Other: BlackMagic Cinema camera!!!! 2.5k for 3k...

Chaos123x said:
I know everyone is excited about 2.5K res the ability to shoot raw and all that jazz.

But I'm more excited about shooting in prores and having my metadata transfer over to FCP. Or even simple things like a headphone jack! Or 2 count them 2 balanced audio ins.

This camera would save me from transcoding my media to prores it will save a good amount of time logging my footage and I wouldn't have to sync up the audio from my H4N audio recorder.

Its going to save a lot of time in the editing process.
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Also very excited about this. My editor is more excited. Less logging and conversion. Will allow 5x more footage in the same storage space. Great when critical shooting is not required, which is more often than most of us admit.

BM seems to be optimizing for RAW workflow, but I also think that straight to ProRes will be big... IF... they over come the problems with compressed formats within that are present within their HypeDeck which seems to be the base technology of the Cinema Camera, and then they give us enough control so that we can SIMPLY WITHIN NORMAL WORKFLOW control WB and exposure with more precision than is required in RAW shooting.
 
Scarytown said:
Well......this has thrown a wrench in everything I was planning. I'm fairly new to the cinematography game and have been making it by with my Canon 60D and doing some Youtube shots with friends and some local actors. I've gotten some inquiries about shooting a couple weddings and a couple of music videos so I decided to upgrade my equipment in the hope that maybe I could one day make a living off of this :)

Anyways, long story short, I have $10,000 on hand, was planning on going AF100 route, but decided to wait till NAB. Then the FS700 was announced and I started leaning that direction even though it would most likely suck up my entire budget. Now that BMCC has came along and I have the choice of spending less money on a nice piece of equipment which leaves me more to drop on lenses, shoulder mounts, etc.

So now I'm in a position where I'm not completely defined as a cinematographer, not sure if the FS700 is overkill or over-priced, or if the BMCC is what I need or not for run and gun type shooting. I liked the idea of the FS700 being the all-in-one type of equipment (good low-light, built in filters, and slow-mo of course), but is it really worth 5k+ more or is the technology going to rapidly change due to BMCC? Maybe the better route is to make due with the BMCC and move up when its big-brother (or something close) comes out in a year, then make BMCC my b-camera. Or maybe the FS700 is really all I need because of my run-and-gun style and last me years down the road.

Interesting time to get into the film game, but also frustrating in the same sense due to the quick technology changes >:(
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I'm rolling my eyes and sighing heavily.
"So now I'm in a position where I'm not completely defined as a cinematographer"
This is a really amazing line! I will force all the TFB's (can you guess what that is an abbreviation for? Yes? Then I will sent you $1000 as a prize)
...to burn that sentence into their heads.
$10,000 budget for an FS700 is pretty much what I had in mind, but I will make that back on the first paying gig.
Guys. Price is no object. There are no budgets in the real world. Only earners or amateurs. Why worry. get one of each. They will all be superseded in 12 months anyway.

BTW. RE "Canon 60D" Is it digital ? what is it? does it have a lens? I might buy it off you to shoot my daughter's wedding in July.
 
From BlackMagic Cinema Camera specs sheet:

[TABLE="class: techSpec singleTechSpec, width: 0"]
[TR="bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="bgcolor: #F9E5CC, align: left"]Analog Audio Input[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #F9E5CC, align: left"]2 x 1/4” jacks for professional balanced analog audio, switchable between mic and line levels.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
It doesn't mention +48v phantom power required by some mics, so maybe a preamp would be needed in these cases?
 
You guys do realize that f1 - f32 is only 11 stops right? So rating for the sensor (nd if necessary) Exposing at 5.6, you'll be able to pull shadow detail lower than your light meter can read, and presumably highlights only slightly less than sun in your eyes.

If they get the native rating of the chip to be 800, I don't think low light will be an issue. You may not be able to dial it in in-camera, but detail should be there to dig it out in post.
 
Tzedekh said:
Or it might be a case where someone remarked, "Ew, look at all the horrible artifacts -- the aliasing, moire, and banding!" To which they responded, "Yeah, we know. It was intentional, duh!"
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Haha yeah - "that's not a bug, it's a feature!"

Anyway...

Chaos123x, I hear you on the ProRes recording. I've been considering the advantages myself, and skipping the transcode from h.264 on long-form projects would be amazing. And having the ability to record to a raw codec for short-form or higher-end projects is a wonderful bit of added flexibility!
 
dop16mm said:
You guys do realize that f1 - f32 is only 11 stops right? So rating for the sensor (nd if necessary) Exposing at 5.6, you'll be able to pull shadow detail lower than your light meter can read, and presumably highlights only slightly less than sun in your eyes.

If they get the native rating of the chip to be 800, I don't think low light will be an issue. You may not be able to dial it in in-camera, but detail should be there to dig it out in post.
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I am interested in opinions as to the difference between PAW DNG and ProRes or AVID formats in the ability to dig out low light detail in post - obviously there will be some but how much in your experience?
 
zareone said:
It doesn't mention +48v phantom power required by some mics, so maybe a preamp would be needed in these cases?
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I doubt we'd see phantom powered 1/4" jacks on it, that's rather uncommon. Especially if it doesn;t make mention of it.
Would be nice if I were proved wrong though! :)
 
Do I need a Mac? I don't have one, don't plan to get one.

I am going to use a windows core i7 computer, and edit with Premiere 5.5. I'll use the onboard sound as a scratch track, and record sound with a Zoom H4n.

Do I need anything else for the Raw workflow? I don't plan to shoot anything in prores.
 
Gillvane said:
Do I need a Mac? I don't have one, don't plan to get one.

I am going to use a windows core i7 computer, and edit with Premiere 5.5. I'll use the onboard sound as a scratch track, and record sound with a Zoom H4n.

Do I need anything else for the Raw workflow? I don't plan to shoot anything in prores.
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Nope. The Cinema DNG format was developed by Adobe from what I understand, so you are all set!

It appears that Resolve 9 is available for Windows as well - don't think that was the case in the past. Nice to see them add a Windows version!
 
dop16mm said:
You guys do realize that f1 - f32 is only 11 stops right? So rating for the sensor (nd if necessary) Exposing at 5.6, you'll be able to pull shadow detail lower than your light meter can read, and presumably highlights only slightly less than sun in your eyes.

If they get the native rating of the chip to be 800, I don't think low light will be an issue. You may not be able to dial it in in-camera, but detail should be there to dig it out in post.
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i think is 10 stops in between. Yes, 800 should resolve good detail in the dark areas if it is truly 13 stops, but that is a good stop and 1/3 from what they are now at 320.
 
chervas said:
i think is 10 stops in between. Yes, 800 should resolve good detail in the dark areas if it is truly 13 stops, but that is a good stop and 1/3 from what they are now at 320.
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They're already working on 800, that's their goal for ship date and it seems likely that it'll be just that from the reports.

Definitely time to get an info thread/sub forum going. xD
 
brynsank said:
I doubt we'd see phantom powered 1/4" jacks on it, that's rather uncommon. Especially if it doesn;t make mention of it.
Would be nice if I were proved wrong though! :)
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Unlikely with only a 90 minute internal battery, but I would LOVE to be wrong. BM do it for those of us who will use external battery packs, if you have phantom powered mics you are more likely to also have external battery packs.
 
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My experience is with cameras that I'd conservatively rate at 6-7 of dynamic range and still end up crushing blacks and boosting higlights to make things look 'normal' I know that when I shot film, I never risked pretending there was even close to that much range, and could pull a lot out of the shadows, but this isn't film. People see these numbers like 13-15 stops and think you can always need more. As digital sensors are more sensitive in the low end than high a true 800 iso, if it really is, should be as good as anything out there, but I'm really only talking out of my a$$. I'm not a colorist so I don't really know if post can provide the same results as in camera processing as seen in Sony and canon cameras, the base sensitivity isn't any better.
 
Gillvane said:
Do I need a Mac? I don't have one, don't plan to get one.

I am going to use a windows core i7 computer, and edit with Premiere 5.5. I'll use the onboard sound as a scratch track, and record sound with a Zoom H4n.

Do I need anything else for the Raw workflow? I don't plan to shoot anything in prores.
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You will need to get a program that allows Windows machines to read Mac formatted drives. MacDrive works well for me, in other words I forget that I have it installed and just plug in Mac drives.
 
I'll talk to the MacDrive folks and see about getting groupbuy license or a special DVXuser deal.

I forsee a lot of people needing it.
 
Kholi said:
I'll talk to the MacDrive folks and see about getting groupbuy license or a special DVXuser deal.

I forsee a lot of people needing it.
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Cool. It's 50 bucks for MacDrive standard. Not awful, but a discount would be great. Don't know why you'd make a camera with a drive specifically for Macs though. I'm pretty sure a lot of PC users are going to buy this camera, and even the software comes in a Mac and PC version so this doesn't really make sense unless it's about a license issue or something.


Does anyone know how the sensor size stacks up to the Canon 7D? I looked at some sensor charts and it shows the black magic sensor compared to Super 16mm and Micro 4/3, but what does that mean compared to a 7D?

LIke if I take the lens off of a 7d and put it on the Black Magic, what's the difference in field of view?

4607537205_6824b514c1.jpg

blackmagic-cinema-sensor-size.jpg
 
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