Just wanted to add my .02 to the thread. Sorry if I'm rambling, just typing off the cuff...

I think the camera is pretty cool and I'm in the "I want one" camp. I think it could fit nicely into all the gear I've acquired for my GH2. I do have my reservations... I'm a little concerned about the built-in battery, but more concerned about the current limitations on ASA and size of sensor in relation to ability to shoot wide-angle.

From an acquisition standpoint, I love this camera. It is a brilliant starting point. Record directly to SSD and (possibly) edit straight from the drive. However, time to copy 256GB to a RAID even with Thunderbolt is questionable at this point. Figure on starting with 2-256gb SSDs which will add about 650 to entry at this point. Maybe this will help drive SSD prices down a little?

I guess the more I ramble on, the camera brings up more questions than it answers. Still it excites me. I would figure that there will be a thunderbolt equipped EVF solution in the future. And also I would hope there will be future firmware updates to extend ASA range. It's a 1.0. Built-in metadata is nice. Something that was always difficult to manage with XDCAM decks (assuming same thing for cameras?). Seems to be just "part of the process" now.

I think certain production companies will get the camera - if only for the caché - those early adopting crafty companies will have an excuse to get some free PR in Shoot magazine or Creative Cow or whatever. I'd certainly do it if I had a connection ;-)

It makes for an excellent value-added when buying Resolve. Imagine all the young filmmaker/editor-types who want to buy Resolve - they'll be very tempted to just add the camera in and use it for whatever if they don't already have a camera.

As for specific use, I love the idea of raw and using it for green screen. If it proves to work well with green screen, and you shoot at least one week of green screen a year, it might be worth the price of admission. A camera rental would come close to purchasing the camera (when you factor out the cost of Resolve) and assuming you have EF lenses. Other than green screen, I'd probably shoot Prores for the bulk of my work.

Agree with some that this looks more like a narrative cam than a docu cam. But who said you couldn't do both? Ultimately, can't wait to get my hands on it and try it out with FCPX and Premiere and Smoke and Avid and Lightworks and Edius and Resolve and... oh, whatever else gets announced by July!

very good DR ... http://johnbrawley.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/blackmagic-cinema-camera-lets-take-it-from-the-top/untitled_1-2-2/ http://johnbrawley.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/blackmagic-cinema-camera-lets-take-it-from-the-top/untitled_1-23-2-2/

@xntrggr yes, recording to prores or dnxhd is definitely an asset and I hope all cameras go that way in the future, that said AMA and transcode is getting pretty damn good with most formats and relinking literally takes seconds so when dealing with large amounts of raw footage can often be more economical to transcode to a offline hd format, run that from a thunderbolt raid, and park your terabytes of shot footage somewhere else. Really depends on what your ratio is.

Alexa is also preferred for drama though because of its ability to deliver a filmic look with very minimal correction. Good summary of this fact here: http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/2012/04/dueling-canon-c300-and-arri-alexa/

Anyway, getting waaaaay off topic.

@disneytoy

Yep, like now it is JPEG+RAW.
One of the great advantages of modern cameras is relatively accurate preview in the time of shooting.

@disneytoy I took it like this. Having a solid AVCHD get recorded next to a raw file gives someone the ability to edit in AVCHD codex as a surrogate and then swap for raw at rendering point. Im a bit noob though.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev Personally, I think that future of video cameras for us, mere mortals, lies in parallel AVCHD (with intra option) + RAW recording.

Please explain parallel AVCHD

@JDN , I must have missed people mistaking this for a doc-style cam. If anything, this a narrative style camera that would prefer a controlled environment where you can really dial your tastes in...

Doc style, imo, is still best reserved for the camcorder builds.

I guess you guys work at fancier places than I do -- but where I've worked, including two of the largest television procos on the continent, they don't want to deal with syncing audio, they don't want to have to rent / deal a red whenever they want to do super slow mo, and don't want to have to deal with the massive storage problems of uncompressed or even Pro Res HQ. Think about it, you got 50 shows on the go, 12-24 eps each... you really going to invest in a gazillion TB of storage until they all get signed off and aired by broadcasters?

I've been long interested in a sub-$10 camera that can deliver do real slow motion, has professional xlr inputs, records high quality without overkill.

In a cheap ($75K / 30 show) I could see the FS700 being a good A cam, and in an expensive ($100K plus / 30 show) I could see it being a great B cam, with ability to mount super long or super wide lenses for a variety of angles and/or do super slow motion. And for those reasons, I'm excited to try it out.

Anyway, this is fast getting off topic. My main point was for anyone here who is hoping to break into broadcast televion, particularly in the doc-series world -- there's a lot of talk of this blackmagic being the perfect little A cam and rest assured it is not -- not any more than a gh2 is. Oh yeah, build in NDs also a huge boon for anyone doing doc work, so....

Obviously I'm comparing apples and oranges, but that's my perspective. FS700 is to me, just as interesting of a step forward and I hope it sets the stage for good things to come.

Beside the internal battery rolling shutter would be the only issue for me with this cam. Even if the results in some stops less dynamic range it would be perfect to have this option available if handheld or for doing shots for CGI.

Most important question now if they actually use Fairchild sCMOS sensor

http://www.scmos.com/files/high/scmos_white_paper_8mb.pdf

As in this case it becomes moroe clear why they tried to focus on reading not whole sensor. fps reading only part can be quite high.

Also idea to restrict initial modes by 30fps has some basis, as it is bound after that read noise jumps.

@Alfi666

Contary to widespread misinformation the depth of field (DOF) chrasteristics are a proteperty of A LENS being used - not a property of the sensor.

So having a large sensor is not the thing that provides shallow DOF. It does lead to the fact that one should use lens that can cover the sensor - which in turn leads to the use of type of lenses which if they have large maximum aperture are likely to provide (extremely) shallow DOF.

However you CAN use the SAME exact lenses with smaller sensor if only you can attach them to your camera (i.e. m4/3 or BMC) and have the EXACT SAME DOF characteristics.

The FOV will ofcourse be different. Not the DOF.

@vladnik even worse.. ; )

@JDN fs-700 ? really? "Sadly, the internal codec is 4:2:0 AVCHD 2.0 at 28mbps … Oh well" http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/16/2953295/sony-nex-fs700-hands-on-super-slow-motion-and-4k-video-for-under-10000

and all of this for under 10 000 bucks...!

@vladnik "professional way is to use independent audio recoding..." absolutely so. all these fancy inboard xlr inputs go to idiotically high noise floor preamps...so if the accent on audio is crucial you will be using external recoding for sure! of course if -70db(or worse)cam vs - ~80db(external recorders) is something you don't hear the difference of and don't bother you, then go ahead and use the inboard "pro" audio...