Gearing Up Part 1 | Computer & Storage
One of the big commitments to properly shoot video is a financial one. So one thing I’m going to try to do on this site is provide as much detail as possible on the costs I’m incurring.
One of the things I wanted to do before I even received my Canon 5D Mark II was get my computer system in order. I would assume most photographers will already have a computer system in place as I did. I’m sure any decent system that can handle a photographers workflow would be adequate for video work as well. But since I’m a bit of a tech geek I’ll use even the most flimsy of excuses to make my system faster and the demands of shooting and editing video was the perfect opportunity to do just that. My system was pretty good to begin with so I didn’t need to do too much. Mainly I just upgraded the memory and storage . My system prior to the upgrades was:
- Mac Pro 3Ghz 8-Core (2007 1st Generation)
- 8 GB RAM
- ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB
- 150 GB WD Raptor main drive
- 75 GB WD Raptor scratch drive
- 2 TB Seagate Barracuda content drive (x3 for backups)
- Lacie 321 LCD
The upgrades:
- 8GB -> 16GB RAM ($400)
- 600 GB WD VelociRaptor main drive ($280)
- 64GB Kingston SNV425-S2 SSD scratch drive ($100 after rebate)
- G-Tech G-Raid 4TB content drive ($475) x3
Software: Final Cut Pro Studio ($640)
Computer/Software upgrade total so far: $2845
Estimated Ebay sale of old gear: $215
Net upgrade total: $2630
I could have upgraded my computer to 32GB of ram, which would have been nice but it would have cost about $1400. I decided 16GB would be enough and still leave room for upgrading later.
I also opted for a Western Digital VelociRaptor drive over an SSD drive as my main OS drive. While SSD performance would have been much better than a traditional hard drive (even a 10,000RPM drive) I decided the cost wasn’t worth it for now. A 256GB SSD drive would run about $650 and still be less than half the size of the VelociRaptor. Again, this is something I can easily upgrade later when prices go down.
The biggest costs in the computer upgrade was the main storage. While I’m sure it won’t last long I opted for a 4TB raid drive from G-Tech. I bought three so I would have the primary drive and then two drives for backups; one onsite and one offsite (I’m going to do a post a later on my storage system).
So now I think I have a great system for my video editing that still has room for upgrades. Tomorrow I’ll be going over my initial costs for my camera gear upgrades and purchases.
Have your own opinions, experiences or tips? Post in the comments?
You can subscribe to the RSS feed here and follow my motion specific Twitter feed here.
Visit my photography website here and please re-tweet if you found this not totally useless:
Tweet
No related posts.
3 Comments
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- Tweets that mention Gearing Up Part 1 | 1 To 24 FPS -- Topsy.com - [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by 1TO24FPS, Jeff Singer. Jeff Singer said: How much is it going to ...
- Gearing Up Part 2 | 1 To 24 FPS - [...] Yesterday I posted about the costs to upgrading my computer for shooting and editing video. Today I’m going to ...
- Gearing Up Part 3 | 1 To 24 FPS - [...] to what will likely be an unending series documenting my initial costs in starting to shoot video (part 1 ...
Leave a Reply
About Me
I'm a San Francisco commercial and editorial photographer who's getting started with video.
Connect
As a fellow photographer going to the 24 frame movement, I too am feeling the burn of cash evaporating from my wallet. I am not doing the credit card route so the equipment purchases are coming slowly, but I do have the basics to create what I want and rent what I don’t have…yet. My Mac Pro with 12 gig of ram and Adobe Production suite, drobo, and some external drives keep me going for now, but I will be interested to read about your storage system. I see how Chase Jarvis and the lot ( who have a larger budget than me ) have a great system for their files, so seeing how you do this will be good to read.
One question though: where did you get FCP for 640 bucks? I went with Premiere Pro mainly because, as a photographer, I had all the other Adobe tools already and the upgrade price was great. I also found that Premiere handles the Canon 5d files really well ( no conversions like in FCP ). That was my main justification to it. If I saw FCP at $640 I probably would have went down a different path, but I am still happy with Premiere.
Good luck, look forward to the following blog posts.
Mel
Yes, it certainly is expensive. Worse yet depending on what you shoot it may not mean more income (as an editorial photographer I know magazines don’t have budget for video even though they want it).
You can usually find software pretty cheap on eBay. I bought the full (not academic), unopened and fully licensed/registrable version for $650… much better than the $1000 from Apple. If you wanted to get the educational version it would be about $400. I don’t know why these dealers can get away with such low prices but I’ve been buying software like that for years and never had a problem.
Noticed you haven’t mentioned anything about audio really, not sure what your plan is there – but for best results you’ll want a separate digital audio recorder. If you go that route the must-have software is Pluraleyes, from singular software (http://www.singularsoftware.com/pluraleyes.html) – it’s a companion tool for FCP that will sync dual-system sound to your video automatically, and well worth the $150 in saved time on even a single project.