The Problem with Siths

There are tons of videos explaining why Star Wars prequels are so bad. But I don't remember anyone talking about this problem with prequels Maybe because it is not so big problem in prequels. It is bigger problem for Star Wars mythos as whole.

This is my first look to dark side this October. Next one will be look into other dark mythos. Halloween is not such a big deal in Finland but because everyone else seems to celebrate it in Internet I thought I could release couple slightly Halloween themed videos. Next one will be more suitable for Halloween.

Editing The Problem with Siths video

I almost lost hope getting DaVinci Resolve Studio. But I got it last moment to get it before editing next video. I am glad I got it. I bought it for motion blur and it was worth it. I get much less compression issues in Youtube when I use Resolve’s motion blur. I had to use blur in previous videos but motion blur is better option since it looks more natural and I can have those parts not moving sharper. It is hard to get motion blur in camera when you use action cameras and lighting changes constantly. Easier to have shutter speed on auto and get motion blur in post.

I stopped using film emulation in this video. I wondered why video looked so messy. Then I remembered why I stopped using LUTs earlier. Film emulation seems to lose data when it applies two filters to image. When I dropped film emulation footage started to look much better. Another plus is faster rendering time. I won’t even try it on future videos.

I think I learned few things to get more cinematic looking video. I have been hesitant to add colors in post. Only added contrast, saturation and maybe little temperature if style requires it. When I tweaked colors footage started to instantly look more cinematic. You can expect more cinematic footage when I get better hold on this.

I have used DJI Osmo for cycling videos. I like it being gimbal and bike mount adds additional up and down stabilization. Shooting this video was problematic. This time I lost about 10 minutes of video because Osmo shut down on its own and corrupted video file. I lost another fifteen minutes because Osmo didn’t shoot forward. Osmo also had problems being in straight. It went from one angle to another. Most of time it was straight but not all the time. I haven’t had as much problems before. Maybe I should think about new GoPro Hero which is go to camera for other’s cycling footage.

DJI Osmo wasn’t only thing giving me problems. Ableton Live also didn’t want to co-operate. It might be because it crashed couple times at beginning. I managed to work around what crashed it. But for some reason I had to render music three times before I got it. Glitch effects are not caused by that. Those were intentional. One more thing you can expect more from future videos. It was so fun to work with glitch effects. I can’t use them on moodier music but this time music wasn’t moody.

First Rackbrute is full ...almost

Either I can’t count or Rackbrute have one extra hp on each row. I already filled upper row with one extra hp. I didn’t want to gamble on lower row and bought modules which I counted would fill it but there was one extra hp. I probably get empty one hp panel to fill the hole. There are no functional one hp modules and I got what I want on case already. Well not all but I will get to that later.

I finally got tuner. Without it I didn’t use modular that much. I can’t tune by ear. I need something to tone the synth. Only way was to connect it to computer but I was always too lazy to do that. So I didn’t use modular that much. Tuner has made modular fun again. I just turn synth on and tune oscillators when I need to do that. No need to open computer and connect synth to it. It is just like with guitar. You need to get tuner early on.

Addition to tuner I got first Doepfer modules. For those who doesn’t know Doepfer is father of eurorack format. Ever since I started to build eurorack synth I wanted to have something from Doepfer to give love back to them. Problem was they didn’t have anything I really want besides their SEM filter. It wasn’t going to be in this case because I had enough filters in it already. I decided to get ADSR even though it is 2 hps wider than Pittsburgh Modular’s ADSR. I thought it would fill the case with Doepfer’s dual VCA. If I knew there would still be one hp left I would have got Pittsburgh Modular’s ADSR and something 3 hp sized like Erica Synth’s Trigger to Gate module which would be useful with Rene. I might do that when I get next case and put Doepfer ADSR there.

Not saying Doepfer’s ADSR is bad module. It has some benefits over Pittsburgh Modular’s ADSR but with eurorack cases you have limited space and you have to have system which makes most sense. Sometimes it means getting rid of something because there is something smaller doing almost the same thing.

I have had plan to buy second Rackbrute. There are few modules I want for my eurorack. Everything I wanted didn’t fit into one if I wanted to have functional synth on one case. Most of module I still want are from Make Noise. DPO, Maths, Wogglebug and Tempi will be basis of next case if I decide to get it. Doepfer’s SEM will be on it too. Anything else is still open. Only plan is to make it fully functional. So it could be used with out first case. Or have it another voice when first one gives first voice.

Editing Cameras, Cameras Everywhere

I usually publish these editing posts before the video as some sort of teaser. This time I wanted video out before Photokina and camera releases. Panasonic’s announcement didn’t change anything. It was something I was expecting. They still have to release camera to know if it is worth getting. Plan is still to buy Sony’s next APS-C camera. It should be released next month. Other than Panasonic’s announcement there haven’t been anything interesting for me.

I hope to get DaVinci Resolve Studio for next video. So this could be my last video edited with free DaVinci Resolve. I didn’t need any features why I ordered Studio but next week I need. I was bit disappointed of stabilization. I couldn’t make it really stabilize gimbal footage. I ended up not having any stabilization in post. All gimbal shots look what I could get with gimbal with stabilized lense.

This time camera and drone footage looked better together than in Summer 2018 video. It is probably because I used wide angle lense and didn’t try to play with depth of field. Another reason is probably I didn’t shoot with S-log2. I tested different profiles earlier and forgot to chage profile back to S-log2. Camera’s screen is so bad in bright light I didn’t realize that when shooting the video.

Cameras, Cameras Everywhere

I have published videos on Wednesdays lately. I published this on Monday since there might be camera announcements on Tuesday and I wanted this out before that.

This is my addition to random noise of new camera releases. I give my thoughts on new camera releases and what I want to see. I mainly shoot video so my opinions are based on video features.

Footage was shot with Sony A6300 + Sony 10-18 mm F4, DJI Mavic Air and DJI Osmo. I seriously want DJI Osmo 2 even when new GoPro Hero 7 looks quite good. Osmo can still do things GoPro Hero can't.

Training twice a week

I went back to training twice a week. I feel it was correct choice. Most training instructions tell you should train at least three times a week. I had that opinion earlier but now I feel two times a week is enough. It probably depends on how hard you go when you train. I feel I can train harder when I train only twice a week. More you train easier you have train to recover from your training. I recovered from training three times a week but I was tired most of the time.

When training twice a week I can go harder. I can use bigger gear and go faster. I don’t attempt good average speeds. It is pointless to try to get your best average speeds. On mountain biking it depends on where you ride and on urban roads it depends on traffic lights and other traffic. It also makes you ride too hard on easy parts. I don’t care about average speeds but my heart rate monitor shows when I have new record average speed. Getting back to training twice a week has given me new average speed records.

I probably get back to train three times a week next summer when weather gets better. But it is good to know I don’t have to train that often to get results. This probably depends on how hard you can train. If you can’t train hard enough twice a week is not enough.