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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 :)

How rentable is Dragon?

I'm too scared to hire all my Epics out... Someone might scratch them :))))) Lense's are like the jewels... Good ones are so hard to find, someone may drop them.

Im just paranoid buggar. Rather just make money renting them to myself on my own jobs. They have all paid them selves off many times over.

But own operators can do that. It's just all cream after that point.
 
I'm kind of in Toia's boat. I don't ever rent out my gear. My lenses also are like Jewels. I fret way too much over them to ever rent them out. And my Scarlet same way. Can't wait to upgrade to Dragon (Epic first!). For me, Dragon will just make my work look BETTER. And make my clients even happier. They already love what we shoot on Scarlet. Epic should be one step better (hello slow mo!). And Dragon...I hope becomes a game changer, a watershed investment. I see the upgrade as an investment in myself first, and in investment in a camera second.

I'm determined to become a full time director, and believe Dragon could end up playing an important role in that.
 
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I can understand and respect that, I just happen to work mostly as a techie/nerd and not an op so for me its kinda rentals or nothing... I'm gonna save up for a new cam I can just play with and not rent out though is my plan...its only 30k (and up for more ram) and it shoots 720p!!!
 
I love my gear, but I have a thing for any technology that is well used and well maintained in equal measure. Like a car thats been round the clock a few times but runs like new because its always maintained just right.

Its made to be used, and that's why I have no problem renting stuff out. Keeping it looking and working great is part of the fun. Maybe I'm odd...
 
Robert Ruffo New said:
You can't monitor the histogram of RAW using an external scope by definition - its in the video output chain so tells you little about RAW recording. Plus I don't cherish having to tether my cam every time I want to check scopes - that would be really, really annoying on Steadiacm or while doing scenic b-rolls with a tiny crew. It would generally waste a lot of set time for no good reason.

If you want an example of why I don;t think the new BM 4K is all that useable look here. https://vimeo.com/86892302


That poor girl looks way worse under BM cam than Epic (and Scarlet would also look great) same girl, same light ,same everything. What a difference a camera makes. The clouds also hard-clip - but clippy clouds I can live with, making talent look bad I cannot.

No OLPF + harsh clip = wrinkly, greasy looking skin - which you can see form the Epic shots is a distortion of reality - she's a very pretty girl. I would never accept to shoot humans with this camera. Anyone who thinks it doesn't matter which camera you use needs to see an eye doctor pronto.
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You're basing your comparison entirely on one video that was specifically stated by its creator to not be an image quality comparison test and only a workflow test? In that video the Epic was shot at ISO800, but for all we know the BMPC was shot at ISO200 which could explain the lack of highlight range (although they actually don't appear to be that different, the difference in the ungraded looks seems to be more about lifted shadows).

Why would you have to tether your cam to check scopes? It's just like a RED, if you want wfm/vscope you connect the SDI to a monitor or device that supports such scopes. As for not having an OLPF, are you sure it does not have one? The BMPC seems to have very little aliasing compared to the other blackmagic cameras, several tests I have seen with the camera seem to have trouble bringing out any aliasing.

Wrinkly greasy skin? Seems like you might mostly be reacting to very unmatched shots with poorly matched lighting and hard sun reflectors at very different distances and very different subject distances. Is that all you have to show that the BMPC is unusable before you have used it? You don't think could might be useful to some as a $3K alternative or b-camera to a $20-30k Epic? Or even quite resonable for people who cant afford the camera that is 10x as expensive? Or do you really think people who would consider it unequivocally "need their eyes checked"?
 
Robert Ruffo New said:
Rentals to others do help the bottom line - not to pay all the bills, but they help cash flow in the right direction. We are a bit less per day than a big rental house, and for things like music videos people do like renting from us. Camera has never gone down on set, but we are very careful about all aspects of maintenance, so huge redundancies are not necessary, plus we have other owner-ops on speed-dial for the remote possibility that ever happened. ACtually our cams are newer, and many people say more reliable/in better shape. Rental house cams can sometimes be very shopworn indeed.


As a director/DP I have so many days of prep, and not that many on-set, so just on our own shoots, its' not always obvious to make the money back, especially when agencies ask for Alexas "because it's better" (I'm not saying I agree, I'm saying… You know how agencies are. :-) But $9500 I would imagine will not be too much of a problem.
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I agree with Rob here. Rental house cams are usually overworked, that's why rental houses have no problem renting you three cams for the price of one, in the event there is a breakdown you'll have a backup without calling them. For international rentals cameras usually come with an AC for a tiny fee or free. What's the difference between that and an owner operator. There are a few owner operators on here that started their business really small with one Red One. They have gone on two supply cameras for blockbuster features. Without naming names.
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
Not a living but I think of my Epic as a "co-op". It's nice to have your own camera package for shooting personal projects and if you can rent it out a few days per month it gives you a camera for "free". Clients get a package that is production proven and constantly improving based on shoot experiences. Win-Win in my books.
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I am with Gavin on this…that is exactly how I approach my camera ownership. I actively rent it out when I'm not able to use it (although I am fairly picky about who I rent to), use the rental revenue to improve and add to the camera package, and then I have the package sitting there and "paid for" when I'm ready to shoot my own projects.
 
Mark Toia said:
I'm too scared to hire all my Epics out... Someone might scratch them :))))) Lense's are like the jewels... Good ones are so hard to find, someone may drop them.

Im just paranoid buggar. Rather just make money renting them to myself on my own jobs. They have all paid them selves off many times over.

But own operators can do that. It's just all cream after that point.
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We always send out someone from our staff for anything more delicate than a dolly. They are a great and well liked Montreal P.A. so no one complains. They make sure nothing crazy happens. Otherwise I would never rent. I don't put much energy into promoting rentals either. If I could afford it, I would follow your rules about never renting . :-)
 
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shashbugu said:
I agree with Rob here. Rental house cams are usually overworked, that's why rental houses have no problem renting you three cams for the price of one, in the event there is a breakdown you'll have a backup without calling them. For international rentals cameras usually come with an AC for a tiny fee or free. What's the difference between that and an owner operator. There are a few owner operators on here that started their business really small with one Red One. They have gone on two supply cameras for blockbuster features. Without naming names.
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3 cameras for thw price of one? No not in this part of the world. Sounds like a sweet deal!
 
Noah Yuan-Vogel said:
You're basing your comparison entirely on one video that was specifically stated by its creator to not be an image quality comparison test and only a workflow test? In that video the Epic was shot at ISO800, but for all we know the BMPC was shot at ISO200 which could explain the lack of highlight range (although they actually don't appear to be that different, the difference in the ungraded looks seems to be more about lifted shadows).

Why would you have to tether your cam to check scopes? It's just like a RED, if you want wfm/vscope you connect the SDI to a monitor or device that supports such scopes. As for not having an OLPF, are you sure it does not have one? The BMPC seems to have very little aliasing compared to the other blackmagic cameras, several tests I have seen with the camera seem to have trouble bringing out any aliasing.

Wrinkly greasy skin? Seems like you might mostly be reacting to very unmatched shots with poorly matched lighting and hard sun reflectors at very different distances and very different subject distances. Is that all you have to show that the BMPC is unusable before you have used it? You don't think could might be useful to some as a $3K alternative or b-camera to a $20-30k Epic? Or even quite resonable for people who cant afford the camera that is 10x as expensive? Or do you really think people who would consider it unequivocally "need their eyes checked"?
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I have tested both cams, side by side. Epic always looks very significantly better, at 1080p, even "for the web", even when all is very carefully controlled, and both cameras are actually side-by-sdie and simultaneous. BTW - the same bad lighting does not look as bad as Epic - both were just as bad in terms of set-up. The only difference is the camera. So it doesn't matter how good or bad the light is really, you're seeing one camera pull through much better in this video, and the other fail. I can tell harsh clipping when I see it. It has nothing to do with workflow, and if you over-expose MX Reds it does not look like that, the curve is much gentler. Alexa is even better, Dragon best. This is a key aspect of image quality.

Besides, look for yourself on Vimeo, 100% of footy from BMC 4K is clippy and oversharpened, and as a result 100% of people look kinda greasy and wrinkly (that can't be true of them in real life).

A Red One Mx and/or a Scarlet is a much, much better B camera and you can rent them very, very inexpensively in most markets - probably same price per day as this cam because it is "new". What would I do with shots where my talent looks older than they are and greasy? I would not want those shots in my edit. A B camera has to be useful or it's a waste of set time.
 
The hard clip in that video could easily be recovered via "recovery" slider...

It doesn't look "over"-sharpened; it looks sharp. A simple blur or vintage glass or filters would all work to alleviate that.

Truth is, if you can't make CinemaDNG footage look good (the way you want), than it's a problem with you, not the camera. I'd also rgue it takes just as much elbow grease to maximize RED footage (just in different areas).
 
Mike P. said:
The hard clip in that video could easily be recovered via "recovery" slider...

It doesn't look "over"-sharpened; it looks sharp. A simple blur or vintage glass or filters would all work to alleviate that.

Truth is, if you can't make CinemaDNG footage look good (the way you want), than it's a problem with you, not the camera. I'd also rgue it takes just as much elbow grease to maximize RED footage (just in different areas).
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All of what you say is not true. Digital highlight recovery and actual highlight information are not the same, softer glass and diffusion does not really solve the issue. And besides, even if these mythical tricks did work, I want sharp AND cleanly free of over-sharpening artifacts - not only one or the other as a sad choice that defeats the purpose of recording all that 4K data.

This camera has limitations that no amount of talent can overcome - it will compromise every frame you shoot, no matter what, as it basically runs all your actors through an "ugly filter" that cannot be removed nor fully defeated.

I'm sure you'd like to think that you can get an awesome digital cinema tool for $3K - and that dream is very important to you.

Unfortunately, you can't, you can only get one with all kinds of problems of limitations, adequate for student work and learning, and/or shooting material that has no humans in it and very limited dynamic range. I;m not surprised they cut the price. $3K is a fair price, $4K would be a bit high at this stage, looking at all the footage from the cam I have see (I mean, 100% of all Vimeo posts done with the new BM 4K show the exact same problems).

There is no free lunch on offer - and again, why should there be? You pay more (or actually pay less, by simply renting something else, for now) you get better. That's fair. That's fine.

Or you can pretend that the way your actors look is not important, that it's all about the story anyway - in that case might I suggest a career in writing or radio, not the visual art of cinematography.

If I were you, I would rent for now, save up a bit more, and get a Scarlet or used Red One MX. if you are a student learning framing and so on, then this is a great tool I wish I had when I was at University.
 
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I actually like the BM 4k cam and think it holds up very well. But just as any camera you need to work around it's limitations and it for sure has more of those than the dragon, epic and even scarlet. And if I was to buy a camera for my private use I would very much consider it over any other camera in that price range. But as I got a dragon buying it simply does not make sense.
 
Björn Benckert said:
I actually like the BM 4k cam and think it holds up very well. But just as any camera you need to work around it's limitations and it for sure has more of those than the dragon, epic and even scarlet. And if I was to buy a camera for my private use I would very much consider it over any other camera in that price range. But as I got a dragon buying it simply does not make sense.
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What you are saying is that you "like it" but would never shoot with it yourself:glare:

Agree that for $3K, it's a good deal, but 2K older BM seems to look a lot better (not to say it's super-great, but it has better dynamic range, and so the aliasing shows less). New Panasonic GH4 looks much smoother and is even cheaper and has clean outs for external recorder. It doesn't look half-bad.

Thing is maybe sometimes it's better to just rent, if you can't afford to buy a camera that is not going to stab you in the back on every second shot.
 
I bern told there is sone firmware updates coming for the 4k BM cam so I think we can expect it to look far better than the 2k camera in a not to distant future. I just played with it and I would rather have it than a 5d or so and if i had one I would probably use it all the time. Im a fan of havin many cameras running st the same time. We used evereyrhing from 550d, gopros, scarlet etc next to the epic and the bm 4k camera is to me a very good camera thats all. But it does not mean i go and buy one, my friend has one and k will probably trade a dragon day for a BmC 4k week or such then I can use it for bts or just play with it when Im bored at set.
 
They may have a small window to sell the 4k BM if the Go Pro 4k with higher frame rates is released soon... depending on price of course.
 
Justin O'Neill said:
I would look at it more from the angle of how rentable the MX will be in a month or two. I tried leaving one of my RED One cameras on the original Mysterium sensor and it almost never rented out as soon as there were a bunch of MXs out there. As soon as Dragon becomes the norm the MX is going to be very difficult to rent out. You may get lucky and have a client or two who don't care but in general everyone is going to want Dragon.
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This.

Obsolesence, more obsolete than ever.
 
Björn Benckert said:
I bern told there is sone firmware updates coming for the 4k BM cam so I think we can expect it to look far better than the 2k camera in a not to distant future. I just played with it and I would rather have it than a 5d or so and if i had one I would probably use it all the time. Im a fan of havin many cameras running st the same time. We used evereyrhing from 550d, gopros, scarlet etc next to the epic and the bm 4k camera is to me a very good camera thats all. But it does not mean i go and buy one, my friend has one and k will probably trade a dragon day for a BmC 4k week or such then I can use it for bts or just play with it when Im bored at set.
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Well, I'm not fan of wasting crew time setting up B-Cams that look significantly worse than the A-cam, and whose footage will bring down the overall visual level of my edit. I don't get bored on set as I am the director-DP and rarely have time even to eat lunch. Go Pro for extreme action shots is another matter - I see the point - but in narrative it would be super-distracting.

I stand behind old BM cameras are actually a little better than new 4K. Maybe you think greasy wrinkly skin is "good" . To each their own.

Did you actually watch that video link? Have you ever shot side-by-side?
 
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