It's expensive for sure. I got it on the Kickstarter which helped. He's right about it being limited for moving shots, but it's so small and so lightweight it's an absolute must for the work I do. It's almost a joke how much smaller and lighter it is than my Three Legged Thing which was the previous smallest I could find for my needs. It's a travel tripod, and should only be appraised as such.
I use mine. It’s aluminum. It’s fine. Works for some stuff. The cost is high mainly for portability. Sometimes I use it for a light. Points made in video all valid.
I bought mine (aluminium) and think it's amazing, combined with a fairly cheap Smallrig fluid head which allows basic tracking easily, but I probably have fairly basic and specific needs for extreme portability, and I've never had any issues with the legs locking. That said they have a lifetime warranty, which seems worth chasing for issues mentioned in this video, with whether issues like that are fixed under that warranty really being a big point on something so expensive. If I had that issue and it wasn't covered under warranty I'd be livid. Being too lazy to chase your warranty and complaining about the price seems crazy to me, pick one. Mine will be two years old in April, and when I bought it, it was half the price of the carbon (more like 300 USD in my local currency). That said I got suckered into the Peak Design Everyday 20L backpack and it's so poorly designed from a gear organisation/securement perspective that I've never taken it out of the house, I've tried to pack it 10 times and realised I just couldn't risk my gear. I checked one out a few times in store and had niggling doubts I should have listened to, instead of assuming all the positive reviews had actually used the bag in the real world. Something I now doubt as only one reviewer I saw noted the issues I had, and many never had pictures or footage of the bag packed, which is a new red flag for me. This one hits particularly hard due to the cost and never being able to use it at all. Not just disappointing, unusable.
"Tube light boxing scene”💀💀 so true. I commend your bravery. I too regret buying the RS2 Pro Combo, ended up just being an expensive wall accessory. I also regret getting the insta 360 R. It was so hyped but the quality is trash. What I learned from those is that any time you see multiple RUclips / tech bloggers drop reviews on the same thing all around the same time, be highly suspicious and do your own research, wait a couple months for the hype to die down and look up reviews from smaller channels. T "Better gear won’t automatically make you better at what you’re doing. Pro gear won’t turn an amateur into a pro, you’ll just be an amateur with pro gear.” This is especially true with videography, I’ve seen better videos filmed with iPhones than $3k+ cameras. It’s about story, subject, and substance. No one really cares about the aesthetic or megapixels.
Great video! Thanks for being specific with gear, it’s personal to you and it means more that way. I do have a comment to add at 11:21 talking about gimbal accessories: as a wedding filmmaker (who relies heavily on autofocus), I typically use a 24-105mm lens and attach the focus motor to the zoom ring. This allows me to very quickly change my focal length without taking my hands off of the gimbal handle. It’s definitely not what the part was meant to do, but does a great job for what I’ve repurposed it for!
I looked at that tripod when a friend boasted about how amazing it was. All the reviews from non influencers rip the thing apart, with the same issues you had. One thing I always do now is read the reviews on BH/Amazon etc before buying stuff. It shows real world usage, not something somebody was sent for free, only to make a 10 minute video on it and then sell it.
Not defending or lamenting the Peak Design tripod, but I purchased the aluminum one (also in Canada and also felt it was very expensive) due to the design videos they were releasing in parallel with their kickstarter campaign. Part of the purchase was for the tripod itself (compact, leg removal, inverting center column, etc), but they also highlighted serviceability as being a key feature in that you could disassemble and rebuild the tripod as part of their sustainability goals. Serviceability and a lifetime warranty was what won me over with the thought that if something broke/wore down over time, it would be covered/serviceable. I believe they show how to repair the slipping legs and have replacement parts on their site (in hopes that you'll be able to fix it). That being said, I agree with everything you've said here: paying $400 USD, shipping to Canada, using it for a couple years, and having the thing basically cease to function as it was intended is unacceptable. The inability to move the ball head without the horizon skewing, or having to swap out the ball head and attach a new tripod head for panning sort of defeats the purpose. As a photography tripod its also limited, as I find the base of the standard head interferes with the center column when setting up for low/high angle vertical shots. Gear that makes you fight with it while carrying out your creative vision is always an annoyance.
I love my Shinobi! Especially the focus peaking! After missing focus on an important shoot I knew I had to up my game...but budget is always an issue. That lil' guy packs a punch! Thanks again for the AWESOME content!
I have many of the same gear regrets. I wanted to give you the heads up - Drobo actually went out of business last year. I just had to swap my whole life’s work over to another system without the proprietary format.
What did you go with, and how did you do the switchover? I have a 5 bay Drobo, and it looks like there's no way around buying at least 3-4 drives with a new system (OWC probably) and transferring it.
@@capturingthemachine Over time my needs ended up changing. I ended up swapping to a QNAP NAS. I only kept the current year's projects on the Drobo, so in my case, I bought a couple 18TB external drives, and offloaded the footage so I had 2 copies. Then I swapped the drives from the Drobo into the NAS, and formatted into my prefered RAID format. Then loaded the footage onto the NAS from the external drive. As far as I can tell, there isn't really a way around buying a couple drives.
Great job! FYI I wouldn't recommend an OWC RAID drive bay. They use software RAID, so your computer is doing all the heavy lifting of data management. Plus, after two years your existing license expires and they want you to buy another license in order to use the software. They don't go so far as to hold your data hostage, but you don't get any software updates when your operating system updates.
Software RAID in general is not such a bad thing. Even if server hardware comes with built-in proprietary hardware RAID, I would use Linux software RAID on it so as not to be vendor locked in, and be content with the impact on the CPU.
@talonsix Drobos use hardware raid, custom controller in the box.. but it is garbage. Software raid is fine if implemented correctly, ZFS is a prime example, one of the most used implementations, and enterprise ready.
@@PeteBoyd There is little to no impact on any modern CPU with Linux Raid, or ZFS as I mentioned earlier. They are more RAM intensive tha anything else. Current assumption is about 1G for every TB or storage for ZFS, not sure what the Linux raid requirements are, but probably not much more, and most of that RAM is used to cache before write to disk.
Thanks for the video. I’ve a reputation for being ‘careful’ (not the word most use) with what I spend on camera gear and try to justify every purchase. One of the most useful items I bought was a large plastic box to put all the gear I bought which I no longer/hardly ever use. After a few years, the items became a tight fit. It included gear which went back to my non-digital age, primarily Minolta SLR bodies and lenses, as well as poorly judged purchases. I had filters and a close-up lens kit which no longer fitted any of my lenses. Someone on a photographic forum mentioned his college was looking for gear for students who lacked funds. I gave the college a lot of my gear, which made me feel great and meant it was easier to put my next lot of useless gear in my box.
I find gear comes into and out of the box fairly regularly. I too have a gimbal I infrequently use, and then seem to use all the time. The gimbal comes out and my cage goes in, and then reverse. I don’t give advice, mainly because I’ve made mistakes, but what I will say is, if you can’t afford to buy the lens/whatever that is perfect for your needs, you can’t afford to buy a cheaper one as, after a while, you’ll come into some money and you’ll buy the best lens and the cheaper one will end up in the box, or, hopefully, at a college. Some excellent points you raise. Thanks.
I found when I bought a Nas drive that it offers redundancy not a backup. It means you should be able to recover the drives, but the advice is to always backup to a second drive. The biggest benefit is chaining multiple drives for more storage
Raid 10 is the way to go if you’re really serious about having both speed and easily enough redundancy to restore any lost data if a disk is faulty. On top of that you can have a backup that’s just a normal drives stored in a different physical location. Hard to imagine anyone could need anything more than that.
great video! i'm not a filmmaker but this popped up in my feed, all i do is photography , well of my children. The peak design is a good one to talk about, i have a carbon fibre tripod, but i've been seeing all these reviews and ads in my feed i was tempted, until i saw the CAD price, ouch. The mist filter was something that's on everyone;s channel, and i was wondering about it. The gimble, i have one for my phone from 5 years ago and i've used it probably only 3x at most, it's sitting and collecting dust. great video!
About mist filters you are correct the Movie industry does not use Mist filters. Maybe for one specific shot and that's it But for the most part its slight haze when needed not for every single shot like most Cinematic RUclipsrs.
It's pretty easy to fake in post, just apply blur in scene linear and lower the alpha a bunch and you're like 90% of the way there. Or just the Scatter plugin
Love the video, I think I'd enjoy seeing you do another one of these but including brands or versions of the equipment you DO recommend over the regrettable one
So funny that the first item you regret was the Peak Design tripod. I was tossed up when it was first released between this and the Manfrotto Befree carbons because of the hype, I was in SF and tried it in person and definitely a bit too wobbly for video use. 4 years on my Manfrotto carbons still hold up well (not for heavy work), great for travelling as well.
I’ve got a great little trick! I can’t afford to buy all the tempting camera tech, don’t have the money. Saves me every time! 👍 Oh, and could you do something with the practical in the background? It stole my eyes the whole video 😅
I am finding the Ulanzi ombra video tripod with a fluid head to be a solid piece of gear for weddings. It's like the peak design tripods in that it is light weight and compact, but also has a fluid head top and is only $90 US. Love the video!
I just got into photography and some people gave raving reviews for Peak Design but i just could bare to spend that much on their gear and bags. No regrets and happy to hear your honest review.
Great job Luc, we all could add more items to this list as we hang our head in frustration - Really cool to share and know you too have the same pains with this even after all the high end clients that you work with.
Not a doc shooter, but a commercial shooter, and this list is spot on lol. I never understood the peakdesign tripod hype. Tried it once and was immediately looking for something actually designed for video. And you're right, gimbals are great for very specific work, shots, and environments, but the super high end gimmicks are completely unnecessary for 99% of consumers.
I bought the Peak design and it was a disappointment. The gimble is the other one for me, I have one but never use it. I have also purchased cheap monitors and been dissatisfied with peaking and the 1980s video game look of the scopes. Jason
The PD tripod is an outstanding option for the right kinds of jobs. It's not a substitute for a fluid head tripod. But if you do a lot of travel and just need something that takes minimal space and is going to take a beating the PD tripod is excellent. I've used mine for over 2 years now all over the US, Canada, Mexico, and Europe, taking it on flights and into the woods and wilderness to remote areas for numerous shoots. Sometimes you want to minimize weight carried. It's been great especially for situations where setting up something like an FX3 in a small space or with a backpack and you need all your gear with you to move around, is valued.
@@nicklarovere Glad it works for you. But I just checked the price of the travel PD tripod in my country and it's more than half of Sachtler Flowtech 75 legs price. Ridiculous. I just got carbon fiber travel tripod with very good ball head for ~160$. It's a bit heavier than PD, and probably does not pack that well but it's 1/4th of the price here :o
Hi Luc, thanks for an honest and inciteful review. Great to hear real views from those who paid real money for kit. Sure we all have slightly different needs and perspectived, but I'm fed up seeing 'fan boy' reviews of freebie gear reviewed by 'quasi professional' YT reviewers who seem loath to tell the real negatives lest their supply of freebie kit stops. So called 'influencers' ..... don'tcha just hate em! Peak design make some good kit (straps, clips and anchors), but the tripod looked pretty expensive and far from rigid when I eventually got to see one in the plastic. I knew it wasn't for me. Prob same for the PD backpack too (never seen just my prejudice at an over hyped product by multiple 'influencers').
While I'm just learning to film art videos and car show stuff. I can tell you that my painting gear comes with the same issues. I just. spent $400 on paint brushes that several will never be used after I'm done with the video. So I appreciate this video. I can only afford to waste money on one end. Thank you Luc.
The peak design tripod is a photography tripod not a filmmaking tripod. Surprised anyone recommended it otherwise. We did use them for an iPhone kit we needed to mail out for people to film themselves during the pandemic. It allowed us to go down an entire case size than next smallest full tripod we could find. We got the aluminum ones. Made up the cost in shipping first time we used it.
Good video! Peak Design outright sucks - intentionally! spots designed to break, parts that wear out and have to be purchased again. As for the mist filters, I just used instructions to spray stuff onto ordinary filters... took a few attempts to make it good. The Dobro, ugh! Bad news - use an ordinary PC, install hard drives, install your choice of backup software. Lastly, don't use a small chassis and cool it well with exhaust fans.
Yep, we've all done it. Especially going for the "extra" bells and whistles of the influencers that run up the cost, but as you said - I never use them! Ugh! Thanks.
Years ago I used the Retrospect backup system which was proprietary. Did I ever regret going with that! The problem is that, if you want to restore from a backup, you have to use the same device you used to do the backup with. I have tons of backed-up projects that I can't restore now. As for the OWC enclosures, I've owned two Mercury Rack Pros. Both not only died on me but caused entire RAID arrays to get corrupted. I managed to retrieve the data using Disk Drill (an absolute must and I couldn't recommend it enough!) which saved my butt! As for enclosures, I replaced those OWCs with a Midiasonic Probox which works just fine. I also have a couple of OWC Thunderbolt hubs and both have been suspicious of causing corruption on other drives that were attached to them. I have now put a big "X" on anything OWC!
I was fortunate to try the Peak Design out at a camera show and thought I had the wrong model as it was utterly crap. I left with a leofoto Ranger instead. Agree with everything else too. RUclipsrs may not get "paid" to promote or leave good reviews, but they are incentivised to. Free products, content, exposure etc
Nice! Love my Leofoto Ranger! I already had it when the Peak Design came out, and I honestly couldn't understand all the hype around it - it seems very expensive for what you get.
My greatest regret purchase is also from Peak Design and it is the backpack. I cannot figure out how people use it. I never could figure out how to make it work for my gear. I have gone through a lot of backpacks but with the amount I spent it haunts me…😂
i feel you! i bought the first iteration and sold it. one of my biggest gripes is that its completely unable to hold small items without them falling out of those massive flaps. not really "everyday" from my experience
Another excellent video, Luc. Thanks. FYI, Drobo went out of business in January last year, so you may want to start planning a migration strategy now before you're forced to. As for the proprietary lock-in, I've always assumed that's the case for any RAID; i.e., I don't think you can take the drives from one vendor's box and stick them in another's and expect them to work without reformatting (and losing all your data). I could be wrong, but you should confirm that with whoever you end up gong with. You may also want to consider what you'd do if your dwelling burned down, taking the RAID with it. Is anything backed up to the cloud?
I believe it depends what sort of RAID set-up you use. If you just do simple mirroring (RAID1) you should be able to use either of the drives normally like any other drive. But if you do striping, you won't be able to use the drives outside of the array, and maybe you can't read them outside of the ecosystem they were made in if the striping is done in a proprietary way. So if you do RAID0, where data is striped over 2 or more drives and isn't mirrored, and one drive dies, you lose all your data. If you do RAID5 where it is both striped and mirrored, if a drive dies you still have a back up, but you still can't read drives individually - they need to remain in the array.
Actually, I don't think I've got RAID5 quite right, but regardless, striping improves performance but you do need to be careful that isn't at the cost of data safety
@@LisaFrostPhotoYou had it right, Lisa, with an asterisk. With Raid 5, if you lose one drive in the array, it will automatically rebuild itself. You lose no data. You pull out the bad drive and replace it, and it redistributes it back to use all the drives. RAID 6 works the same, but you can lose 2 drives and retain all your data after it automatically rebuilds.
Regarding that hdd thing, the 'safest system' in some ways is to have straight up plain harddrives without any RAID or any form of array bladiblabla. What you do is get two external HDD's, or a cabinet that can do JBOD and stuff two drives in it, then schedule a copy sync from one to the other in the middle of the night or whatever. There are several ways to do that, FreeFileSync is a fairly simple way to do it. When you do it the basic way, there is no special hardware or dingle dongelidoodads that can go wrong locking you into some strange smelly corner of the computerverse that you just know is less good than plain old copying stuff, leaving you able to grab one of the hdd and separately plug it into a different computer and dazzle everyone with your genius. I've worked in IT. I used to even work for a backup solutions company. I don't run RAID, the only point to that kind of stuff is if you have huge amounts of data and huge amounts of drives.
For me it was my Meike Cine Lens set. Bought them way too early in my career, never ended up using them. They were MFT, and were useless once I outgrew my 4K. Sold them for a $1200 loss.
This is absolutely correct 100% and anyone who possibly gets triggered should take this seriously. Chasing trends is a path to resentment and imposter syndrome.
One of the biggest problems starting out is buying the wrong things. You only learn with time and I wasted so much money on stuff I don't use. Also many things need power or stands or ways to rig it up and it sucks to get 90% of the way to your vision and then decide it isn't worth it and finding an easier and cheaper solution. However sometimes the opposite happens. Sometimes you buy something in ignorance and only realize years later how good and useful it is.
Yeah, it’s easy to get caught in gear that doesn’t pan out. Sometimes we just get sucked into the feeding frenzy of RUclips gadget influencers. I certainly have. Regarding travel tripods, I’ve had great luck with the very inexpensive one from iFoto. It’s held up very well and goes on nearly all my shoots as a backup or for use to support a client monitor, secondary slider support or makeshift light stand. I also bought the Pro version of the DJI RS2, and think the RavenEye was not worth it. The tech wasn’t ready for prime time. The RS2 is a fine gimbal the Raven Eye stays behind. Sorry to hear about the Dropbox fiasco. I think companies should be forthcoming about limitations of proprietary tech.
I enjoyed the video! I don't get as nice of gear as you but I totally get your option on most filters. I was SO excited to get one and found that I RARELY use it. When I went to Japan I got a few great night shots with all the lighting blowing out in a nice way, but 99% of the time I'm recording without it on. Fell for the hype.
I laughed at the first 15 seconds because that's exactly what I was doing all day lmao. I was gonna buy the A7CII because I want to upgrade to a full frame. But then after I took a break and ate some dinner, I realized it's foolish to put myself in debt just to get a full frame so I can be like all the other RUclipsrs. My APS-C works perfectly fine for what I do. Infact, maybe just upgrade to an A6700 instead because some of it's features will make my life easier as a content creator. It's more of a need than a want.
I have the Peak Design Travel Tripod (Aluminum version) and primarily use it for a static interview shot. But even now, 1.5 years in, the legs are also starting to loosen on me. So it looks like I may have to start looking into other options soon! 😅 great video as always!
Like, the tightening of the clamps that let the legs slide up and down? All you have to do is tighten the screws with the included hex tool. These tripods are rock solid.
@@nicklarovere it’s a great tripod, I agree. And I do tighten the legs. I was just basing my comment on Luc’s experience that once he started having to tighten the legs, they started loosening more frequently and became a bit of a hassle.
As much as I love the size of the Peak Design for travel, I have yet to stumble across any professional photographer or filmmaker in the field using it for their work.
The mist filter is kinda pointless, halation and glow effects are super easy to apply in post and generally look pretty realistic and pleasant. Locking yourself into that look in camera is really a niche thing.
@@d_FLDE it's not totally useless, but I just think that screwing up the sharpness of your footage in camera intentionally with no way to remove it is not best practice. Im sure you like the highlight rolloff and shit, but I promise you there's other ways to achieve that, and not all of us are shooting artsy student film projects where if it doesn't work out and looks like shit that was just part of the "aesthetic"
@@samk2407 … lmao dude. No. I only shoot commercials with cameras like Alexa 35 and Cooke sp3 primes. You simply have no idea about colours in video like most amateurs, wedding photographers and photographers in general who think the best in a lens is how sharp it is. ✌️😃 And you are right, we chose intentionally what lenses and sensors we use and when to use a most filter in what gradation to achieve exactly what we like. We also use false colors and wave forms dude. But i am sure you are the star in your wedding videographer circle ❤️
Your video made me think about gear I regret buying, and there is a lot. The one that comes immediately to mind is my powered slider. It is an excellent slider and it works really well; however, I don’t use it because it takes too much time to set up. I shoot live theatre, concerts and dance shows with 3 cameras normally. It usually takes me an hour to set up. In a lot of these theatres you have to set up in the audience seating which makes setting up the slider even more difficult. I also regret buying expensive video tripods because getting them into the seating area is very difficult.
RE: Drobo: Though OWC does have some killer enclosures, their software raid is still _kinda_ a lock-in. But vs doing a traditional RAID enclosure, you kinda gotta pick your battles for IT investment vs convenience
A lot of these influencers did not have to buy these accessories nor do a lot of them every mention the cons of them. With how expensive and necessary gear is you'd think they would be more honest. Nothing is worse then getting on set for a shoot just for something to fail/break down on you. Thank you for making this video.
Sum up: 1 - Peak Design Travel Tripod (using a Tripod meant for Photographers for Video, issues mentioned could be solved with their lifelong guarantee) 2 - Drobo NAS (I attribute that to just buying things that are critical to your work without doing extensive research) 3 - Filters (personal choice, needs to fit your style) 4 - Gimbal 5 - Andy Cine Monitor
I changed to Synology after hearing Drobo had gone under (i.e. no more support). I still have my Drobo though but rarely turn it on - not saying it's loud but I'm ex-military and I always got the same sense of deep silence after turning my Drobo off that you get when a helicopter has just dropped you off and left.
Good call on the Peak Design Tripod. I have several products from the Peak Design ecosystem that are well-designed and well-built. They've stood the test of time. A colleague bought the tripod and I was amazed at how crappy it was and at such a staggering price. It's virtually useless for filmmaking and stills shooters have much better options at much lower price points.
Funny enough, the Andycine monitor absolutely failed me on the 2nd gig I had it out on, whole wedding day shot without an external monitor far from home. Returned it, got the Desview r6 which has held up for over 25 gigs now!
Nope. No enemies here. Bless you, you nailed it. I have the FX3 as well. I would love to dump my Ronin 2s, the "used twice" PD tripod, and thank god I never went for the matte box filters or 12k hard drive system. Hilarious how we all fell for the same gear! I also bought a Sachtler tripod...2k. Add that to the list hehe
Great title, and yes!! I've been wooed to buy gear that is now collecting dust. I love Peak Design, but didn't buy this. way, too much money. Now I'm really glad I didn't buy it. Thanks for your honest opinions.
I agree with you regarding the Peak Design tripod. Probably a good choice for a stills shooter but for me , a video shooter, not the best choice. Expensive, funky head, and not all that much weight saving. For the price, there are other options.
I'm a landscape photographer and I'd not touch the Peak Design tripod with a barge pole 😂 Way overpriced, not sturdy enough, and that head looks like a nightmare.
I had a GAS for a gimbal so big that I finally bought it. For two years, I have regretted this decision every day 🤣It's still in the case, I've used it three or four times 😬
I had this exact experience recently with the Zhiyun x60 RBG that so many RUclipsrs were raving about. Almost all of them talked about how Zhiyun fixed the problem with the batteries from the x100, but one of the two units I ordered was DOA and wouldn't charge. It's a real shame because they're otherwise very well-desined, and quite useful pieces of kit; it's just that I have zero confidence in their longevity for a product that I spent $1000 Canadian dollars on (for two).
PD tripod doesn't really count since you went out and bought it a SECOND time. The key is use a different head as you mentioned. I beat the snot out of mine and have had zero issues. If yours broke, just reach out to PD and they will repair/replace ez peezee.
I loved this video, and I cannot argue with your experience, but the PD tripod has worked wonders for me when I’m traveling and running and gunning. I’ve brought that thing (sometimes two at the time) to lots of shoots including Africa and Canada, and they’ve held up pretty good.
I felt the same about the Raveneye until today. A co-worker wanted to see the feed as I framed it. They caught so many things I didn't and it made it a better shoot. Literally almost forgot it existed. It will be standard parctice moving forward.
I have the aluminum PD tripod It holds things that are unnecessarily heavy and it is a joy to travel with compared to anything else I've ever used I don't expect it to be a heavy duty video tripod and it performs excellently for what I need it for 🤷🏻♂️
I think it’s also important to say: YOU WILL NEVER BUY ALL THE “PERFECT” GEAR THE FIRST TIME. You will always end up buying some gear that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you later need to sell. Just as much as obsessing about having every new piece of gear can be bad, so can obsessing over only buying the exact gear you “need.” Sometimes you just have to move forward and take imperfect action. Try that lens! Try that camera brand! Try that fancy filter! (Rent when possible) but don’t shame or stress yourself out bc you WILL end up cycling thru gear as you get more experience and learn what you need
My Atomos Shinobi started having serious motion smearing issues wear you could never tell what you were looking at when you moved the camera. I tried everything, different cables, pixel calibration, nothing worked. I contacted Atomos support and they said that since I was, coincidentally, right outside of the warranty window, it would cost, minimum, $150 to assess and fix. During this time, I used one of the custom aspect ratios on the monitor for a shoot, where part of the frame is darkened to whatever aspect ratio you're needing. The overlay burned into the monitor, permanently. So, I'm never using an Atomos product again lol
My only issue with the PD tripod is the height. IMO it should be a good 6” taller. But mine’s held up quite well and there’s a lifetime warranty so you might as well send yours back for a fix if it’s faulty. The aluminum loses the appeal of it being so portable to me though. That and I use it for static shots so it’s ideal.
A very cathartic video to watch and it was greatly appreciated. I’m just a humble smart phone filmmaker but even I have my gear regrets namely the Insta360 gimbal. Terrible design, weak motors and completely useless for almost everything. I too was sucked in by the hype… 😢
GAS is a normal part of the learning process. You don't know what you don't know till you get your hands on it. Even all the expensive things I don't use as often has increased my understanding and appreciation for the things I do use all the time. Before all the gear, I did not know how good some of the basics really are. So this is a journey every/most filmmaker just needs to go down. Its not a cheap education.
Thanks mate! Loved this. May I ask what external viewfinder/monitor you recommend. I have an FX 6 and the monitor it came with is too small ( as you highlighted ) .
I appreciate honest videos like this. I think most, if not all of us have fallen into the trap of; that RUclipsr seems legit, so his recommendation must be solid...only to find out later, that same RUclipsr has some sort of sponsorship deal with a certain company; hence his/her strong recommendation. I salute you for this one sir!
Thanks for making this thoughtful video. I too suffer from buying gear I don't use much. I have the Raven Eye, the Peak CG tripod etc etc. Because I travel all over and it is usually just me filming I thought the Peak Design would be great. But You are right... it is only good for a lockoff... I rent the Sachtler FLOWTECH when I need a fast tripod that does it all.
The Raveneye has actually been an awesome investment for me, but by that same turn it's something I don't reach for EVER on my documentary shoots. Then again I very rarely reach for a gimbal on a doc shoot either. Where it's been valuable for me is client work and lower budget run and gun commercial shoots, where I can shoot signal from my cam out to an ipad and let the director monitor my shots wirelessly. I shot a commercial for the super bowl last week (local station spot not national) where we shot talent on location on a very short timetable and having the ability to line up my shot and let the director either give me the go ahead or make adjustments without having to look over my shoulder or wait for playback was a huge time saver. That said it kinda occupies a weird level of use case, the Raveneye is not as flexible or as high end as something like a hollyland wireless system which you'd use on bigger productions, and it's an extra doo dad to fuss around with on smaller productions where video village typically isn't a thing. It's kinda a solution for people who sometimes need a low key version of wireless on set monotoring in their bag but don't need it every day or a really good version of it, I'd rank it as either a 3 to 4 times a year solution, or a backup solution to a higher end system, and definitely not a must own for most doc shooters.
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Most of the videos on RUclips raving about the Peak Design tripod were done by those who didn't have to buy it. Thanks for your honest appraisal
It's expensive for sure. I got it on the Kickstarter which helped. He's right about it being limited for moving shots, but it's so small and so lightweight it's an absolute must for the work I do. It's almost a joke how much smaller and lighter it is than my Three Legged Thing which was the previous smallest I could find for my needs. It's a travel tripod, and should only be appraised as such.
I use mine. It’s aluminum. It’s fine. Works for some stuff. The cost is high mainly for portability. Sometimes I use it for a light. Points made in video all valid.
Very true, just marketing…
I bought mine (aluminium) and think it's amazing, combined with a fairly cheap Smallrig fluid head which allows basic tracking easily, but I probably have fairly basic and specific needs for extreme portability, and I've never had any issues with the legs locking. That said they have a lifetime warranty, which seems worth chasing for issues mentioned in this video, with whether issues like that are fixed under that warranty really being a big point on something so expensive. If I had that issue and it wasn't covered under warranty I'd be livid. Being too lazy to chase your warranty and complaining about the price seems crazy to me, pick one. Mine will be two years old in April, and when I bought it, it was half the price of the carbon (more like 300 USD in my local currency).
That said I got suckered into the Peak Design Everyday 20L backpack and it's so poorly designed from a gear organisation/securement perspective that I've never taken it out of the house, I've tried to pack it 10 times and realised I just couldn't risk my gear. I checked one out a few times in store and had niggling doubts I should have listened to, instead of assuming all the positive reviews had actually used the bag in the real world. Something I now doubt as only one reviewer I saw noted the issues I had, and many never had pictures or footage of the bag packed, which is a new red flag for me. This one hits particularly hard due to the cost and never being able to use it at all. Not just disappointing, unusable.
I’ve been dying on this hill since its release.
We need reviews from people who actually buy the stuff with their own money. Thanks for putting this into perspective!
The low-key jab at the tube light, gym videos. LMAOO. 100% agree with you on that.
This is the info I wish I could get from every gear video. The real world professional use, and truth.
Plenty of channels give that…they’re just not huge/popular.
@@joenicklo what channels do you suggest?
@@joenickloI would like to know these channels too
@@joenickloI could also use some recommendations, channels like these is what I‘m really looking forward to
"Tube light boxing scene”💀💀 so true. I commend your bravery. I too regret buying the RS2 Pro Combo, ended up just being an expensive wall accessory. I also regret getting the insta 360 R. It was so hyped but the quality is trash. What I learned from those is that any time you see multiple RUclips / tech bloggers drop reviews on the same thing all around the same time, be highly suspicious and do your own research, wait a couple months for the hype to die down and look up reviews from smaller channels. T
"Better gear won’t automatically make you better at what you’re doing. Pro gear won’t turn an amateur into a pro, you’ll just be an amateur with pro gear.” This is especially true with videography, I’ve seen better videos filmed with iPhones than $3k+ cameras. It’s about story, subject, and substance. No one really cares about the aesthetic or megapixels.
💯
I think it's crazy that a $400 tripod breaks after two years while my trusty $25 tripod is still going strong after three years!
I've got a $60 manfrotto tripod that's 12 years old and still works like it's new.
I agree, my tripod knob has gotten loose and doesnt stick down any more. Leg levers are getting loose too
The most non confrontational confrontation I've ever seen 😂
Great video! Thanks for being specific with gear, it’s personal to you and it means more that way.
I do have a comment to add at 11:21 talking about gimbal accessories: as a wedding filmmaker (who relies heavily on autofocus), I typically use a 24-105mm lens and attach the focus motor to the zoom ring. This allows me to very quickly change my focal length without taking my hands off of the gimbal handle. It’s definitely not what the part was meant to do, but does a great job for what I’ve repurposed it for!
I looked at that tripod when a friend boasted about how amazing it was. All the reviews from non influencers rip the thing apart, with the same issues you had.
One thing I always do now is read the reviews on BH/Amazon etc before buying stuff. It shows real world usage, not something somebody was sent for free, only to make a 10 minute video on it and then sell it.
Not defending or lamenting the Peak Design tripod, but I purchased the aluminum one (also in Canada and also felt it was very expensive) due to the design videos they were releasing in parallel with their kickstarter campaign. Part of the purchase was for the tripod itself (compact, leg removal, inverting center column, etc), but they also highlighted serviceability as being a key feature in that you could disassemble and rebuild the tripod as part of their sustainability goals. Serviceability and a lifetime warranty was what won me over with the thought that if something broke/wore down over time, it would be covered/serviceable. I believe they show how to repair the slipping legs and have replacement parts on their site (in hopes that you'll be able to fix it).
That being said, I agree with everything you've said here: paying $400 USD, shipping to Canada, using it for a couple years, and having the thing basically cease to function as it was intended is unacceptable. The inability to move the ball head without the horizon skewing, or having to swap out the ball head and attach a new tripod head for panning sort of defeats the purpose. As a photography tripod its also limited, as I find the base of the standard head interferes with the center column when setting up for low/high angle vertical shots. Gear that makes you fight with it while carrying out your creative vision is always an annoyance.
I love my Shinobi! Especially the focus peaking! After missing focus on an important shoot I knew I had to up my game...but budget is always an issue. That lil' guy packs a punch! Thanks again for the AWESOME content!
My Raven Eye sits unused in my gimbal case, as well. Couldn't have said it better.
got that in the kit thinking it was a brilliant piece of tech... Only to discover a 5m HDMI worked better and needed less setup-time
I sold a good chunk like the raven eye and DJI motor the second I received the rs3 pro combo :)
Was a good deal like that
I have many of the same gear regrets. I wanted to give you the heads up - Drobo actually went out of business last year. I just had to swap my whole life’s work over to another system without the proprietary format.
What did you go with, and how did you do the switchover? I have a 5 bay Drobo, and it looks like there's no way around buying at least 3-4 drives with a new system (OWC probably) and transferring it.
@@capturingthemachine Over time my needs ended up changing. I ended up swapping to a QNAP NAS. I only kept the current year's projects on the Drobo, so in my case, I bought a couple 18TB external drives, and offloaded the footage so I had 2 copies. Then I swapped the drives from the Drobo into the NAS, and formatted into my prefered RAID format. Then loaded the footage onto the NAS from the external drive. As far as I can tell, there isn't really a way around buying a couple drives.
@@NickHouchin thank you!
Great job! FYI I wouldn't recommend an OWC RAID drive bay. They use software RAID, so your computer is doing all the heavy lifting of data management. Plus, after two years your existing license expires and they want you to buy another license in order to use the software. They don't go so far as to hold your data hostage, but you don't get any software updates when your operating system updates.
Software RAID in general is not such a bad thing. Even if server hardware comes with built-in proprietary hardware RAID, I would use Linux software RAID on it so as not to be vendor locked in, and be content with the impact on the CPU.
I don’t use the raid. Mine works fine
@talonsix Drobos use hardware raid, custom controller in the box.. but it is garbage. Software raid is fine if implemented correctly, ZFS is a prime example, one of the most used implementations, and enterprise ready.
@@PeteBoyd There is little to no impact on any modern CPU with Linux Raid, or ZFS as I mentioned earlier. They are more RAM intensive tha anything else. Current assumption is about 1G for every TB or storage for ZFS, not sure what the Linux raid requirements are, but probably not much more, and most of that RAM is used to cache before write to disk.
Dropo is bankrupt. Kaput. OWC rips you off for $79 every 2 years. Not happy with them either.
Thanks for the video. I’ve a reputation for being ‘careful’ (not the word most use) with what I spend on camera gear and try to justify every purchase.
One of the most useful items I bought was a large plastic box to put all the gear I bought which I no longer/hardly ever use. After a few years, the items became a tight fit. It included gear which went back to my non-digital age, primarily Minolta SLR bodies and lenses, as well as poorly judged purchases. I had filters and a close-up lens kit which no longer fitted any of my lenses.
Someone on a photographic forum mentioned his college was looking for gear for students who lacked funds. I gave the college a lot of my gear, which made me feel great and meant it was easier to put my next lot of useless gear in my box.
I find gear comes into and out of the box fairly regularly. I too have a gimbal I infrequently use, and then seem to use all the time. The gimbal comes out and my cage goes in, and then reverse.
I don’t give advice, mainly because I’ve made mistakes, but what I will say is, if you can’t afford to buy the lens/whatever that is perfect for your needs, you can’t afford to buy a cheaper one as, after a while, you’ll come into some money and you’ll buy the best lens and the cheaper one will end up in the box, or, hopefully, at a college.
Some excellent points you raise. Thanks.
I found when I bought a Nas drive that it offers redundancy not a backup. It means you should be able to recover the drives, but the advice is to always backup to a second drive. The biggest benefit is chaining multiple drives for more storage
Raid 10 is the way to go if you’re really serious about having both speed and easily enough redundancy to restore any lost data if a disk is faulty.
On top of that you can have a backup that’s just a normal drives stored in a different physical location.
Hard to imagine anyone could need anything more than that.
great video! i'm not a filmmaker but this popped up in my feed, all i do is photography , well of my children. The peak design is a good one to talk about, i have a carbon fibre tripod, but i've been seeing all these reviews and ads in my feed i was tempted, until i saw the CAD price, ouch. The mist filter was something that's on everyone;s channel, and i was wondering about it. The gimble, i have one for my phone from 5 years ago and i've used it probably only 3x at most, it's sitting and collecting dust. great video!
About mist filters you are correct the Movie industry does not use Mist filters. Maybe for one specific shot and that's it But for the most part its slight haze when needed not for every single shot like most Cinematic RUclipsrs.
Yup, you pay colorist and editors for that.
It's pretty easy to fake in post, just apply blur in scene linear and lower the alpha a bunch and you're like 90% of the way there. Or just the Scatter plugin
Love the video, I think I'd enjoy seeing you do another one of these but including brands or versions of the equipment you DO recommend over the regrettable one
So funny that the first item you regret was the Peak Design tripod. I was tossed up when it was first released between this and the Manfrotto Befree carbons because of the hype, I was in SF and tried it in person and definitely a bit too wobbly for video use. 4 years on my Manfrotto carbons still hold up well (not for heavy work), great for travelling as well.
Interesting list - Sometimes it's a challenge deciding on needs vs. wants or what you think you need.
Mad respect for telling it like it is! Too many creators out there are raving about super ordinary gear
My primary 2 categories for gear are Need and Want. Keeps me under control.
I’ve got a great little trick! I can’t afford to buy all the tempting camera tech, don’t have the money. Saves me every time! 👍
Oh, and could you do something with the practical in the background? It stole my eyes the whole video 😅
I am finding the Ulanzi ombra video tripod with a fluid head to be a solid piece of gear for weddings. It's like the peak design tripods in that it is light weight and compact, but also has a fluid head top and is only $90 US. Love the video!
Me too!
Nah it cant handle a fx3 with vmount and a 24-105
I just got into photography and some people gave raving reviews for Peak Design but i just could bare to spend that much on their gear and bags. No regrets and happy to hear your honest review.
Great job Luc, we all could add more items to this list as we hang our head in frustration - Really cool to share and know you too have the same pains with this even after all the high end clients that you work with.
Not a doc shooter, but a commercial shooter, and this list is spot on lol. I never understood the peakdesign tripod hype. Tried it once and was immediately looking for something actually designed for video. And you're right, gimbals are great for very specific work, shots, and environments, but the super high end gimmicks are completely unnecessary for 99% of consumers.
Great advice Luc! As always- good stuff from Luc!
I bought the Peak design and it was a disappointment. The gimble is the other one for me, I have one but never use it. I have also purchased cheap monitors and been dissatisfied with peaking and the 1980s video game look of the scopes.
Jason
Never understood the hype for PD travel tripod ... I mean ... I guess influencers got good cut on them :D.
The PD tripod is an outstanding option for the right kinds of jobs. It's not a substitute for a fluid head tripod. But if you do a lot of travel and just need something that takes minimal space and is going to take a beating the PD tripod is excellent. I've used mine for over 2 years now all over the US, Canada, Mexico, and Europe, taking it on flights and into the woods and wilderness to remote areas for numerous shoots. Sometimes you want to minimize weight carried.
It's been great especially for situations where setting up something like an FX3 in a small space or with a backpack and you need all your gear with you to move around, is valued.
@@nicklarovere Glad it works for you.
But I just checked the price of the travel PD tripod in my country and it's more than half of Sachtler Flowtech 75 legs price. Ridiculous. I just got carbon fiber travel tripod with very good ball head for ~160$. It's a bit heavier than PD, and probably does not pack that well but it's 1/4th of the price here :o
Hi Luc, thanks for an honest and inciteful review. Great to hear real views from those who paid real money for kit. Sure we all have slightly different needs and perspectived, but I'm fed up seeing 'fan boy' reviews of freebie gear reviewed by 'quasi professional' YT reviewers who seem loath to tell the real negatives lest their supply of freebie kit stops.
So called 'influencers' ..... don'tcha just hate em!
Peak design make some good kit (straps, clips and anchors), but the tripod looked pretty expensive and far from rigid when I eventually got to see one in the plastic. I knew it wasn't for me. Prob same for the PD backpack too (never seen just my prejudice at an over hyped product by multiple 'influencers').
While I'm just learning to film art videos and car show stuff. I can tell you that my painting gear comes with the same issues. I just. spent $400 on paint brushes that several will never be used after I'm done with the video. So I appreciate this video. I can only afford to waste money on one end. Thank you Luc.
The peak design tripod is a photography tripod not a filmmaking tripod. Surprised anyone recommended it otherwise.
We did use them for an iPhone kit we needed to mail out for people to film themselves during the pandemic. It allowed us to go down an entire case size than next smallest full tripod we could find. We got the aluminum ones. Made up the cost in shipping first time we used it.
Good video! Peak Design outright sucks - intentionally! spots designed to break, parts that wear out and have to be purchased again.
As for the mist filters, I just used instructions to spray stuff onto ordinary filters... took a few attempts to make it good.
The Dobro, ugh! Bad news - use an ordinary PC, install hard drives, install your choice of backup software. Lastly, don't use a small chassis and cool it well with exhaust fans.
Yep, we've all done it. Especially going for the "extra" bells and whistles of the influencers that run up the cost, but as you said - I never use them! Ugh! Thanks.
Hey Luc, excellent video, you make far more real friends with your honesty, thank you!
Thank you for calling out the PD travel tripod hype
Years ago I used the Retrospect backup system which was proprietary. Did I ever regret going with that! The problem is that, if you want to restore from a backup, you have to use the same device you used to do the backup with. I have tons of backed-up projects that I can't restore now. As for the OWC enclosures, I've owned two Mercury Rack Pros. Both not only died on me but caused entire RAID arrays to get corrupted. I managed to retrieve the data using Disk Drill (an absolute must and I couldn't recommend it enough!) which saved my butt! As for enclosures, I replaced those OWCs with a Midiasonic Probox which works just fine. I also have a couple of OWC Thunderbolt hubs and both have been suspicious of causing corruption on other drives that were attached to them. I have now put a big "X" on anything OWC!
good tip, thanks for sharing...never heard of midiasonic, but I'll have a look!
I was fortunate to try the Peak Design out at a camera show and thought I had the wrong model as it was utterly crap. I left with a leofoto Ranger instead. Agree with everything else too. RUclipsrs may not get "paid" to promote or leave good reviews, but they are incentivised to. Free products, content, exposure etc
Nice! Love my Leofoto Ranger! I already had it when the Peak Design came out, and I honestly couldn't understand all the hype around it - it seems very expensive for what you get.
I'll have to check this out...thanks!
Love the videos Luc. Appreciate the transparency 🙏❤
I've been loving the 3 Legged Thing Jay as my travel tripod. That thing is solid and has an adjustable bowl.
I would wish for you to make a video on making wildlife documentary
My greatest regret purchase is also from Peak Design and it is the backpack. I cannot figure out how people use it. I never could figure out how to make it work for my gear. I have gone through a lot of backpacks but with the amount I spent it haunts me…😂
i feel you! i bought the first iteration and sold it. one of my biggest gripes is that its completely unable to hold small items without them falling out of those massive flaps. not really "everyday" from my experience
I love your honesty mate. I can relate to the filters and raven eye too.😊
Another excellent video, Luc. Thanks. FYI, Drobo went out of business in January last year, so you may want to start planning a migration strategy now before you're forced to. As for the proprietary lock-in, I've always assumed that's the case for any RAID; i.e., I don't think you can take the drives from one vendor's box and stick them in another's and expect them to work without reformatting (and losing all your data). I could be wrong, but you should confirm that with whoever you end up gong with. You may also want to consider what you'd do if your dwelling burned down, taking the RAID with it. Is anything backed up to the cloud?
I believe it depends what sort of RAID set-up you use. If you just do simple mirroring (RAID1) you should be able to use either of the drives normally like any other drive. But if you do striping, you won't be able to use the drives outside of the array, and maybe you can't read them outside of the ecosystem they were made in if the striping is done in a proprietary way. So if you do RAID0, where data is striped over 2 or more drives and isn't mirrored, and one drive dies, you lose all your data. If you do RAID5 where it is both striped and mirrored, if a drive dies you still have a back up, but you still can't read drives individually - they need to remain in the array.
Actually, I don't think I've got RAID5 quite right, but regardless, striping improves performance but you do need to be careful that isn't at the cost of data safety
@@LisaFrostPhotoYou had it right, Lisa, with an asterisk. With Raid 5, if you lose one drive in the array, it will automatically rebuild itself. You lose no data. You pull out the bad drive and replace it, and it redistributes it back to use all the drives. RAID 6 works the same, but you can lose 2 drives and retain all your data after it automatically rebuilds.
I've just heard....and yeah, I said that badly, but you're absolutely right!
Regarding that hdd thing, the 'safest system' in some ways is to have straight up plain harddrives without any RAID or any form of array bladiblabla. What you do is get two external HDD's, or a cabinet that can do JBOD and stuff two drives in it, then schedule a copy sync from one to the other in the middle of the night or whatever. There are several ways to do that, FreeFileSync is a fairly simple way to do it. When you do it the basic way, there is no special hardware or dingle dongelidoodads that can go wrong locking you into some strange smelly corner of the computerverse that you just know is less good than plain old copying stuff, leaving you able to grab one of the hdd and separately plug it into a different computer and dazzle everyone with your genius. I've worked in IT. I used to even work for a backup solutions company. I don't run RAID, the only point to that kind of stuff is if you have huge amounts of data and huge amounts of drives.
RUclips needs more professionals who care about being real and honest over profiting from newbies and a trusting audience
For me it was my Meike Cine Lens set. Bought them way too early in my career, never ended up using them. They were MFT, and were useless once I outgrew my 4K. Sold them for a $1200 loss.
This is absolutely correct 100% and anyone who possibly gets triggered should take this seriously. Chasing trends is a path to resentment and imposter syndrome.
One of the biggest problems starting out is buying the wrong things. You only learn with time and I wasted so much money on stuff I don't use. Also many things need power or stands or ways to rig it up and it sucks to get 90% of the way to your vision and then decide it isn't worth it and finding an easier and cheaper solution. However sometimes the opposite happens. Sometimes you buy something in ignorance and only realize years later how good and useful it is.
Thank you for respecting our time and creating timestamps
Yeah, it’s easy to get caught in gear that doesn’t pan out. Sometimes we just get sucked into the feeding frenzy of RUclips gadget influencers. I certainly have.
Regarding travel tripods, I’ve had great luck with the very inexpensive one from iFoto. It’s held up very well and goes on nearly all my shoots as a backup or for use to support a client monitor, secondary slider support or makeshift light stand.
I also bought the Pro version of the DJI RS2, and think the RavenEye was not worth it. The tech wasn’t ready for prime time. The RS2 is a fine gimbal the Raven Eye stays behind.
Sorry to hear about the Dropbox fiasco. I think companies should be forthcoming about limitations of proprietary tech.
I enjoyed the video! I don't get as nice of gear as you but I totally get your option on most filters. I was SO excited to get one and found that I RARELY use it. When I went to Japan I got a few great night shots with all the lighting blowing out in a nice way, but 99% of the time I'm recording without it on. Fell for the hype.
Great video mate. I woul love to see how you use a gimbal in documentary setting. What kind of shots you get would be super interesting.
I laughed at the first 15 seconds because that's exactly what I was doing all day lmao. I was gonna buy the A7CII because I want to upgrade to a full frame. But then after I took a break and ate some dinner, I realized it's foolish to put myself in debt just to get a full frame so I can be like all the other RUclipsrs. My APS-C works perfectly fine for what I do. Infact, maybe just upgrade to an A6700 instead because some of it's features will make my life easier as a content creator. It's more of a need than a want.
I have the Peak Design Travel Tripod (Aluminum version) and primarily use it for a static interview shot. But even now, 1.5 years in, the legs are also starting to loosen on me. So it looks like I may have to start looking into other options soon! 😅 great video as always!
Like, the tightening of the clamps that let the legs slide up and down? All you have to do is tighten the screws with the included hex tool. These tripods are rock solid.
@@nicklarovere it’s a great tripod, I agree. And I do tighten the legs. I was just basing my comment on Luc’s experience that once he started having to tighten the legs, they started loosening more frequently and became a bit of a hassle.
As much as I love the size of the Peak Design for travel, I have yet to stumble across any professional photographer or filmmaker in the field using it for their work.
The mist filter is kinda pointless, halation and glow effects are super easy to apply in post and generally look pretty realistic and pleasant. Locking yourself into that look in camera is really a niche thing.
… if you think that a pro mist is pointless, you simply do not have the skills to use it. It might be pointless to your set of skills
@@d_FLDE it's not totally useless, but I just think that screwing up the sharpness of your footage in camera intentionally with no way to remove it is not best practice. Im sure you like the highlight rolloff and shit, but I promise you there's other ways to achieve that, and not all of us are shooting artsy student film projects where if it doesn't work out and looks like shit that was just part of the "aesthetic"
@@samk2407 … lmao dude. No. I only shoot commercials with cameras like Alexa 35 and Cooke sp3 primes. You simply have no idea about colours in video like most amateurs, wedding photographers and photographers in general who think the best in a lens is how sharp it is. ✌️😃
And you are right, we chose intentionally what lenses and sensors we use and when to use a most filter in what gradation to achieve exactly what we like. We also use false colors and wave forms dude. But i am sure you are the star in your wedding videographer circle ❤️
$1,000 for two tiny tripods- ouch!
Your video made me think about gear I regret buying, and there is a lot. The one that comes immediately to mind is my powered slider. It is an excellent slider and it works really well; however, I don’t use it because it takes too much time to set up. I shoot live theatre, concerts and dance shows with 3 cameras normally. It usually takes me an hour to set up. In a lot of these theatres you have to set up in the audience seating which makes setting up the slider even more difficult. I also regret buying expensive video tripods because getting them into the seating area is very difficult.
This is so accurate and helpful, thank you for ngaf and give your opinion from your experience.
The amount of consumerism in the photo/video world is insane. Dont need all this fancy overpriced stuff to get a quality job done guys. Great video!
Yea, 400 USD for a tripod is a heck naw from me, dude! I appreciate your honesty.
RE: Drobo: Though OWC does have some killer enclosures, their software raid is still _kinda_ a lock-in. But vs doing a traditional RAID enclosure, you kinda gotta pick your battles for IT investment vs convenience
A lot of these influencers did not have to buy these accessories nor do a lot of them every mention the cons of them. With how expensive and necessary gear is you'd think they would be more honest. Nothing is worse then getting on set for a shoot just for something to fail/break down on you. Thank you for making this video.
Sum up:
1 - Peak Design Travel Tripod (using a Tripod meant for Photographers for Video, issues mentioned could be solved with their lifelong guarantee)
2 - Drobo NAS (I attribute that to just buying things that are critical to your work without doing extensive research)
3 - Filters (personal choice, needs to fit your style)
4 - Gimbal
5 - Andy Cine Monitor
I feel all of this. Also, the Shinobi is one of my favorite pieces of kit to use.
I changed to Synology after hearing Drobo had gone under (i.e. no more support). I still have my Drobo though but rarely turn it on - not saying it's loud but I'm ex-military and I always got the same sense of deep silence after turning my Drobo off that you get when a helicopter has just dropped you off and left.
haha, my feelings exactly!
Legit video and excellent advice - Thanks for producing valuable content!
Good call on the Peak Design Tripod. I have several products from the Peak Design ecosystem that are well-designed and well-built. They've stood the test of time. A colleague bought the tripod and I was amazed at how crappy it was and at such a staggering price. It's virtually useless for filmmaking and stills shooters have much better options at much lower price points.
Honestly, the Ulanzi F38 video travel tripod is better than the Peak Design.
good tip!
Appreciate you sharing & your honesty. Very refreshing.
Funny enough, the Andycine monitor absolutely failed me on the 2nd gig I had it out on, whole wedding day shot without an external monitor far from home.
Returned it, got the Desview r6 which has held up for over 25 gigs now!
Nope. No enemies here. Bless you, you nailed it. I have the FX3 as well. I would love to dump my Ronin 2s, the "used twice" PD tripod, and thank god I never went for the matte box filters or 12k hard drive system. Hilarious how we all fell for the same gear! I also bought a Sachtler tripod...2k. Add that to the list hehe
Bang on with the Raven Eye. I don’t think I have ever used it despite it being such a god piece of tech.
Great title, and yes!! I've been wooed to buy gear that is now collecting dust. I love Peak Design, but didn't buy this. way, too much money. Now I'm really glad I didn't buy it. Thanks for your honest opinions.
I agree with you regarding the Peak Design tripod. Probably a good choice for a stills shooter but for me , a video shooter, not the best choice. Expensive, funky head, and not all that much weight saving. For the price, there are other options.
I'm a landscape photographer and I'd not touch the Peak Design tripod with a barge pole 😂 Way overpriced, not sturdy enough, and that head looks like a nightmare.
I had a GAS for a gimbal so big that I finally bought it. For two years, I have regretted this decision every day 🤣It's still in the case, I've used it three or four times 😬
I had this exact experience recently with the Zhiyun x60 RBG that so many RUclipsrs were raving about. Almost all of them talked about how Zhiyun fixed the problem with the batteries from the x100, but one of the two units I ordered was DOA and wouldn't charge.
It's a real shame because they're otherwise very well-desined, and quite useful pieces of kit; it's just that I have zero confidence in their longevity for a product that I spent $1000 Canadian dollars on (for two).
PD tripod doesn't really count since you went out and bought it a SECOND time. The key is use a different head as you mentioned. I beat the snot out of mine and have had zero issues. If yours broke, just reach out to PD and they will repair/replace ez peezee.
I got bad news for your Drobo. The company already shut down. Get a Synology and start transferring everything now!
I loved this video, and I cannot argue with your experience, but the PD tripod has worked wonders for me when I’m traveling and running and gunning. I’ve brought that thing (sometimes two at the time) to lots of shoots including Africa and Canada, and they’ve held up pretty good.
I felt the same about the Raveneye until today. A co-worker wanted to see the feed as I framed it. They caught so many things I didn't and it made it a better shoot.
Literally almost forgot it existed. It will be standard parctice moving forward.
I have the aluminum PD tripod
It holds things that are unnecessarily heavy and it is a joy to travel with compared to anything else I've ever used
I don't expect it to be a heavy duty video tripod and it performs excellently for what I need it for 🤷🏻♂️
agreed with everything pretty much. could not stand my peak design and sold it with the promise I would never get "influenced" again.
I think it’s also important to say: YOU WILL NEVER BUY ALL THE “PERFECT” GEAR THE FIRST TIME. You will always end up buying some gear that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you later need to sell.
Just as much as obsessing about having every new piece of gear can be bad, so can obsessing over only buying the exact gear you “need.”
Sometimes you just have to move forward and take imperfect action. Try that lens! Try that camera brand! Try that fancy filter! (Rent when possible) but don’t shame or stress yourself out bc you WILL end up cycling thru gear as you get more experience and learn what you need
My Atomos Shinobi started having serious motion smearing issues wear you could never tell what you were looking at when you moved the camera. I tried everything, different cables, pixel calibration, nothing worked. I contacted Atomos support and they said that since I was, coincidentally, right outside of the warranty window, it would cost, minimum, $150 to assess and fix. During this time, I used one of the custom aspect ratios on the monitor for a shoot, where part of the frame is darkened to whatever aspect ratio you're needing. The overlay burned into the monitor, permanently. So, I'm never using an Atomos product again lol
My only issue with the PD tripod is the height. IMO it should be a good 6” taller. But mine’s held up quite well and there’s a lifetime warranty so you might as well send yours back for a fix if it’s faulty. The aluminum loses the appeal of it being so portable to me though. That and I use it for static shots so it’s ideal.
A very cathartic video to watch and it was greatly appreciated. I’m just a humble smart phone filmmaker but even I have my gear regrets namely the Insta360 gimbal. Terrible design, weak motors and completely useless for almost everything. I too was sucked in by the hype… 😢
You’re so right about the Peak designs tripod. You can buy tripods that have the same load capacity and are just as light for a third of the price!!
GAS is a normal part of the learning process. You don't know what you don't know till you get your hands on it. Even all the expensive things I don't use as often has increased my understanding and appreciation for the things I do use all the time. Before all the gear, I did not know how good some of the basics really are. So this is a journey every/most filmmaker just needs to go down. Its not a cheap education.
Thanks mate! Loved this. May I ask what external viewfinder/monitor you recommend. I have an FX 6 and the monitor it came with is too small ( as you highlighted ) .
He mention the Atomos and TV logic
Do you have trouble filing a warranty claim with Peak Design being in Canada?
Awesome video. Thanks for the insight.
9:47 Ok Luc now I feel personally attacked 😄
I appreciate honest videos like this. I think most, if not all of us have fallen into the trap of; that RUclipsr seems legit, so his recommendation must be solid...only to find out later, that same RUclipsr has some sort of sponsorship deal with a certain company; hence his/her strong recommendation. I salute you for this one sir!
Wild…4 years later, I still love my peak design tripod. I’ve used it 400+ times and it’s still going strong!
Thanks for making this thoughtful video. I too suffer from buying gear I don't use much. I have the Raven Eye, the Peak CG tripod etc etc. Because I travel all over and it is usually just me filming I thought the Peak Design would be great. But You are right... it is only good for a lockoff... I rent the Sachtler FLOWTECH when I need a fast tripod that does it all.
The Raveneye has actually been an awesome investment for me, but by that same turn it's something I don't reach for EVER on my documentary shoots. Then again I very rarely reach for a gimbal on a doc shoot either. Where it's been valuable for me is client work and lower budget run and gun commercial shoots, where I can shoot signal from my cam out to an ipad and let the director monitor my shots wirelessly. I shot a commercial for the super bowl last week (local station spot not national) where we shot talent on location on a very short timetable and having the ability to line up my shot and let the director either give me the go ahead or make adjustments without having to look over my shoulder or wait for playback was a huge time saver. That said it kinda occupies a weird level of use case, the Raveneye is not as flexible or as high end as something like a hollyland wireless system which you'd use on bigger productions, and it's an extra doo dad to fuss around with on smaller productions where video village typically isn't a thing. It's kinda a solution for people who sometimes need a low key version of wireless on set monotoring in their bag but don't need it every day or a really good version of it, I'd rank it as either a 3 to 4 times a year solution, or a backup solution to a higher end system, and definitely not a must own for most doc shooters.
I could see that working well in that kind of set up...not common for me, but it's good to keep in mind