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Blackmagic Cinema Camera
- Thread starter KeithPratt
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For studio work and filmmaking, the design looks pretty good. It's so simplified. The design is just a box with a lens on it, which reminds me of old still cameras from the early 20th century, or old motion picture cameras from the 1920s. Just a box with a lens on it.
I agree. I'd love to see a version with more of a DSLR body, one with a grip, that's ready for the run-and-gun of event video and documentary. This is great for studio work or filmmaking, but it doesn't look like it's built that tough. I also don't see the possibility for add-on attachments like the Red has.
I'm not sold yet, but this camera is very intriguing.
Absolutely, I love the simple design and the consolidation of all the ports in one area. We'll have to see how the field reports turn out once it's out in the world. I'll be getting a new camera at work in the next few months and this might be a very intriguing option!
I guess that's a downside to working in Hollywood is that we are stuck in some surreal world where up is down, left is right and the 5DMIII isn't in the same class of gear as, say, a C500.
But like I keep saying, there's no reason to get hung up on your gear. Just go out there and make great things. Gear is just gear, it's not a reflection of you. Regardless of what others may think one isn't more pro for using tool X or less pro for using tool Y. Pro is attitude, results & making a living, IMO.
There are a number of catches, smaller censor size compared to the DSLRs it gets compared to, 30p cap on the frame rate, 1/4" audio jacks instead of XLR, not TC I/O or sync lock, internal battery, lens mount that limits lens selections, limited focus assets, etc., but every camera under $10k has a number of trade-offs. I know BM is still finalizing some details on the software/firmware side so things could change a little before launch. Until this camera gets into the wild, or production models get to reviewers early, we won't really know how well the camera actually performs. Honestly, as long as this camera keeps the rolling shutter artifacts under control I think BM has a winner.
Mike Curtis of ProVideoCoalition has a good (if long) run down of the pros & cons of the BMCC as well as his thoughts. It's pretty stream-of-consciousness but he makes a lot of good points.
Lethal
I guess that's a downside to working in Hollywood is that we are stuck in some surreal world where up is down, left is right and the 5DMIII isn't in the same class of gear as, say, a C500.
But like I keep saying, there's no reason to get hung up on your gear. Just go out there and make great things. Gear is just gear, it's not a reflection of you. Regardless of what others may think one isn't more pro for using tool X or less pro for using tool Y. Pro is attitude, results & making a living, IMO.
Lethal
Now that I can agree on.
Now that that's over we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming.Now that I can agree on.
The waves Blackmagic has caused in the past couple of days are insane. Blackmagic not just by name why the Cinema Camera is the future . I really, really hope that the hype doesn't build to the point that people will become crestfallen when all the shortcomings of this camera become known. And there are short comings we don't know about because every camera has hidden shortcomings until it gets out into the wild and kicked around.
Slightly OT, I think too many people are crowning BM The People's Champ because they released a product that RED, Canon, Panasonic, etc., couldn't or wouldn't. But what happens if this thing really takes off and BM makes another $3k camera and then decides to make a $10-$15k camera that doesn't have as many compromises? They'll be in the same boat every other company is that has to separate product lines.
RED was supposed to be the company that had only one camera that was forever upgradeable but then the RED One didn't quite live up to that so then introduced a whole line of potential cameras (fixed lens, not fixed lens, s35, FF, etc.,) that thankfully boiled down to Epic and Scarlet. Of course now RED has two camera tiers so, whether they like it or not, they have to decide what goes to both tiers and what gets saved for the top tier.
It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Lethal
I know that this discussion has been settled but I am not sure how the sensor size is an issue for the 7d within the professional market. If anything the 5d has a sensor size that is more out of place in Hollywood.
I think a 3 lens setup would be something a long the lines of 11-16mm f2.8 Tokina, 35mm Rokinon f1.4 and 50mm Canon f1.4 with maybe something in-between the Tokina and Rokinon. Down the line they are looking at a M4/3's mount meaning that there will be a slightly more adequate lens selection.
Have you seen the handles that you can add to it? Seem to make it pretty good for run and gun IMO. In terms of add-on attachments nothing is stopping you from buying a DSLR cage (it's small enough so it'll fit) and attaching your add ons like that. From when I have used the Epic that is how we have been attaching things using the wooden camera accessories.
It's the problem that people always want more. I think one thing that RED has stuck by is the modularity of their products. The ability to upgrade the RED One to the MX sensor and the ability later this year to upgrade both the Scarlet and Epic to the Dragon sensor and further down the line a 28k sensor is in the works!
The scarlet is also AFAIK made from parts that don't quite make the spec for the EPIC so they are essentially just recycling by creating the scarlet.
Personally I like the look for S16 both for DOF and crop as I am fortunate enough to have a friend with a set of 16mm SuperSeeds which will fit on the BMCC with an adapter.
RED definitely swung for the fences right out of the gate and I don't fault them for that. Jannard did admit that they made some mistakes w/the Red One and that's why Epic and Scarlet were born. I think they've done a great job of trying to stick by their 'obsolescence is obsolete' mantra though the seemingly endless versions of beta software/firmware and constant announcements can be wearing (which is why I gave up on following Red development a couple of years ago even though I'd been intrigued by them since they were just a rumor).
I know Scarlet's sensors are ones that didn't pass for Epic but I thought there were some other functional differences as well.
I know this NAB was supposed to be Canon's big splash with 1DC and CS500 but I feel like they totally got lost in all the BMCC talk.
Lethal
I just wanted to put my two cents in coming from an indie-filmmaking background; my first couple of shorts films that I Directed were shot on the iPhone because that's all I had (in the past I've worked as a sound recordist on "real" film shoots with "real" cameras) but I am about to start work on my first [non-iPhone] feature film as Director.
My new Cinematographer, who worked second unit camera on an Academy Nominated movie last year and whose "day job" is working on a couple of hit, hour long, primetime TV shows here in the U.S., is very excited about this Blackmagic Cinema Camera and will be picking one up as soon as it's available.
He currently owns is own Arri 35mm film camera (which there is no way I can afford the film stock and processing for a 90 minute film... unless I get much more of a budget than I initially planned on) and his TV shows shoot on the RED Epic which he actually doesn't like shooting on as much as his own personal Canon DSLRs... but he really wants to try these BCCs out for our film and I trust his opinion, so we may delay shooting for a month or so until these come out to see what they can do in a real-world situation. We'll probably each get one, he with his arsenal of lenses he already has (Angenieuxs, Canons, Tokinas, etc.) and I'll try to get a couple of the Zeiss Compact Primes, budget permitting.
But in my opinion, any way you look at it, it is a very exciting time for the independent filmmaker!
My new Cinematographer, who worked second unit camera on an Academy Nominated movie last year and whose "day job" is working on a couple of hit, hour long, primetime TV shows here in the U.S., is very excited about this Blackmagic Cinema Camera and will be picking one up as soon as it's available.
He currently owns is own Arri 35mm film camera (which there is no way I can afford the film stock and processing for a 90 minute film... unless I get much more of a budget than I initially planned on) and his TV shows shoot on the RED Epic which he actually doesn't like shooting on as much as his own personal Canon DSLRs... but he really wants to try these BCCs out for our film and I trust his opinion, so we may delay shooting for a month or so until these come out to see what they can do in a real-world situation. We'll probably each get one, he with his arsenal of lenses he already has (Angenieuxs, Canons, Tokinas, etc.) and I'll try to get a couple of the Zeiss Compact Primes, budget permitting.
But in my opinion, any way you look at it, it is a very exciting time for the independent filmmaker!
It looks like the perfect indie cam ! I'm sure it will sell like hot cakes.
I think those who will lose most in all this will be the digital Bolex guys from Kickstarter.
Wow...I'm late to this thread. This looks VERY enticing. This is the exactly the camera that RED originally wanted the Scarlet to be, only better. The Scarlet they decided to actually ship (albeit, with better resolution) costs over 3x more.
Also, with all due respect to your son, I must say that the RED's workflow took years of massaging to get to where it's at today.
When I worked as an DIT and (later) AE on my first RED shoot back in 2008, the workflow was clunky at best. There was no way to batch process multithreaded transcodes (no software for it at the time). Roundtripping 1-light grades from Redcine to FCP required third-party software (Crimson) written by a HOBBYIST. There were no plugins for grading packages outside of Assimilate Scratch (Windows only) until about a year later when they introduced one for Apple Color. And as Lethal stated before, transcoding dailies and off-lines from RED footage still remains a lengthy process (even on 12-core monsters), unless you have a $5,000 RED Rocket card.
Early RED adopters were essentially beta testers out in the field. I'm not going to discount what RED brought to the table (it was revolutionary), but I'm also not going to pretend that it couldn't have been executed better. In this regard, Arri and now, Blackmagic, put a lot more thought into the execution of their workflows PRIOR to product launch. As a company, RED prefers to be on a bleeding edge; companies like Arri prize smooth operation and workflow.
I spent many late nights dealing with software bugs and other post production oddities on my first RED One show. I learned a lot, I cursed a lot...
Also, with all due respect to your son, I must say that the RED's workflow took years of massaging to get to where it's at today.
When I worked as an DIT and (later) AE on my first RED shoot back in 2008, the workflow was clunky at best. There was no way to batch process multithreaded transcodes (no software for it at the time). Roundtripping 1-light grades from Redcine to FCP required third-party software (Crimson) written by a HOBBYIST. There were no plugins for grading packages outside of Assimilate Scratch (Windows only) until about a year later when they introduced one for Apple Color. And as Lethal stated before, transcoding dailies and off-lines from RED footage still remains a lengthy process (even on 12-core monsters), unless you have a $5,000 RED Rocket card.
Early RED adopters were essentially beta testers out in the field. I'm not going to discount what RED brought to the table (it was revolutionary), but I'm also not going to pretend that it couldn't have been executed better. In this regard, Arri and now, Blackmagic, put a lot more thought into the execution of their workflows PRIOR to product launch. As a company, RED prefers to be on a bleeding edge; companies like Arri prize smooth operation and workflow.
I spent many late nights dealing with software bugs and other post production oddities on my first RED One show. I learned a lot, I cursed a lot...
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After shooting all my projects this past year on a DSLR (Hacked Gh2). I would be glad to get this camera for the simple things like, a headphone jack, 2 balanced audio ins, ability to shoot direct to prores format, meta data transferring over to FCP for easier logging. That will help my workflow greatly!
No more transcoding to ProRes no more syncing audio to a external recorder and a nice head start on logging the footage.
Just last year you had to pay more than $6,000 for camera that can do shallow DOF and have a headphone jack.
The 2.5K and Raw is just extra icing on the cake.
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Damn Genshi you went from shooting on iPhones to buying CP.2 primes? Holy crap!
You must have had one successful film.
No more transcoding to ProRes no more syncing audio to a external recorder and a nice head start on logging the footage.
Just last year you had to pay more than $6,000 for camera that can do shallow DOF and have a headphone jack.
The 2.5K and Raw is just extra icing on the cake.
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Damn Genshi you went from shooting on iPhones to buying CP.2 primes? Holy crap!
You must have had one successful film.
Well, I haven't bought them yet, but am hoping to get the funding/Executive Producers for this next film to do so; my last two iPhone films have been getting pretty good buzz even though they were only silly little iPhone shorts (the previous one premiered on the main stage at the 2012 Macworld and this latest one is a stop-motion horror that is currently running at the Canadian Film Centre's Shorts NonStop festival, the iPhone Film Festival, and will also be at the forthcoming Northwest Filmmaker's Festival, Screamfest and a couple of other fests.)
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Well, I guess we'll see if that happens. It's got lot of bang for the buck, despite its shortcomings.
I suppose the biggest drawback for me is the 2.5x crop factor on the sensor. The widest EF prime Canon makes is a 14mm f/2.8 (L-Series), and that lens is north of $2k. After crop adjustment, it becomes a 35mm. They do also have a normal (and cheaper) 10-22mm zoom (f/3.5 at 10mm) to squeeze out 25mm but that's about the widest you're going get out of the BMCC with the stock lens mount.
A lot of people are already complaining about the internal battery, but I imagine someone (like Anton Bauer) is going to think up an external battery that feeds into the DC power jack. No XLR and timecode sync are things I think I can live with (we already deal with it on DSLRs), as long as the camera can run a reference mic (looks possible). PluralEyes does a pretty amazing job of syncing to external audio quickly.
Another really cool thing about this camera is that it records to industry-standard SSD drives. That's huge! Large storage capacity (less media swapping during production) and you can plug it right into a SATA dock (like OWC's $65 quad-interface model) for fast ingest.
I agree with all of this. I've gotten so used to shooting with the DSLR's, that it's all not that bad. but the crop!!!
I can only guess that the guys at BMD were shopping sensors on price and had to make sacrifices to keep the camera at $3k. If you think about it, they essentially slapped a sensor, lens mount and capacitive LCD to an SSD recorder (which exists separately as the HyperDeck Shuttle).
They say the sensor is "roughly" 4/3. But regardless, 4/3 or not, the camera is still a really good deal and it comes with over $1k worth of software (well, $995 for a full Resolve seat + whatever their UltraScope software costs). As long as the camera performs as advertised, I think BMD has a winner on their hands.
Im out of the loop with this new Mac release.
What exactly is the issue with this?
Sorry for hijacking the thread
It's not necessarily any issue w/the new MBP itself, but the weak GFX cards in laptops in general. Blackmagic's documentation, which is from this spring, lists MBPs as suitable for SD footage and SD/HD grade previews. Their 'bare minium' Mac Pro config has two CUDA GPUs (one for the GUI and one to render). Their recommended setup suggests using an PCI expansion chasis so you can use up to four cards (one in the Mac Pro for the GUI and three in the chasis for rendering).Im out of the loop with this new Mac release.
What exactly is the issue with this?
Sorry for hijacking the thread
Trying to grade using a laptop is going to be s-l-o-w.
Lethal