New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!

[Jacques Mersereau]

Wow, I didn't notice those 1/4x20 holes in the top. Thanks Hurd. Caught me again :-)

The bottom line is, love it or hate it or even if you don't give a care about it, BlackMagic's cine cam has rocked the camera world, and they will sell thousands. Other manufacturers can continue to charge super high prices at their own risk, because as has also been stated, if BMD can deliver this at $3K with Resolve, what might they do in six more months or by NAB 2013? They could put a larger sensor (pick a favorite) into a metal chassis, up the bit rate to 16 and easily get $6K (Ssh, don't let them know some would pay even more!).

Exciting times with a cam like this, software like Smoke coming down to $3500 and thunderbolt all over the place.

[Brian Drysdale]

Here's an interview about the Blackmagic camera:

Blackmagic Cinema Camera 2012 NAB interview on Vimeo

[Bryce Comer]

All makes perfect sense now as far as the sensor size used. As the guy from Blackmagic said in the interview, 2.5k was the biggest picture they could record in raw to the ssd. Maybe for those who would like to see an S35 or FF35 sensor from Black magic, they may be waiting until they come up with a raid array of ssd's.

[Jacques Mersereau]

Or figure out a compression scheme like RED - but there is a heck of a lot more to this than one might guess.

[Serge Victorovich]

Originally Posted by Bryce Comer

All makes perfect sense now as far as the sensor size used. As the guy from Blackmagic said in the interview, 2.5k was the biggest picture they could record in raw to the ssd. Maybe for those who would like to see an S35 or FF35 sensor from Black magic, they may be waiting until they come up with a raid array of ssd's.

CineformRAW is better choice. SI2K at $3K will be better:)

[Markus Nord]

Do anyone know how the Iris is controled? I see an Iris button at the top left corner, is it then changed with the left/right arrow at the bottom or just by touch on screen?

[Noa Put]

On the blackmagic site it says about the iris controll function: "Iris button automatically adjusts the lens iris settings so no pixel is clipped"
Not sure what that means, can't be that the camera decides what the best Iris value is?

[Mark Kenfield]

Originally Posted by Bryce Comer

All makes perfect sense now as far as the sensor size used. As the guy from Blackmagic said in the interview, 2.5k was the biggest picture they could record in raw to the ssd. Maybe for those who would like to see an S35 or FF35 sensor from Black magic, they may be waiting until they come up with a raid array of ssd's.

2.5k off a S35mm sensor should be no different from 2.5k off any other sized sensor, so I imagine it has more to do with the sheer cost of manufacturing a larger sensor.

[Bryce Comer]

Ahem,
Yes of course you are right Mark! I have no idea what i was thinking when i wrote that post!!

[Brian Drysdale]

Adam Wilt has done a 2nd report on the Blackmagic camera:

ProVideo Coalition.com: Camera Log by Adam Wilt | Founder | Pro Cameras, HDV Camera, HD Camera, Sony, Panasonic, JVC, RED, Video Camera Reviews

[Markus Nord]

To reply to my own question above...

Quote from the above linked article:
"• The camera uses a Canon-compatible EF mount. EOS lens apertures can be adjusted using the FWD/REV transport buttons on the camera’s back panel (at present, though, there’s no iris readout on the camera; that would be another nice thing to see in the release firmware)."

[Fadly Wychowvski]

The camera might just slot in into the niche created by dslrs and just wipe them clean. A lot of people though are comparing the Blackmagic Digital cinema camera with cameras which are more than triple it's price. I think that's unfair. This camera will only capitalize on the dslrs. Whether or not it will surpass it's hype remains to be seen.

Oh by the way, I wrote up an article of this on my blog, if anyone is interested in reading further. Please leave a comment or feedback. I need more information to quench this thirst of mine.

Fadly.M.H.Wychowvski: My take on the Black Magic Design's Digital Cinema Camera

[Noa Put]

The camera might just slot in into the niche created by dslrs and just wipe them clean

I honestly don't believe that, eventhough the blackmagic is a mainly a real "filmmakers" tool while the dslr is trying to be, the only reason why one should buy a blackmagic is it's ability to shoot raw and I read here it can record only 30 min to a 256gb ssd drive in that format. While a dslr is a bear to operate in real time the blackmagic seems virtually impossible to handle in realtime situations so I see it as a tool specifically aimed at corporate, commercial or filmmakers market where you have the time to set up and operate. For filmmakers on a budget that are using a dslr now they probably will continue to use dslr's, a canon 550d f.i. has still one of the cheapest workflows (taking it's purchase price into account) to emulate that filmlook. Also for wedding videographers where dslr's are very popular they will continue to use it as a blackmagic has no benefit here. Many are tempted by it's low price point but taking its difficult workflow into account and it's big cropfactor (and you still need to invest in expensive ssd drives and external batteries) I'd say that some people will be very happy with it but it won't clean out the dslr's niche yet.

[Thomas Smet]

Not true at all. No camera offers native ProRes422 or DnxHD shooting right out of the box like this camera does. Sure this isn't raw which is the main focus of the camera but I know a lot of people who are just as excited to be able to have a DSLR form factor camera without the annoying compression artifacts. Raw converted to ProRes422 in the camera is going to look pretty darn good. There are a lot of people out there trying very hard to piggy back an external recorder to the HDMI port on DSLR's just to be able to get 4:2:2 color. With the Blackmagic camera shooting directly to ProRes will give you this right out of the box.

As a Panasonic GH1 user who enjoys hacking my camera there are six areas we wish we could get to with our hacks.

1. As low of compression as possible.
2. 4:2:2 color.
3. Decent audio ports with actual audio control.
4. As little of in camera sharpening as possible or at least have control over it
5. Elimination of moire and aliasing.
6. 10bit or higher color recording

The Blackmagic camera solves all of those problems with ProRes recording basically giving DSLR users what they have always wanted. I'm not 100% sure on #4 but if I had to take a guess it should look cleaner then most video cameras out of the box since it is designed to have a raw look.

Of course this doesn't mean being able to fit an hour of video on a single SDHC card but it does mean 5x the recording space compared to raw. As silly as it may seem right now I bet a lot of people wouldn't mind this at all considering what they will get out of it.

I know a lot of GH2 users who would gladly move to a GH3 if it just solved one of those areas.

[Allan Barnwell]

Excellent summary of this camera's advantages over existing DSLR's, Thomas.

I think those points do a great job of cutting through the hype surrounding the camera and point to some specific features this unit will bring to the market that haven't been available at this price point.

Allan Barnwell
Omega Broadcast Group - Professional Video Sales, Rental & Services