look for an older battery through places like EBay, or if I should buy a newer 7.2V battery, and if I did what anyone would recommend. The one I am currently looking at is this pack of 2 from Best Buy but I’m not sure if this is the best I can get price wise, the camera already has a charging dock so I’m not sure if I would need a charger for the batteries, but I’m probably also wrong about that. I really want to get this thing functional again, it’d be a dream come true!

I think the aesthetic still works in the vertical format

So I lost the joy stick on my Weebill S a few days ago, I guess it fell off and I didn’t notice. So I 3d printed a new one and superglued it on with the tiniest drop of glue. Now after a few hours of letting it dry, I’ve noticed that a bit of the glue may have gotten back inside the moving part. It’s now super clunky feeling rather than the smooth joystick feel. And it constantly thinks I’m pulling down on the joystick making the gimbal pretty much unusable.. any ideas?

I worked with an artist recently to make this, it was documenting the piece he made.

I have this obsession with watching artists at work.

I wanted to have this intimate vibe, while also showing off what he's made. I really like it, but I think that is biased because I made it. Thoughts?

I kept trying to build one camera-bag setup that could cover everything. It never stayed the same. A short portrait shoot might be one body and one lens. Add a second body, more glass, batteries, and support gear, and it becomes a completely different carry problem.

That heavier setup is what I use my SmallRig camera backpack for. When the main compartment is packed, I clip the sternum strap and fit the removable waist belt so the shoulder straps, lumbar support, and belt work as one carry system. If the kit is smaller, I take the belt off instead of pretending every shoot needs the same harness setup.

Do you keep one camera bag and change the carry setup around, or use separate bags for lighter and fully loaded shoots?