any lighting news?
- Thread starter Bruce Watson
- Start date
refocusedmedia
Veteran
Found this:
Bruce Watson
Veteran
That's what I'm talking about -- something new from a company I haven't heard of before. Thanks!
Danielvilliers
Veteran
This looks very nice, but will have to wait for the price.
Danielvilliers
Veteran
We should petition balckmagic to come into the lighting business. Because once you put video or worst cinema on a product sticker it takes a 5x price difference. When you look at the plasma grow or aquarium light for about $ 1000 and the plasma lighting in the $ 5000 + cost, while they use basically the same lamp. ballast etc.
Robert Ruffo
Well-known member
No, they don't. You are simply wrong about this.
As a side-note I would like Blackmagic to close. They put other people/innovators out of business, and seem to want to decimate any small shops like ours which have invested in gear for future rental by devaluing everything. Their cameras have great specs, but lame execution - they are cheap crap of the worst kind, tricking people into thinking they can get something for nothing -like their "Cine" cam which doesn't even have an OLPF, and their "1080p" pocket cam which I can guarantee you will not really resolve 1080p. Many of their products, like their LUT boxes, don't even really work at all.
So no - no more Walmarts of equipment please. Blackmagic go away.
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Danielvilliers
Veteran
Is it a joke what you are saying?
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
That's a pretty bold statement Robert - to say the least.
I probably live in a parallel universe, cause I was absolute able to shoot a bunch of TV and cinema spots, and a bunch of docus (including 3 weeks under extreme weather and temperature conditions in Canada) with that camera. All my customers and the networks are raving about the image quality and it looks amazing on the big screen.
Moire (missing OLPF) was not a problem for a second (probably because I seldom shoot black/white resolution charts), the 2.5k uncompressed resolution makes a Scarlet at 4k looking bad, and the LUT box works just fine for me. Looks like I do something right.
How many hours of material have you shot on the BMC?
And what exactly have you innovated, that BM killed?
Sounds more like, you sunk a ton of money into RED gear, speculated to pay it off by renting it out, and the whole plan doesn't work anymore, cause for the same mony of renting your RED, folks can own a BMC.
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Robert Ruffo
Well-known member
No. Its' not. Not everybody here is a hobbyist. Some people here realize that plumetting equipment costs means plumetting revenue for rental shops. At some point it will no longer be viable to own a rental shop at all. If that happens, only those who can afford to buy will be shooting, and only with what they own.
Many people here also do not realize that if the equipement you just bought drops in value, you just lost money. they don;t realize it because they do not have sufficient understanding of how depreciation and other economic things actually work.
many people here also confuse their artistic career with what equipment they own, forgetting that people like David Mullen own nothing more than a light meter, maybe oen lens or two, if that. They just rent. Equipment purchase should be an economic decision, vs. rental, nothing more.
Red just made a new sensor, for example, and I'm sure some people will look at BM's new cams and say "I don;t want to invest in cameras anymore, because next month they will cost $1000, and I won;t have time to amortize my investment." So Red maybe will not get enough return on their investment. That does not encourage innovation, if people cannot make money.
also consider this: before BM came along, colorists made over $100 an hour in salary (not counting the suite). Now that is down to maybe $20 net, once you factor in how much it really costs to make a grading suite that works. You think that's good? That people have to keep a second job for their whole lives? They also sold $150 000 DaVinci suites one week, and then the same thing for $1000 the week after. WHat do you think happened to those people who paid $100 000K? Yes. They went bankrupt, fired all their staff.
So I for one will cheer if BM goes bankrupt. They put many people I know out of business - its' just karma.
There is more to this business than amateurs making their little indy film with no money as a hobby.
Robert Ruffo
Well-known member
Skin texture looks horrible with the way BM sharpens everything. I'll try to find you a link to some sample photos. Field of view on an Epic is also much wider, which makes lenses look much nicer.
We amortized all our Red gear, but what makes me sad is likely it does not make financial sense to buy more or upgrade to Dragon.
So if this continues we will all be left with only Walmart cameras like BM's.
I think my clients are much fussier than yours. If I shot what we do on a BM camera, we would be fired, because of skin texture alone.
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
So what's your problem than?
Your clients don't like skin textures andwhatnot on "Walmart" cameras,
so you can continue to rent them your amortized REDs or shoot for them on RED and all is good.
Oh, FYI BMC sharpens noting in camera - that's just what any sensor looks without a OPLF in front.
If you don't like that, you always can make it as soft as RED material. Ether with a filter, vintage glass or in post.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
Robert: you make a series of good points, and I have echoed many of these in the past (the one about colorists and post houses, absolutely). I have learned over the years on message boards is that those who make a living from this industry tend to have a different outlook on these sort of things than those who do this for "fun". It makes sense that the latter group encourage anything that buys them more toys for the money (and many purchase are impulse or emotionally based rather than being considered in a business sense). You can't really blame them. Me, I own a number of Blackmagic components, and I have experienced a notable amount of failure (my HDLink Pro is being repaired right now, it just stopped working) and I have frustration with their beta-esque software that seems to never get revised. It feels like a company always pushing forward rather than investing in support for the legacy products that helped build their business. Honestly, it's a vicious cycle: the availability of inexpensive alternatives forces down the rental return as producers want to pay less and less, so it pushes us to buy cheaper gear to maximize return and on it goes. My first thought on seeing the 4K BM camera announcement was "the race to the bottom continues".
Ironically--I have the same feeling about RED, so as usual: it's all about perspective.
Ironically--I have the same feeling about RED, so as usual: it's all about perspective.
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
It's called technical evolution and progress.
Happened to many industries in the last 200 years - and yeah, there will always be blood.
You have to adjust or fall down.
Don't want to get too philosophical, but:
Colorists used to made a 100 bucks an hour, Avid was selling mediocre computers for insane prices, broadcast cameras used to cost more than most folks make in 2 years, the list goes on.
But was that right? I mean right like in righteous?
Or was it more like taking advantage, just because they can and everybody else had no choice?
Happened to many industries in the last 200 years - and yeah, there will always be blood.
You have to adjust or fall down.
Don't want to get too philosophical, but:
Colorists used to made a 100 bucks an hour, Avid was selling mediocre computers for insane prices, broadcast cameras used to cost more than most folks make in 2 years, the list goes on.
But was that right? I mean right like in righteous?
Or was it more like taking advantage, just because they can and everybody else had no choice?
David G. Smith
Steak Knife Member
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
As your signature says:
"To me the great hope is... people that normally wouldn't be making movies will make them and suddenly some little fat girl in Ohio will be the new Mozart and will make a beautiful film using her father's camera-corder and the "Professionalism" of movie making will be destroyed forever and it will finally become an art form."
-Francis Ford Coppola.
"To me the great hope is... people that normally wouldn't be making movies will make them and suddenly some little fat girl in Ohio will be the new Mozart and will make a beautiful film using her father's camera-corder and the "Professionalism" of movie making will be destroyed forever and it will finally become an art form."
-Francis Ford Coppola.
I don't understand. If the BM cams result in poor quality work, how is it competition for those who demand/do good quality work? If the BM cams are poor, then how does that impact rental houses that rent out Alexas? If only indy amateurs and hobbyists are satisfied with BM and DSLR quality work and gear, that does not impact big studios or professional freelancers who work with "pro" gear - David Mullen will still rent your stuff, so what's the problem? The DSLR market is not replacement, but addition to the market. All that's happened is that folks who would previously be sitting on their hands, now can afford to buy a DSLR/BMCC and start shooting - they took nothing away from you, they would not have rented your Alexa anyway. The DSLR crowd enlarged the market and stratified it, that's all - and that's a good thing for you as well, because eventually some small percentage of those DSLR guys will acquire the skills which will make them clients for your higher end rental business - and that would not have happened had they been shut out completely. So they ADDED to the business, not subtracted.
You may have a small point about the colorists and crap software, but overall, you're wrong.
You may have a small point about the colorists and crap software, but overall, you're wrong.