Total newbie question about formats and file sizes

[jeremyrh]

OK - please be kind ...

I've just got interested in the idea of making short films about my photo shoots - the idea is just to set up a Sony RX100 to film the shoot, change the position from time to time, include some additional shots etc - not exactly Ridley Scott but I think it might be of interest to other dance photographers. It's not a big goal for me - more something to pass time on the train to work.

But - I had intended to use Lumafusion on my iPad, and that worked out fine for a little pilot project I shot using an iPhone, but after trying the same thing with the RX100, I found that the file sizes were huuuge by iPad standards - I was using XAVC-S format at 1080/25 and a few minutes shot was already 10Gb.

So I am wondering if my expectations were completely unrealistic, or if I have something set wrong, or if I've made some other kind of horrible mistake?

Thanks for any tips!!

[fredjeang2]

As it, your post is a bit laconic.
You may want to share the parameters applied when you conformed for
A deliverable. That way we can see the source of the file's size and eventualy be helpfull.

Keep in mind however that it is not uncommon that people upload huge file sizes, above the
Platform recommended settings, because they recompress automaticaly and downgrade by
A good margin anyway. It just takes more time to upload.

[D Fuller]

But - I had intended to use Lumafusion on my iPad, and that worked out fine for a little pilot project I shot using an iPhone, but after trying the same thing with the RX100, I found that the file sizes were huuuge by iPad standards - I was using XAVC-S format at 1080/25 and a few minutes shot was already 10Gb.

So I am wondering if my expectations were completely unrealistic, or if I have something set wrong, or if I've made some other kind of horrible mistake?

Thanks for any tips!!

I'm not familiar with Lumafusion, but I can tell  you that 10GB is just a little bit of video footage if shot with the least bit of quality. (Just for reference, I regularly shoot a terabyte of footage in a day--not on an RX100, but still...) There are ways to handle what you're doing on an iPad, but they involve cloud storage and proxies that are streamable. I've not used those, so I can't tell you how well they work. Something that might work would be to actually record the video on the iPad or an iPhone. If you have iCloud services enabled, Apple will take care of the streaming issues to enlarge the capacity of your i-devices and editing on the iPad should work. (check your cel contract's data rates before you take that idea too far.)

Sounds like an interesting project. I'd love to see it when it's done.

[Alan Klein]

If you use MP4 or AVCHD, you should be able to find a setting that uses half the bit rate or less then using  XAVC-S and still have 1080. Also, do you need 1080 for your ipad or can you get by with 720?  That would reduce the file size even more.

 How will you handle sound as the RX100 cannot use an external microphone?

Also, certain modes only allow a certain length of recording and then reset to a new file folder.  I don't know if that would effect you.  But check the specs.  The RX100 might not be the video camera you need for this.

[TommyWeir]

I too have taken to grabbing the odd video of my photography shoots, I use a Panasonic LX100 to do it, takes great video.  I'd not considered using my iPad, it's too old and the file sizes too high, the idea of editing video on it too painful.

You could use Handbrake on the Mac or PC to downsize the video to various bit rates/resolutions.  Perhaps test a few, I would imagine the Apple presets are what you're looking for.  It's very useful and free.
https://handbrake.fr

You can add a whole bunch of clips and it will batch process too.