u/Alilexplo108

I recently covered a 2-hour event (photo + video), and in the past, I always went with a run-and-gun approach; it worked, but.. I’d come back with way too many shots, spend hours sorting through everything, and honestly lose a lot of time in post trying to make sense of it all.

This time, I tried to make a simple shot list beforehand with exactly what I needed.

It completely changed the experience:
I felt way more relaxed during the event, I wasn’t overshooting everything and editing ended up taking half the time.

It sounds obvious, but I think I underestimated how much clarity beforehand can simplify everything after.

Here’s roughly what I planned:

• Establishing shots (venue, exterior, details) - ticked
• Key moments (speakers, interactions, highlights) - ticked, no more when i have what I need.
• A few safe “cutaway” shots - just a few
• Some intentional movement shots (instead of random clips)

Do you work with shot lists for events, or still prefer adapting in the moment?

Would you add or remove anything from this kind of setup? Always looking to refine this and learn better workflows.

I recently started using Imagen, and I can see the potential, but I’m still in that phase where I’m not fully trusting the results yet, and also don't have too much time to set it up to its full potential. How much time did you invest at the start to get it where you wanted? Any tips?

Sometimes it saves a lot of time directly, but I'd like to tweak my results less often.

Also, does anyone know if we'll ever stop having to pass through Lightroom? That'd be epic.

One thing I’ve been struggling with while filming underwater is how quickly the environment changes, and how it changes almost every time I'm going in.. depending on the conditions.

It kind of feels like the colors shift all the time, so I can't just have one preset even if it's always the same depth!

Does white balance need to be constantly adjusted underwater, or is it better to lock it and fix things in post? Is it about white balance or else?

How do people handle this in real conditions?

Sometimes I catch myself trying so hard to make something look cinematic that I forget to focus on the actual feeling or story behind it!!

It made me wonder if the obsession with aesthetics online can sometimes limit creativity... and kill storytelling. Any tips to be on top of both? More planning can help or what's your experience.. I experience it a lot when shooting documentaries for example, and would love some genuine help and tips with it

I was pretty skeptical about AI editing at first, it took me a while to take the leap: part of me felt like editing was such a personal part of photography that I didn’t want to automate it.

But now that I’m using Imagen, I’m starting to understand why so many photographers use it for workflow efficiency!! It would be hard to go back, actually

Did you also have that same hesitation at first and would you go back to full manual editing? I know some people also have that will culling.. same, I can't go back now ahah

I just started using this software, and I just want to make sure if it's worth it to start using the Culling feature or if I keep culling manually.