Black Magic: Official $1,995 raw cinema camera topic, series 2

Brian202020

A lot of people believe Phil either exposed his shot improperly and/or did a bad job grading. People were politely criticizing his work and he had a tantrum. People that are used to everyone thinking they are a god don't take constructive criticism too well I guess. From what I've read, exposing with the BMCC is a lot different than most cameras, so my guess is Phil didn't expose correctly and tried save as much as he could in post.

bannedindv

8GB trimmed, ungraded LogFilm ProRes trimming of my night drive shoot.

http://dankanesbmcc.blogspot.com/2012/10/trimmed-ungraded-prores-from-bmcc-night.html

As to the people complaining about underexposure, uh yeah - there are moments when they aren't in the light. I didn't trim the upload. I wanted to show what it looks like in the dark and in reflected street light at night... Personally I'm happy with the parts we are going to be using...actually more than happy. I got paid more than a living wage to do this shoot, and I will continue to be hired because the people hiring me like the way I do things.

Oedipax

@christianhubbard, I didn't think it was anything to write home about visually either. I think that's more down to the constraints of the filming location and the resources he had in terms of lighting, etc. There were other cameras that would've been better suited for that particular shoot - as Bloom acknowledges in his blog post about it. He also mentions a pro colorist will be doing a grade of the raw files at some point so maybe we'll see better results from that.

I'm still very excited for this camera given the outdoor high-contrast tests I've seen on Vimeo. It won't be the best camera for everyone's workflow, but being able to really capture dynamic daylight/nature footage is a huge plus for me. And it should behave well indoors too so long as you actually light your scene.

christianhubbard

Finally got around to watching philip blooms Ponte Tower Doc. Really unimpressed I must say. Lots of grain, didn't blow me away with detail. Any one else have similar reactions?

peterdv_dot_com

Just an FYI if you hadn't already seen it. No new news, but at least he's posting more frequently now. In general, communication is better than silence.

Grant Petty, CEO of Blackmagic Design, today posted the following, very brief, 3rd status update about manufacturing difficulties with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera.

Hi,

I was going to do an update today, but I still have not quite got the latest info I need to update everyone accurately. However what I do know is there is a small amount of cameras shipping again, but its slow because some of the testing software needed to quality sensors before they ship to us was completed later than we expected. However things are starting to move. I hope to have more info next week.

The supplier is quite upbeat though and expects a lot more sensors next week to ship so that is good.

Sorry I cannot provide more accurate info, but I hope to get more details soon and then will update everyone.

Grant

rockroadpix

@soundgh2 - it's a camera that is barely available. How would he know about it unless a DP/Director/Client requested it? Their job is to get/order what is required. DPs and Directors are the ones that know what is coming out or is barely out...

@bannedindv - I have no idea what I am supposed to get from that footage except that it is underexposed. YEah, there's some latitude, but I would NEVER shoot like that.

bannedindv

Night Driving Footage in Vegas - unedited

http://dankanesbmcc.blogspot.com/2012/10/unedited-car-mount-clip-from-vegas.html

soundgh2

Interesting how day to day production managers are talking about this cam - storage etc - money talks - really, breaks or makes a format. interesting to see how it pans out as sat next to a very popular UK PM who has no idea what a BMC is lol I'll show him a pic ;p

Nino_Ilacqua

@bwhitz "I've kind of just stopped watching the reviews from the "popular" guys. It's clear that while they're not being "payed" by companies like canon, per se, they'll stop getting support if they were to show the BMCC in a better light than something like the C300. It's pretty clear when you watch a few of the reviews how they'll "talk-around" the areas where the BMCC is clearly beating canon's "cinema" cams..."

Very well said Sir!

bwhitz

@Jon2323

Is the blackmagic format basically 1:1?

Correct. The BMCC is actually less compressed than Red footage.

Jon2323

How come 1 hour raw 2.5k on the blackmagic is about 535gb, and 1hour 4k raw on the Red scarlet is about 128gb at 8:1. Is there any chance they may release a more manageable raw format?

Is the blackmagic format basically 1:1?

johnnym

@peaceonearth DR is special. Artefacts aren't from the cam but from Vimeo.

tinyrobot

@nomad Can you denoise uncompressed footage from the BMCC? Is there a workflow you can use in a NLE?

peaceonearth

Some superb footage by Philip Bloom

what do you think is superb at this footage? What is special which could not have been done with another camera? Artefake are horrible, see the guys neck at 5:00 . Just my 2 cts

nomad

Also keep in mind that treating uncompressed footage with a good temporal denoiser (like Neatvideo) is much more effective than treating any compressed stuff, even if it's ProRes or DNxHD.

bwhitz

Yea, that was a great review. I was only talking about reviews from the "famous" reviewers... everyone knows who they are. These lesser known production teams (like OneRiver Media) still have the ability to perform direct un-biased side-by-side reviews. The "most popular" BMCC reviews I've seen have just been hidden-commercials for the C300.

charlie_orozco

@bwhitz In this video, however, Marco Solorio does clearly favor the BMCC, and the results of the test actually made me quite happy for what it can achieve. Specially the low light capabilities surprised me, and although 1600iso is tops when shooting ProRes or DNxHD, there's no limit when shooting RAW, and that's just for now. I bet they'll add wider functionality through firmware updates!

bwhitz

Just take a look at the nighttime shots on Marco Solorio's video. It's no FS100, but it does pretty well.

Yea, the Blackmagic Cam is actually cleaner at 1600iso... it's just that the FS100 goes higher. I'd consider it a pretty good low-light cinema cam. Sure, something like the 5DIII can go up to clean 3200iso... but it's 8-bit low-res image with no detail and flexibility... the image isn't up to par to begin with, so who cares about the performance at ANY iso?

I've kind of just stopped watching the reviews from the "popular" guys. It's clear that while they're not being "payed" by companies like canon, per se, they'll stop getting support if they were to show the BMCC in a better light than something like the C300. It's pretty clear when you watch a few of the reviews how they'll "talk-around" the areas where the BMCC is clearly beating canon's "cinema" cams...

It's better to just making your own calls these days in the era of "camera-review celebrities". Politics are at play, no matter what anyone tells you.

mintcheerios

Just take a look at the nighttime shots on Marco Solorio's video. It's no FS100, but it does pretty well.

tinyrobot

Yes, I want to know more about the low-light capability of the BMMC. This could be its weakness?

qwerty123

Look at how video noisy the nighttime interview shots are.... and it almost looks like he used neat video or something as it feels a lot more "plastic-y" than much of the other nice BMMC shots.