First time shooting with an Epic, and i can now admit the obvious.... it's pretty

[Darren Levine]

Redundant i know, but first day shooting with the Epic and i overall enjoyed it. (like there was even a chance it would have been otherwise)

Very low budget skeleCrew test shoot weekend for a later 2 Epic shoot in august with more typical crew size. That and it topped 100 degrees here in NYC and tomorrow will be 91, so this is probably as bad as it can get for this camera for conditions/crew size.

with the fan settings on low for rec and 100 for standby we didn't even break 60C, so that availed by concerns of the heat being an issue, though i do think having that standby fan noise in my ear for long duration on shoulder mount was a tad irritating. but no biggie.

i should mention we avoided direct sun, so that could make a very large difference, but we packed a very technical piece of equipment to remedy that, know in long form as an "umbrella", very technical stuff, i assure you....

but yea, i was pleasantly surprised at it's intuitiveness, the great owner and DIT for us on the shoot Frank Sun, gave a quick runthrough in our test build and went swimmingly. no freezes even.

nice to be working with the same cam as several hollywood blockbusters.

cheers!

[Rob Castiglione]

Glad you enjoyed the experience. I agree that it is an enjoyable and intuitive camera to shoot with. One thing I can say though - overheating is not an issue with the epic. I have shot for days and days and days with the camera with not even the remotest heating issues arising. Sad that that has become a bit of a myth. Shoot epic with confidence! Also you don't need to put the cam on 100% standby - around 75% will work fine.

[Michael Mayda]

+1 for 75% standby and 35-40% running. Works fine here in California's Central Valley with 90-100 F typical summer days. Glad you enjoyed the Epic!

[Kevin Wild]

Frank Sun. Good man. Glad he was able to hook you up!

[Darren Levine]

Good to know, I'll dial in 75 standby for today.

Also a little interesting point, the director was asking about reference audio and we were going to slap a shotgun onboard(ungainly and awkward for this lean fast paced test weekend). But i had a little laptop mic i use on the 5D sometimes which is 3.5mm, and it works a treat for reference audio for pluraleyes or whatnot.

the exact one i have that i can verify that works is: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MYPPPE/?tag=dlevi-20

great that it's completely unobtrusive and adds no extra bulk.

[Joost Kelderman]

nice little gadget microphone for scratch.. thanks for the tip.. just ordered a couple for scratchtrack

[Brian M Lynch]

Thanks for the tip on the mic Darren, just ordered one as well.

[Milan Spasic]

All this talk about Fear of overheating ..... I've never head a problem and I'm shooting regularly in 100F + temperatures and direct sun.
Fan setting always stays on auto.

Both R1 and Epic never overheated.

[Scott Summers]

Just a word of caution about setting fan manually. I had trouble with my Scarlet 'overheating' when on manual mode on the first day of a two day interview shoot, where takes went for over 20mins. It didn't come up with an error message but it did override my fan setting of 30%, and roared up to 100% to cool itself, which meant we naturally had to cut while it cooled. I checked forums the first night and found a post here saying to use 40-45% on really long takes and you won't get and issue. I did that (45%rec - 75%standby), and second day went without a single hitch. Thought I might just let ya know. :)

It was a little embarrassing so hopefully I have saved someone the same embarrassment.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Fans on auto full time here. It's been anywhere from 95F to 107F around me lately, with most days at 100+ Also a week in Scottsdale with some days pushing close to 120F around there and I'll be back there shortly for more. No heat issues what-so-ever. I do try to keep direct sun off the equipment. Better for it in the long run and not so hot to handle.

On the flip side, EPIC handles cold very well too. We didn't get very cold this past winter and I only took it out in a few extreme conditions scenarios, but it did one 12+ hour overnight stint at about -22F. And we had a few days with daytime temps hovering around 5F. No problems at all. Just a few more months and we'll be back in that mode again, can't wait to see how the OLED upgraded EVF takes the cold. :)