The Nikon Z Studio Setup | All Settings & Hardware I Use For Studio | Matt Irwin

[@stanspb763]

This is good information of what obviously is working for you since your videos are top-notch. The comments on Nikon sound quality was started by the paid influencers who also slagged the Z bodies because of 1 card slot. Nonsense. They claimed the "preamps are noisy" and now everyone who is seeking to bash Nikon repeats that without testing it for themselves. I did tests, and have a complete electronics lab and 55 years in pro audio and owned one of the most successful recording studios in the world for 25 years and we recorded 197 gold and platinum albums everyone has heard. I tested my Z6 when I heard the claims about noisy preamps as another reason not to buy Nikon. It was easy to see why people focused on that, the default settings are pretty high gain so unless one adjusts it to the application at hand they might hear more background noise from the ambient room sounds, but electronics induced noise or hiss seemed normal so I tested it and found the noise floor at unity gain was 97db down, which is 14 times quieter than the noise on any album they ever heard. Like all our senses perception gradient is log, not linear so the difference between hearing a slight noise and none is a very large difference in noise power. Using calibrated test tones and measuring the distortion induced by the preamps and analog to digital converters, the total harmonic distortion, band-limited to the hearing range, was 0.0016%!! The audio circuit is simple in manual gain control mode, so I was not expecting much distortion with the 24bit converters used, something that was impossible in the days of all analog recording and playback when no one was complaining about hiss or noise on albums. I prefer analog processes but quality depends more on care and capture than with digital recording/reproduction where 90% of the work is done by a $3 chip Analog to Digital converter, and Digital to Analog converter. Regarding microphones, almost all the mics offered as Video microphones have the same $1 Panasonic electret condenser mic element because they are cheap and flat in response, and how they should is mainly based on the housing the brand puts it in. Most of the should character is determined by the placement of the mic and the acoustic characteristics of the room where sound is recorded. You do not need a $2000 studio mic for good video sound but good placement and having a decently low reflected sound in the room. Great sound on video or motion picture is when you can't hear it, meaning it is so aligned with the visuals the viewer does not notice the sound quality as if the sound and the action are merged as in real life. That is where bad sound in video comes from, where you notice the sound at all, and that is seldom related to the quality of equipment, regardless of how much manufacturers stress about their products and why you need to spend 10x more for some feature when any mic can be suitable if the room acoustics are sufficiently lacking strong reflection of sound from walls or selective absorption. A $1 mic closer to the sound source will beat out a $2000 mic every time if it is mounted too far away so reflected delayed sound makes up a larger percentage of total sound energy picked up by the mic. That would be the case in a live hard surface room with the mic too far from the source so a larger percentage of sound picked up is the original source reflecting off surfaces.. Many companies sell hyper-cardioid mics or Shotgun video mics for recording further away but none as good as any cheap mic close to the source and further from long and short reflection distances. Good sound is more a matter of placement and optimum use of what you have, instead of using expensive equipment. Sort of like cameras, a cheap Dx DSLR is more capable of award-winning images when properly used than the most exotic expensive hardware used without skill or creativity.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Thanks Stan, I will pin this, great info :) Cheers sir. Matt

[@henrilindenhoff6107]

You must be really famous…

[@jefflastofka9289]

I'm an engineer and I read this carefully. It's quality information that people should see instead of random internet misinformation, either influenced by haters and paid influencers, or from well-meaning people who just don't know the subject well. Thanks to the poster and to Matt for pinning it. Well-explained info like this should be promoted more somewhere. (there are a couple of spell checker word substitutions and other details to correct in there first) Suggested theme for a Matt video: topics like this where people skip over the simple solutions and dive into the expense and details instead.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@jefflastofka9289 Thanks Jeff I will pop it on the video list and thanks Stan again for your great post. I have had the pleasure of Stan being a part of this channel for a number of years now. Thank sir.

[@jefflastofka9289]

@@MattIrwinPhotography I'm enjoying being subscribed to your videos. I've learned several cool things from your style and your talks, like using vignetting. Amazing that we pay for perfect lenses and perfect cameras and now we're purposely "messing that up" :-) I think it adds a LOT to some images (more correctly - removes a lot). Thanks for the idea. Remember I mentioned we should get Nikon to add a scrollable User mode list to the firmware instead of only having U1, U2, U3. I think you have the ear of a Nikon rep somewhere. You could plant that bug in their ear.

[@JasonSmith883]

Thanks for the content Matt. I’ve been a casual/hobbyist Nikon shooter for years and was thinking of moving to Sony until I found your channel. Now I’m looking at moving from my D7100 to the full frame Z6II for my new camera and for my KZbin channel. Thanks for all the great info and inspiration.

[@LiamFyfe]

You cant go wrong with the z6ii, really is a class camera✌️

[@jackbrumby1892]

Good on ya! I was in a similar mood & thinking of moving to Sony. But... I traded in my Nikon D500 for a Z6ii & couldn't be happier.

[@ljwhatup]

I moved from the D7100 to the Z6II for my photography and I am very happy with my purchase. This camera is a work horse and getting the job done to make the money. Keep in mind I'm not tied to a brand but I'm really enjoying this camera.

[@loihpatli]

Hey Matt! Thanks for the video! I recently checked videos of shooting setup snd here you come just in time! 👍👍👍

[@prios61]

Tanks Matt for Your good information and mood. I'm un hobbiest only and a Nikonist too. Like You I hope Nikon turn it on, because professionals and some hobbiests don't be with them if they don't have material that satisfy their needs. I have 3 DSLR from Nikon, but a Fujifilm X-T2 from mirrorless because at the time Nikon didn't had none. Now I want to turn to the Z series but I'm waiting to see...

[@guyyowell8547]

Thanks so much Matt for this very instructive video, and thanks for including the links to all of the gear. Another great video!

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

My pleasure Guy :)

[@bobmorse5896]

Very interesting. I like your thoughts on the option to use a prime lens in DX mode for video; had never thought about that. I learn something from each of your videos. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

My pleasure Bob, thanks so much. Cheers Matt

[@victorlim5077]

Great information, Matt.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Glad it was helpful Victor, one thing I forgot to mention was white balance, which I manually set to match the lights, which can be dialled up to whatever temperature I like, but I keep it close to daylight to match the outside light that spills in my window :) Cheers Matt

[@rickpinelli1586]

I use two Godox TL30's and they are great! I love that I can control them from my phone/ipad. They are Super Bright! I also purchased a 2 output Anker power adapter and long USB C cables so I can charge and or use the power adapter to power the lights instead of using the internal battery for indoor work. Regards Matt...

[@SKgeostrat]

Matt, great video and useful info. Good to see that the Z6 is still good enough for your shooting. Keep making these kinds of videos pls. Maybe one on your photo shooting set up. Camera, lighting, backdrops, etc.

[@nocturnus009]

Gratitude for sharing Matt, About 13:10 I hesitated in clicking the add FCPX when I purchased my Late 2018 MacBook Air. When I purchased my M1 Mac Mini I rectified that. In the spring I added Motion & Compressor. The learning has been a journey the past few months. As someone that owned PageMaker when Aldus developed the application & Illustrator up until CS5, I understand what Adobe was thinking. The Subscription (rental) model made since following Office. But that was the end of the road for me. Ironically, the voices within Adobe that made their file format the open standard has helped germinate the landscape for Creative Suite alternatives. Long live XML & SVG!

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Great work Charles, FCP and Compressor are great tools. What are your thoughts on the best replacements for Indesign and photoshop, they are the main two apps I use ... ? Thanks in advance, Matt

[@nocturnus009]

I remember you shared your journey with Quark & indesign@@MattIrwinPhotography , I think the print world is still undecided there. Eventually I see myself playing with the Affinity trio. I think the answer will converge on fitting the hole (square to square, triangle to triangle & round peg to round peg) to the individual solution. Having previous experience matters, but some people will work with Pages to get 85% there; Some will work Scrivener for 90% and then some will use whatever handles roundtripping files the best to get their output. It’s becoming a major issue in the writing community as people use Scrivener for brainstorming & drafting novels then they discover they need to export to something else to get output approach what can be accomplished in Indesign.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@nocturnus009 Thank you sir :) I would love to find a solid alternative to InDesign :) I will have a look at both of those :) Cheers Matt

[@cmichaelhaugh8517]

Very helpful. This one goes in the Reference file as I’m about to shoot some video interviews. Thanks!

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

No worries at all, please let me know if I can help with anything else :) Cheers Matt

[@markshirley01]

I left adobe last march during lockdown. I moved to Affinity Photo +publisher+designer - I also use capture one and final cut pro. Not looked back all great software that do exactly what adobe did at a fraction of the price. PS - the lighting links aren't in the show notes Matt.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

AH sorry I will add them in now :) Thanks for sharing about Affinity, I will have to check it out. Cheers Matt

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

amzn.to/3AsGra2 click here then you have a choice of the 'standard' or 'air' edition of the light :)

[@RaymondParkerPhoto]

Interesting. Very similar workflow.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

How are you Ray? :)

[@Skye_the_toller]

I finally exchange my 50mm to 35mm… so good for video and Zoom conference! And I have the 50mm in DX if needed… (also have my 24-70s 😜)

[@felm.974]

Great video and advises, thank you so much.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

You are so welcome Fel :)

[@sandybottom6623]

On the camera I usually bring the brightness up to 0.3 or 0.7. If I'm photographing sunrises I drop it right down (-ve) and use manual focus. I ensure that the WB is producing good colours. For outdoor shots I usually have the aperture right open to ensure that dust particles are not visible.

[@sandybottom6623]

PS: I use GIMP and VLC.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Yes great points, white balance was one thing I forgot to talk about :) How do you find GIMP? Cheers Matt

[@sandybottom6623]

@@MattIrwinPhotography I did put the link on but it (the comment) was removed. gimp dot org

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@sandybottom6623 Ah thanks, and what do you think of GIMP as an alternative? :)

[@sandybottom6623]

@@MattIrwinPhotography I haven't used PhotoShop in a great many years - 20+ - so can't really compare. I'm just using basic functions mostly - cropping, adjusting canvas size, sometimes adjusting brightness, contrast, sometimes removing dust marks - copy and paste, blur. It does what I need it to do. I do most of my processing in the camera (Z50) - pre processing. I use Ubuntu Linux so I have tools available like GThumb which I use all the time for examining and for resizing.

[@GILLES9913]

Hi Matt, Thank you this is so interesting

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

My pleasure!

[@alexnewton7484]

Just to be clear, you record everything internally at 8 bits (except when you need to capture settings changes, etc)? If so, I'm delighted to hear it because your videos look great and I don't really have the budget right now for an external recorder.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

That is correct Alex, I just use the internal recording and flat profile, and get great outcomes :) Cheers Matt

[@SwanSycorax]

Thanks, Matt. Very informative. Totally agree with your comments regarding the video editing software. I started using Adobe Premier back in 1996 but, back then, it was rather unreliable and so sensitive to the PC set-up - disk drives, graphic cards etc. (I was using Windows PCs at the time). I went through a number of alternative high-end solutions but then returned to Adobe Premier around 2010 and it was my preferred solution right through to 2016 (Windows based) and I had the last release of the Creative Suite you could buy before the subscription programme was introduced. By that time I was retired and no longer making fee earning videos so I wasn't going to shell out £50+ per month for a hobby!!! I had already started to switch to Apple Mac for my day to day computing and, in 2017, bit the bullet and bought an iMAC 27" with Final Cut Pro X. As with any switch in software, it took a bit of learning and getting used to but now absolutely love it and, as you say, it has cost me nothing since the day I bought it but is constantly upgraded - long may it remain so!!!

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Indeed Brian, I do hope Apple continue to not charge for upgrades :). I just need a replacement for Photoshop and Indesign then I could walk away from Adobe .... :). Do you have a photoshop replacement? Cheers Matt

[@SwanSycorax]

@@MattIrwinPhotography Sadly no. I use Capture One for 95+% of my photo processing but still need Lightroom and Photoshop for certain "applications" such as panorama merges, occasional HDR merges and some image manipulation, but I am not very imaginative when it comes to the multi-layer creative photography I know some go in for. I have dabbled with overlaying textures but not really my thing. I recently started to use PhotoLab 4's DeepPRIME noise reduction tool which, in my opinion, does a far better job of getting rid of high ISO noise then either the Capture One or Adobe noise reduction tools or the Topaz DeNoise AI, come to that. I have had PhotoLab for several years as I bought it at a very low cost special offer but never really got into it as a RAW processor. At that time I was using Adobe Lightroom. Last year I first tried Capture One and fell in love with it - I bought into the "Nikon Only" subscription model. A couple of months back I heard about the DxO Pure Raw product for ISO noise reduction, tried it and it blew me away. I was about to buy it as a "plug-in" and then discovered I already had it within PhotoLab 4 so just use that module as a pre-process on RAW images taken with high ISO. I also looked at Affinity but didn't get on with it so didn't take it any further.

[@jennifergow6524]

@@MattIrwinPhotography Have you considered Affinity Photo along with Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher? The three packages integrate with each other fairly seamlessly and can open PSD files.

[@andyvan5692]

matt if you have issues with subscription software, (adobe products are one eg.), which STILL photo edditor do you use, Phase One (capture One), or one of the correll, etc. freebee products?, could you please tell us, and maybe link some of the oem sites so we can investigate them, or maybe a video of a workflow, say some z camera shots, presets you use, etc. would apreciate it.

[@stanspb763]

For stills, the much lower-priced Adobe bundle of Photoshop and Lightroom is a bargain at $9.99/month and still the best, if you put in a little work learning the almost limitless capability of Photoshop. They improve it regularly and automatically update it for you. I have monthly subscriptions of a few other Adobe products that are not really worth the expense. The cost of Photoshop/Lightroom is a far better return on your investment than upgrading cameras or lenses all the time

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

For sure Andy, Capture One is my main editor in 2021. I shall put together a video :)

[@jennifergow6524]

Affinity Photo is a viable alternative to PS and costs $80 one off.

[@JavierPulidoco]

Could you share with me the brand of the camera Strap please???

[@LMoProVisualComm]

Do you shoot in manual only? Do you ever shoot in (S)/(A) mode? When outdoors, are you using a ND in manual mode?

[@Brianwilkes78]

I hope nikon come up with a update for there software for the new operating system for MAC the MacOS Monterey soon cause it just crashing as soon as I open it

[@iansimages7186]

Yep me too.. Adobe paying them since 1994 Photoshop 2... Current versions not getting really any better ! And lots per month for all of them

[@andyvan5692]

matt, why do you use DX crop? as doesn't this shut down 1/2 of the sensor's pixcels, and why pay for a fx body if all you use is dx, better off to use FULL DX format sensor width/height and all the colour info, light gathering capabillity that that offers and therefore less iso 'noise' as when you "crop" a photo any noise is magnified, so why do it if you don't have to!!, or if the z50 is too much, try the new ZFc which has similar tech, but more dials, and the magnesium alloy body, as well as the fold_out screen, great for b/v-logging as you can see yourself, and the FACE/EYE subject tracking is in the body too, so have the af nouse of the z6/7, but in a crop body!!

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Hi Andy, no I don't use DX much, but I am talking about how it allows prime lenses to have 'two' effective focal lengths when shooting 4K or 1080p video without any perceptible visual hit. So 35mm can be used for 35mm or close to 50mm, 24mm can be used for 24mm and 36mm. It is a really great advantage sometimes having the extra reach with no change in quality and no new lens required. When shooting 4k video it only requires 3840x2160 pixels, wether you grab that out of 20MP FF or APSC, the output is effectively the same, unless pixel peeping. I have used the Z7 (45 mp) in both the FF and crop the Z6 and Z6 II in FF and crop, and they all look pretty much the same and I cannot tell them apart under standard viewing conditions ... I would love a 35mm version of the Z fc, I'll be there in a flash :) Cheers Matt