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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Black Magic Design Cinema Camera - update

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Timur Civan said:
I feel the no budget crowd will get tired of having to grade every freaking shot. The beauty of the gh2 7d is that they make"good" really easy.
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I use a 5d and I love grading every shot :) I despise the baked-in picture styles that make everything super contrasty and cheap looking
 
David Rasberry said:
That's a $100 hard drive for backup these days. Cheap media.
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No because you need at least 3 copies to even be insurable for project completion (read your insurance contract). So 300$. Plus physical storage of said media (at some point, shelf space is something, especially in places like my neighborhood where 1000 sq feet rents at $2500 a month or more, (places like Toronto, New York, Tokyo are even higher) Then you have the issue sof projects spread out over San after San raid - you eventually have a clogged system.
 
Joseph Podlesnik said:
Here's another update on the Black Magic Cinema cam, for any folks who might be curious - http://vimeo.com/47013561 There's some decent dynamic range in the shot at 3:40.
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Yes but it also shows what crunchy and ugly bokeh and focus-falloff wide-angle lenses - cheated on this camera as normal view lenses - have. Also shows how awful an untrained Steadicam op can be. :-) Only shost with very deep depth of field look OK, and in all cases colour science looks way wonky - almost as bad as that Chinese camera.
 
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Joe G. said:
"It has higher dynamic range? I thought Scarlet/Epic was 13.5 and BM was 13."

The last I heard, the MX sensor tested at 11.9 stops:

http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/awilt/story/nab_2011_-_scce_charts/

Is there some independent test that confirms this increase to 13.5?

The BM is somewhere between 13 and 14 (correction, the sensor manufacturer, I believe claims 15 for the sensor in optimal conditions), and the camera hasn't released yet. We shall see. I have no problem putting my faith in the new Dragon sensor, with 15 stops claimed. But I like the highlight rolloff on the BM best right now.
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MAny ASC D.P.s of high note rate the MX at 13 stops, that Alexa at 14.25. The "chip manufacturer" in China cannot be trusted. Do you also believe that cheap LCD TVs at Best Buy have 10 000 000:1 contrast ratios? It should be noted that super high res files like 4K and 5K can be much more effectively noise reduced - so add a few more stops at the bottom end not possible if all you have is 2K to give Neat Video.

"Pro Video Coalition" is a prosumer corporate video site and those tests were a complete joke by any measure. I think I'll go with the A.S.C. guys.
 
Timur Civan said:
I feel the no budget crowd will get tired of having to grade every freaking shot. The beauty of the gh2 7d is that they make"good" really easy.
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Easy if your set time costs nothing. You are wasting time grading on set (and probably quite badly) with baked cameras.
 
Timur Civan said:
I feel the no budget crowd will get tired of having to grade every freaking shot. The beauty of the gh2 7d is that they make"good" really easy.
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People reacted the same way when the first DSLRs introduced raw stills to a public used to shooting film. Now, even the cheapest DSLRs have raw stills. Withholding features "condescendingly" (ie "don't give it to them, they won't know what to do with it") is not the answer. Toss people in the deep end and they'll learn to swim, I say.
 
I think this is a great camera for students, the fact that you get all those features for what I paid for an HVX 6 years ago or so. The fact that you WILL need to grade on a regular basis will make sure students are somewhat forced to get the practice they need, couple that with learning how lenses and sensor sizes coincide with eachother. If BM came out with a good ranged zoom specifically for this camera that would also help, I imagine it will kind of be like when the dslr wave started (shorts full of CU's). I think this is in a market that is below RED and shouldn't effect them too much, the people buying RED's would see this and know that it's features wouldn't suffice for what we want. All in all though, it's a pretty damn good image for the $$.
 
Well said, Nicholas. For personal (nary financed) projects, this will be an imminently useful tool, for the price!
 
Just an update: actual raw footage was posted recently (today?) on John Brawley's site. The "RAWness" work like stills (recovery, clarity, fill, etc.) and is a really great, straight-foward implementation. It seems to recover a hell of a lot of "overexposed" material...
 
I am thinking about still buying one even tho I just spent like 15k on red gear.. first world problems lol...
 
Mike P. said:
Just an update: actual raw footage was posted recently (today?) on John Brawley's site. The "RAWness" work like stills (recovery, clarity, fill, etc.) and is a really great, straight-foward implementation. It seems to recover a hell of a lot of "overexposed" material...
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A few have commented on the "overexposed" look of the material.

I think this is more to do with how the various apps preview the DNG files. You get a different result in PS, LR, AE capture one and even in Resolve. You should find though that the image isn't actually overexposed and there is no clipping, aside from the obvious with the sparklers and point sources of light. Use the "exposure" slider, which is the DNG version of ISO.

jb
 
Hey John, thanks for your input and the heads up. That's exactly what I meant with the quotations around "overexposed"; stuff that couldn't possibly be exposed like the sparklers, light sources, etc. I didn't think the footage was actually overexposed at all... That said, you could get tonality back from the sparklers (a limited amount, but enough to notice) which is quite impressive. I find the "stills" implementation of RAW controls to work incredibly well... Simple and effective.

Mighty sharp footage too, but I attribute that more to the CP2s than the 2.5k... Were they wide open (t2.1)?
 
Hi Mike.

I actually detail all the specifics of the shots HERE

I used a combination of the Angenieux 15-40 Optimo, the CP2s and regular Canon "L" series primes. All the sparkler shots were shot with the Canon's, not the CP's ;-)

jb
 
I need to get a 2k/4k version of davinci (for 2k dcp output, and some times for 4k vfx DI) ... how i'm reading the site is i get a full version of davinci (worth $1k) when I buy the camera for $3k (thus the camera is only costing me $2k) ... is that correct ? Seems a perty good deal for people that need the non-light version of davinci.

[ EDIT ... just saw Sergio's comment : "Well, this camera costs 1995 USD. Lets not forget with it comes with a copy of Resolve!"

Looks like i will convert some of my CP .2 back to EF ... my scarlet will have a have B camera.

Another funny thing is there is going to be a ton of kids going around ... shaming the old guard into learning raw. ]
 
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Joe G. said:
"It has higher dynamic range? I thought Scarlet/Epic was 13.5 and BM was 13."

The last I heard, the MX sensor tested at 11.9 stops:

http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/awilt/story/nab_2011_-_scce_charts/

Is there some independent test that confirms this increase to 13.5?

The BM is somewhere between 13 and 14 (correction, the sensor manufacturer, I believe claims 15 for the sensor in optimal conditions), and the camera hasn't released yet. We shall see. I have no problem putting my faith in the new Dragon sensor, with 15 stops claimed. But I like the highlight rolloff on the BM best right now.
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Most ASc cinematographers rate it as 13 - 13.5 stops - I'd trust them more than Wedding Video Coalition.
 
There are now zip files of raw DNG footage to play with.
I loaded into After Effects. as I suspected in a previous thread, the images look very sharp indeed.
Pixel on/pixel off sharpness, what you expect from a well de mosaic-ed bayer image. No low pass software filter on darks.
I don't have mine to compare with my Red yet.
I don't want to say anything more.
 
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