GH2 GH3 or BMC m4/3?

The internal battery is not a problem at all. It's not meant to be your main battery. It's more like a hot-swap battery. You are expected and encouraged to be providing alternative power.
 
I can't see a future where I don't own both. As to which I'll get first... it's looking like the GH3, since I'm definitely going to hold off for the BMCC 4/3.
 
I will probably have both as well, if the general consensus is that the BMC is worth having after it's more widespread. I will have a GH3, and probably well before I have a BMC.
 
why hasn't anyone thought of the post production problems? Do most of us even understand RAW? You may be buying a great Black Magic camera, but how are you going to edit it? Your workstation needs to have the power and storage space. You will need the latest i7 or whatever and SSD drives are extremely expensive. RAW sounds good but we need to be realistic about how are we going to make a good use out of it. It takes time and money, and yes, human power to unraw hours of footage. Try messing with one RAW photo file and see what I mean. Black Magic has no external batteries, and it costs about $85 to have them replaced it. And remember those Red cameras, pre-order it and play the delay forever game and firmware fixing game, and it takes huge amount of money to make the Red camera work. BM might be $3,000 camera but think about the post production and the accessories/gear. There are many of us crying about the $800 GH2 price but go out happily buying a piece of metal $2,500 Zacuto Scorpion shoulder mount rig. now this makes me feel bad for the genius and engineer people at Panasonic who spend hours and costing billions of yen to come up with a great camera. Enough : Sometimes the market tells you what you need but you don't really need it. Filmmaking is, what works.
 
I would much rather have a 3rd generation camera than a first.
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There you go. I will wait until the BMC progresses and most or all of the cons are taken care of. Oh, it will happen, eventually. I already learned my lesson with first generation digital cams a few years ago.
 
hana said:
why hasn't anyone thought of the post production problems? Do most of us even understand RAW? You may be buying a great Black Magic camera, but how are you going to edit it? Your workstation needs to have the power and storage space. You will need the latest i7 or whatever and SSD drives are extremely expensive. RAW sounds good but we need to be realistic about how are we going to make a good use out of it. It takes time and money, and yes, human power to unraw hours of footage. Try messing with one RAW photo file and see what I mean. Black Magic has no external batteries, and it costs about $85 to have them replaced it. And remember those Red cameras, pre-order it and play the delay forever game and firmware fixing game, and it takes huge amount of money to make the Red camera work. BM might be $3,000 camera but think about the post production and the accessories/gear. There are many of us crying about the $800 GH2 price but go out happily buying a piece of metal $2,500 Zacuto Scorpion shoulder mount rig. now this makes me feel bad for the genius and engineer people at Panasonic who spend hours and costing billions of yen to come up with a great camera. Enough : Sometimes the market tells you what you need but you don't really need it. Filmmaking is, what works.
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If I can edit and work with Raw Epic 5k files on an i5 Imac I'm more than sure I can do it with the BMCC which is a lot less.... Raw is honestly not that difficult, it's just more time consuming. So instead of a couple of hours of converting normally it might now take you a day or two, but the end is worth it, IF the project calls for it
 
It really is a tough call for me. If the GH3 is what the rumors say it will be (and that's a BIG "if") then for me it will all boil down to which one produces the best footage. I think it's a safe bet that the BMC will make "better" quality footage, since it's either RAW 12-bit at 2.5K or 4:2:2 ProRes 10-bit at 1080p. That alone should give it a big edge in resolution, color fidelity, and robustness over 8-bit 4:2:0 footage from the GH3. As well it should, since it costs two to three times as much.

However, the GH3 will have some advantages... 60p, inexpensive SD cards, small, lightweight, footage doesn't take up as much HDD space. The real question for me is dynamic range and resolution. If the GH3 is close to the BMC, then I can see myself possibly going for the GH3, especially if I can hook up a Blackmagic Hyperdeck and record HDMI out to 4:2:2 properly for only $350 more... But the lure of RAW is tempting...
 
If everything that I love about the GH2 is adapted into the GH3, + a healthy 3 stops of DR (for a total of around 11.5-12), I will be a happy happy customer. The GH3 and the BMCC together will easily provide the most filmic image available for under 20k. Great times are upon us!
 
I will try and get a BMc if I can get one. At 3k it's a bargain.it just simply means I have a gh1,gh2,a gx1 and a BMc .
 
Barry_Green said:
The internal battery is not a problem at all. It's not meant to be your main battery. It's more like a hot-swap battery. You are expected and encouraged to be providing alternative power.
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Thank god. The voice of reason. Never seen a plus turned so quicky into a con by so many people. It's a camera meant to be powered by an external source, with a great failsafe and quick run n'gun alternative, not a DSLR.
 
The BMCC at 3k no doubt at first presents an alluring entry into RAW territory. But seems to me the hype surrounding this camera has many people loose sight of the reality of what they really need. The reality for me, and I'm guessing for most people who currently use the GH2, a B cam for me, is I just don't need a camera like the BMCC.

My bread and butter is short docs for which there are better suited tools. 1080p, 50Mbs 422 is plenty good for me. i'm not looking to change my workflow for RAW, or be bothered with pimping up a camera to be field worthy, all of which could easily add 3-5k to the cost of the BMCC. If I was seriously doing narrative or VFX stuff, then the BMC would be more attractive.

The BMCC certainly has a place and tech wise it's potentially disruptive. Indeed, this is good for everyone. But I'd probably choose the C100 over the BMCC and get the GH3 for my new B cam.
 
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The GH3 is most likely going to exceed my needs all by itself right out of the box. Depending on pricing my intentions are to grab one, preorder ASAP. The BMCC would be wasted on me, so I'll let someone who needs and can utilize have it instead, ok ??? :-)
 
While I'm probably going with the GH3, I can't get "13 stops RAW for $3k" out of my head.
 
You do all relise the BMCC doesn't only shoot raw? ProRes recording is a great option with the camera for those who just want a good 1920x1080 4:2:2 without the extra hassle of post processing. You can shoot ProRes all baked in and ready to cut. In that way this camera could actually be a better match to those who want to shoot B roll to match HD 4:2:2.

For me however I think the GH3 is the better option for one big reason nobody has mentioned yet. Stills. While I am not a photographer by trade it is nice having the option to shoot very high quality stills when I want to. I'm also a fan of the auto Lumix lenses for certain run and gun shooting situations and with the BMCC that is pretty much out the window. Most of us only think of 60p for slow motion but if you are second cam for a TV production such as sports then having 60p or 60i may be critical. With the GH3 at least you will have options to shoot different flavors of video. With the BMCC you are looking at strictly a film like workflow. The ProRes option simplifies that workflow a lot but you are still limited in what you can do with the camera. If we thought DSLR shooting was a niche then shooting with the BMCC will be even more of a niche.
 
All I'm saying is that the BMCC is simply not a viable option for anyone who needs field portability. And that's a shame.
 
Trucci said:
While I'm probably going with the GH3, I can't get "13 stops RAW for $3k" out of my head.
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You can hang your hat on GH3 not getting 13 stops, and I would be heartily surprised if there were 11 usable with the "wide dynamic range" mode or whatever. Happy to be wrong, but don't count on it. 13Stops, Solid Color, Options on how to grab tough scenes, that's quite an attractive deal. NOt only that, but it's priced at 3k yeah, but a grand of that is Resolve 9 coming bundled with it.

What I can count on the GH3 being is at least as solid as the GH2, which is why I'm still getting one as soon as I can find a retail box. Hopefully I can get a friend to ship one back from .JP

I'm sure there are a lot of people that only need one or the other, though, and that's pretty much fine. Both are so cheap in comparison to what you get that I can't imagine not being able to pay either off in three to four weeks (MSRP only, not talking accessories which one may or may not already own.)

Jim Simon said:
So...what? I'm to bring a generator on every shoot? That'll be real convenient traipsing through the jungle on a doc shoot.
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Although I realize this camera is clearly not for you... you'd have to invest in an external power supply source. V-Mount batteries and a plate, rig, etc. On the flip side, one V_Mount battery of a decent capacity (Not highest capacity, which would be heavy and large) would keep the camera running for five to six hours, with nearly two hours of backup time on the camera's internal battery. So, between two v-mounts and the internal battery potentially having four hours of charge (Between both batteries. AS in, once the first battery is dead, let the internal battery run down then use the second battery to power/charge the camera, after that second battery dies you get another two hours) that's potentially 12 hours of runtime in one shoot, without charging the externals.

So far I've priced out what it would cost to rig and power a Magic Cam for an entire day's shoot without worry, minimalist, and the extra cost is 1450.00 for a smart shopper. That's SSDs, cage, rods/rails, v-mount plate, batteries, charger. Enough time on the SSDs to shoot ten hours straight, or a mix of RAW and ProRes.

Again, I realize this isn't the camera for you, just hoped to provide some info.

Jim Simon said:
All I'm saying is that the BMCC is simply not a viable option for anyone who needs field portability. And that's a shame.
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I'm not sure how Epic is an option (which either requires an external battery solution or eight to ten RED handle batteries that only last 30 minutes each and cost several hundreds of dollars) for docs--which several are being shot on, and not the Magic Cam.

I can however understand that it's not an option for certain people with very limited budgets. That's a different story.
 
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