New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!

[Frank Glencairn]

The eagle has landed!

BM asked me, if I want to give it a test ride.

Frank

[Noa Put]

Wow, with such a big lens and a tripod, all in that small box? :D
You must be one of the first to receive it, can I ask you for what purpose you will be using the camera; weddings, corporate or? The low price is very tempting but the camera seems like a real handfull to operate, I will be looking out for the first real world samples that appear on vimeo or youtube.

[Frank Glencairn]

I didn't buy it.

Blackmagic was asking me, if want to do a test ride - so they send me one.
The guys who ordered it, still have to wait a week or two.

[Noa Put]

Are you going to post your findings in this forum?
Edit: I just found and read your initial thoughts of the camera on your wordpress blog: blackmagic takes quite a risk sending you the camera or they want to persuade you it's better then you think :) Will be very interesting to see what you think about it, at least we can expect an honest review.

[Frank Glencairn]

Yeah, I was quite surprised, that they asked me - but at least that comes with a "non fanboy guaranty" ;-)

I post my findings here and on my blog.
Since I'm brand agnostic, I give it the same fair and objective as possible review as everything else.
I'm really curious how it handles and what I can get out of it.

Frank

[Simon Wood]

First the FS700, now the BM Camera....you get all the new toys to play with!

Please shoot some charts if you have a chance; it would be interesting to get some empirical tests to put alongside the raw test videos that have all ready been released.

[Buba Kastorski]

Frank,
low light footage , please,
thank you!

[Sean Seah]

Blackmagic Cinema Camera Unboxing - YouTube

The unboxing...

[Frank Glencairn]

Here is some DNG frames for you guys to play with.

Throw them into Photoshop or AE , hit the "auto" button for starters and have your jaw dropped.

I exposed them on purpose to 100% zebras, just to see what is there.
Its amazing how good the highlights hold up.

Dynamic range: http://www.filedropper.com/dng

Night scene: :Frank Glencairn Blackmagic low light test - Blackmagic Cinema Camera Forum - Forum

Frank

[Buba Kastorski]

Much appreciated!

[Frank Glencairn]

Did a little lowlight shoot-out yesterday

Blackmagic Cinema Camera bs FS100 Lowlight Shoot-Out on Vimeo

[Noa Put]

It looks to me that you should only shoot in raw to get the most out of this camera, raw looked much better when graded then prores to me. What is the highest ISO the BM can do? Do you also know how much footage one 256GB ssd can hold when you shoot Raw?

[Frank Glencairn]

The ISO doesn't mater (only when you shoot Prores) cuse it's all just metadata, it looks always the same, no mater what you dial in, you actually always shoot at ISO 800.

Here is some frames, if anyone wants to play with that: http://www.filedropper.com/voodoo

[Noa Put]

I don't have any experience shooting raw at all but how do you set the exposure when shooting in that format, is it that much different then a with conventional video camera? Is it just a matter of setting an F-stop, focussing and do all the exposure adjustments and color corrections (like setting the right white balance) in post?

[Frank Glencairn]

Basically yes. You set your zebras to 100 and make sure they just go away. That's it for exposure - recording the most DR as possible. The rest is done in post. Think of shooting still raw but at 24 fps.