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

Babel and City of God do mix 35mm with 16mm.
But you are, of course, right. People tend to confuse "exteremely shallow DOF" with "selective focus" with "filmic look".
Not only that. People tend to forget that it's a fair statement that the majority of scenes in large budget 35 & 65mm movies with proper lighting budgets are stopped down to much smaller apertures than wide open, for various reasons, giving larger DoF. The 5D DoF hype is getting out of control.
 
The 5D DoF hype is getting out of control.

I don't know. My twitter is full of people condemning the 5d frame size.

I personally love it though. You can get a nice almost an "anamorphic 35mm" look with the 5d with regular spherical lenses, without the aberrations. Why do people constantly complain and complain though, I don't get that? Either someone is hyping stuff too much or no one is talking about this and that...

Is it because once something is "mainstream" it becomes ****? So when enough people use the 5d, then the dof is overused and bad? What if everyone has the BCC?
 
The shallow DOF itself is not the problem, obviously it can be fantastic. The problem is this resulting mindset that shallow DOF is a necessity for films to look good, or that shallow DOF is only achievable with large sensors so therefore purchasing a camera with a smaller sensor is unfathomable. The amount of response that I've seen to this phenomenal camera that is along the lines of "it'd be great if it didn't have such a small, crappy sensor. what were they thinking??!?! #FAIL" makes me want to throw up.
 
It's laughable that some people, including Mike Curtis at Pro Video Coalition, is calling it a "supermodel with ninja claws" great for reality and documentary.

I just read that article. I thought it was pretty well balanced summary of his thoughts, considering that he has actually seen the camera and talked to its designers:

http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/mcurtis/story/blackmagic_designs_cinema_camera/

His main criticism is its ergonomics, which he explains in detail. Overall he seems pretty stoked about it though.
 
I don't know. My twitter is full of people condemning the 5d frame size.

I personally love it though. You can get a nice almost an "anamorphic 35mm" look with the 5d with regular spherical lenses, without the aberrations. Why do people constantly complain and complain though, I don't get that? Either someone is hyping stuff too much or no one is talking about this and that...

Is it because once something is "mainstream" it becomes s*%t? So when enough people use the 5d, then the dof is overused and bad? What if everyone has the BCC?
Not sure what you mean. 5D is a great tool. But when even pro video news sites say that s16mm is too small for cinema, when obviously there are numerous great award winning (cinematography AND best picture) films shot on s16mm, something is getting out of control with the DoF hype.

I just read that article. I thought it was pretty well balanced summary of his thoughts, considering that he has actually seen the camera and talked to its designers:


http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/mcurtis/story/blackmagic_designs_cinema_camera/


His main criticism is its ergonomics, which he explains in detail. Overall he seems pretty stoked about it though.
I liked his article. It was good, except for the stupid complaint about the sensor size.
 
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This crap you called these footages? That's rather harsh, don't you think? And I think John Brawley is a good person to test a prototype cinema camera.

My sincere apologies. I did not mean to criticize John. In my frustration perhaps I used too strong of words. Mainly what I saw in the first footage he had of the wide shots of the ocean, it seemed very soft to me, not much detail compared to what I had seen with the Nikon D800. Even some of the other test footage looked grainy. Now, I admit his latest of closeup of the girl applying makeup looked 100x better. I just hope to continue to see better footage.

IS THIS CAMERA REALLY IN BETA TESTING?? Do we have an official quote from Black Magic on that? Or is the Imager/Electronics of the camera pretty much set? I can't imagine with a ship date only a few weeks away that there is much more they intend on doing with it.
 
Not only that. People tend to forget that it's a fair statement that the majority of scenes in large budget 35 & 65mm movies with proper lighting budgets are stopped down to much smaller apertures than wide open, for various reasons, giving larger DoF. The 5D DoF hype is getting out of control.

Cinema is about relations. Relations between objects. And these relations need sufficiently deep DOF to render them.
I believe the large sensor hype (as in FF) is mostly a group reaction to early small sensor video cameras and will calm down with time. And large sensors help cover bad production design, which can probably be a postiive for indies. On the other hand, if you need very shallow focus to cover that, then your movie probably sucks anyway.

5D is of course a great low light tool and can't be dismissed. It is just the fetish of an overused aesthetic that is tiring. Even more tiring is that it is so misunderstood. No wonder it is overused in the low-end segment of filmmaking.

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This trend is so prevalent that I actually dedicated a few paragraphs to this issue in a beginners series on the film look, that I am doing. The last couple of paragraphs I believe are relevant here.[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]..[/FONT]​
 
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I wouldn't mind predator mode, only use it to light green screens and white cycs personally but I'll take it.

GUYS !

It's a prototype camera. They've only had that software working for a few weeks. I only saw a camera with those menus a few days before NAB. Audio isn't implemented yet. There are other exposure tools planned.

jb
 
If this has already been posted please accept my apologies . . . pre-order: $2845.25
http://www.markertek.com/Video-Equi...Cameras/Blackmagic-Design/CINEMA-CAMERA.xhtml

This is where I preordered from.

GUYS !

It's a prototype camera. They've only had that software working for a few weeks. I only saw a camera with those menus a few days before NAB. Audio isn't implemented yet. There are other exposure tools planned.

jb

Hey, I'm not complaining about anything that's going on in the camera. Trying to actually quell the complaints.
 
I think the orginal point was that waveform from the cam does not exist without an external device. Boo Hiss.

Where is there anything that says that ? they give you Ultrascope, but that doesn't preclude a waveform / Vector / Histo from the camera software. i've been talking with them at great length for the need for this to be right.

jb
 
Mainly what I saw in the first footage he had of the wide shots of the ocean, it seemed very soft to me, not much detail compared to what I had seen with the Nikon D800. Even some of the other test footage looked grainy. Now, I admit his latest of closeup of the girl applying makeup looked 100x better. I just hope to continue to see better footage.

I think that this has more to do with uploading a highly compressed file to vimeo ...less then 5000kps. But its probably better if John Brawley answer that himself.
Uploading a file with higher bitrates holds alot more info.
 
5D is of course a great low light tool and can't be dismissed. It is just the fetish of an overused aesthetic that is tiring. Even more tiring is that it is so misunderstood. No wonder it is overused in the low-end segment of filmmaking.

But not just low-end. A prime example (to my mind) is Sherlock on the BBC (fantastic show, if you haven't seen it be sure to check it out on Netflix/Blu-ray). For the first season, Steve Lawes utilized some incredibly shallow DOF that I found distracting, even though I was fully immersed in the storyline (one specific shot of Sherlock himself on a street scene had this intense blob of bokeh where he was the only thing in any kind of focus at all that just looked terrible in full HD on a 42" TV screen). Come Season 2, Fabian Wagner has done some incredible stuff with deeper DOF, a vast improvement with the look of the show in my opinion.
 
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