Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

Daniel, isn't the Bowen the same as the Samyang? This is a fish eye lens, but yes, it should give very wide coverage on the new camera. The Peleng 8mm fish eye was a popular cheapish option for 16mm and would work too. Actually doing some homework last night, m42 lenses seem to be quite adaptable to the EF mount. There are some pretty awful lenses in this mount, but also a few corkers for not much money.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

My point exactly. So lack of desirable extream wide angle issue can be easily abridged, and - at least for me - I have a couple of 5DMk2 so I can always use them for desired extream wide anlge shots. So, this BM marvell is for me just what I needed, with no additional lens I have to purchase. Just a cheap 8 mm Bowen. And look what happens with my modest 200 mm tele lens: all of a sudden I have a 500 mm lens!

Furthermore, 2,5 K is more then enough for the work I do, and I think BM targeted exactly this niche of 5D owners with tons of Canon glass. As for me, I will sell my Sony EX3, no second thoughts about it. And no additional bag required, it will fit in my existing bag just fine, making my trips so much easier. What a thrill.....

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

I agree with you Nigel 100%. But even if the BMD camera turns out to be problematic due to rolling shutter, weak build or whatever, it has already shaken up the industry and will help drive the competition.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

The new Zeiss 15mm lens would like quite nice on this camera. Not uber wide with this crop factor but certainly wide enough for a lot of shots. You then have a lens costing as much as the camera of course but good glass is always a sound investment.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

Yes, the weird and weak Part is the battery, if it just was a normal battery. Than this would be nice for wildlife.

For wide shots maybe the Sigma 4,5/2.8 will work and for normal shot the Sigma 20/1.8 may be good.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

The battery is not weird at all. Think of it as a built in bonus. Others are describing it like the hyperdeck line of BM products where you use an external battery system and the internal battery is there to power the camera while you switch batteries. This way you can power the camera non stop when you change batteries. It isn't really intended to power the camera on its own for run and gun shooting although you could use it for that in short bursts if you really wan to.

When the camera sales are huge I would expect a massive amount of power options for the camera. The 12v to 30v pretty much leaves the adapter open to a lot of battery options.

Personally I do not consider the EF lens options to be bad at all. A lot of people wish it supported M43 lenses but there are only a handful of decent M43 lenses out there and most of the great ones are around 20mm or 24mm. This 24mm will be the same as 24mm of a EF lens so I think Ef lenses actually cover the camera very well. A lot of M43 shooters are used to working with a lack of ultra wide lenses and typically use old Nikon or FD lenses of 24mm or 28mm at f2.0 and f2.8. The widest decent lens I know of for M43 is the Olympus 12mm f2.0 lens. In fact I think there is only one lens that is wider and it is very slow. On the long end forget about M43. There are a few but they are slow. There are 10x more options for EF and you can buy faster zooms which is something that just does not exist for M43. I love M43 but I really was shocked at just how many good EF lenses out there that will work the same or better then what we have as M43 options.

While the sensor is slightly smaller then M43 it is very close and in the real world we can expect about the same crop factor give or take a mm or two.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

Here's a new clip. How do you like the dynamic range? Depth of field? Detail?

Another Blackmagic Clip | johnbrawley

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

They keep saying this, even in their interviews at NAB... things like "and we have ZF mount so you can use Zeiss lenses" - you're quite right, either they are confused and mean ZE or they have a Nikon mount (presumably the former).

The battery, the ridiculous side handles they're demonstrating the cameras with, the form factor, and other little choices (hot shoe, audio mount anyone?) indicate computer wizz kids have cobbled together an - abiet spec wise very impressive - camera very quickly with little consideration given to operators.

Can't agree with you here Thomas. Already available from Panny/Oly are excellent 12, 14, 17, 20, 25 and 45mm primes, and a 75mm 1.8 recently announced. Also lots of nice third party primes, and the ability to easily mount old Nikkors, Leica glass etc. Not only is the focal range much better suited, m43 glass is tiny!!

EF will do... and probably makes sense from a marketing point of view, but m43 is a much better fit IMO.

Well, I have very strong reservations about the form-factor, build and usability of the camera - but one can have no issue with the price and this shot does look gorgeous ideed! I imagine there will be a lot of people (like me) who wince at certain design choices, but are intrigued anyway because hey, 13 stops dynamic range for $3K ($2K for me, as I was about to buy Resolve anyway).

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

It's not 2.5K resolution, it's 2.5K bayer pixels so the real resolution will be roughly full HD. The BlackMagic sensor is 8.8 mm x 15.6 mm with a 17.9mm diagonal which is a little bigger than super16, so I make the crop factor about 2.5. As your tied to the ZE/EF mount, getting any kind of wide FOV is going to be very hard. A 18mm lens would represent a "standard" lens. For a good wide angle you'll need something in the 8 to 10mm region. Great for wildlife shooters! Sensitivity should be comparable to an EX1 as the pixel size should be pretty similar.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

EF has a 13mm 14mm and 15mm at f2.8. Maybe not super faster but currently the only M4/3 lens that wide that is faster is the Olympus 12mm at f2.0. The other options are f2.5 and f2.8 at those widths. So basically the same options.

EF has a 20mm at f1.8 or virtually the same as the Panasonic 20mm f1.7.

EF has a lot of options at 24mm that go down to f1.4 so equal or better to all the M4/3 options other then the Voigtlander at that focal range.

EF has a lot of zoom lenses at a constant f2.8. M4/3 does not have a single constant zoom lens and the fastest you can get is f3.5 on the wide end.

EF has plenty of 35mm and 50mm f1.8 lenses. M4/3 only has the Olympus 45mm at F1.8.

EF has many f1.8 or f2.0 primes up to I think 135mm.

So other then the Oly 12mm and the Voigtlander 25mm which is just a hair faster every M4/3 lens has a match with EF. There are at least double the amount of options in almost every focal range with EF compared to M4/3.

The only advantage M4/3 has is that some of the lenses are cheaper and two lenses at equal focal lengths are a bit faster.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

Not sure I agree. A lot of Gh1/GH2 users shoot with Nikon and FD lenses that are 24mm and don't seem to have a lot of trouble. We also are not only shooting wildlife. I've also heard on a much larger thread for the camera that the crop factor may be more like 2.1 or only slightly larger then M4/3. I typically shoot with a M4/3 20mm and find that plenty wide with a crop factor of 2x so I can probably live with it a tiny bit longer. I realize some people like to shoot ultra wide but that is not everybody and this camera has plenty of options of wide shooting. M4/3 users have dealt with this for a couple of years now and it has not been as big of a deal.

If you are a FF shooter then yes the adjustment phase may be awkward but if you are a M4/3 shooter or even a 7D shooter it should be an easy adjustment.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

I had missed the battery challenge. For wildlife how do you manage with just one internal battery?

The massive crop factor will help in getting some PoV shots. Recently I was filming a massive salt water crocodile. It is the biggest me or my team has ever seen in our life. I was using the heavy Canon EF 400mm f2.8 L IS USM lens with a 2x II TC. With the BMD I could have got just its teeth.

The other question is how good are its weather sealings? Can I fit it to a boat?

Due to its small sensor size, I am interested in knowing how will be the noise characteristics. Will the footage intercut well with Canon footage or will it stick out like a sore thumb due to the higher noise?

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more footage from this camera. If nothing else, it's a reason to wait a little longer to see if this camera's announcement provokes any others. I'd posted this elsewhere, but I definitely agree that the built-in battery is one of the silliest design decisions made here. Leave that stuff for cell phones, please!

Ergonomics are definitely a bit odd, but probably not a deal-breaker for anybody. At $3k, one probably has budgetary room for a rig.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

Just from looking at the photos I'd guess you could forget about any weatherizing. Have to wrap it in a raincoat. The crop factor is a plus for wildlife shooters but for me the lack of any overcrank, even to 60p, makes it a no go. Bummer.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

To restate, the m43 lenses are also much smaller and optimised for smaller sensors (which is the whole point of m43). Producing a standard lens for m43 doesn't pose the same difficulties as the wide lens you'll need to obtain equivalent field of view with EF mount.

So for instance, the Panny/Leica 25mm 1.4 is a very small, high quailty prime that would be perfectly matched for this camera as a standard lens.

To match it in EF mount you'll have to buy the vastly more expensive, larger and heavier Canon 24 1.4 (and only use a small portion of a rather pricy optic!).

I'm not disagreeing that you can get by with EF, but the Canons were designed with much larger sensors in mind. m43 is just about bang-in in terms of sensor size optimisation... would have been nice at least as an option.

The Gh2 is 1.83 crop in video mode (not so far from APSC @1.6). The BM camera is said to be 2.3, but I agree with the right lens and technique it won't be too challenging to obtain shallow depth of field look if desired.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

There is an excellent Panasonic 7-14mm F/4 zoom which at 7mm is as wide as any lens on any camera that isn't a fish eye (it's around a 14-28mm FF equivalent). There are also two reputedly excellent but expensive Olympus zooms which as far as I know are unique in the camera world as they are constant F/2. They are the 14-35mm & 35-100mm which on M4/3 have an equivalent FoV to a 28-70mm & 70-200mm respectively.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

I heard a rumor on the plane home that already 3500 people are in line to purchase it.
Needless to say, had one of the other *known* camera makers come close ($5K) to
matching this kind of price/performance/features, they too would be selling many
thousands. Well, maybe in another year they will.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

This is interesting. The Awards for NAB have been announced and BMD won, not for the camera, but for Resolve 8.0 lite. Best Value Award was handed to Lite Panel?!!!

Looks to me that the industry is trying to ignore what is CLEARLY the best value award of the show.
IMO, whomever gives out these awards, or at least the best value award, no longer has any credibility.

Sony, ARRI, HP, Blackmagic Top StudioDaily Prime Awards | Studio Daily

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

It has a professional 12-14V DC input so any Anton Bauer/ V-Mount battery will give you enough juice to run for days. The internal battery is purely for worse case scenarios if you ask me.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

They must have had some criteria that excluded new products because it looks like all the winners are actual shipping products rather than anything newly announced this year.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

I finally found a moment to upload a couple of snaps from NAB at the BlackMagic booth.

Shots of the camera with both types of mounts. A shot which illustrates the location of the audio jacks. A shot of a 128gb media card.

I have shots of the menus - I'll post them if you like but they aren't very good - I don't like to post very soft pictures, but I'll do it if someone would find it of value. All I had at NAB was a Flip cam, and it doesn't close focus at all.

I'm not really in the market for new cameras right now, but I love companies, like BlackMagic, who put their best foot forward in every endeavor, so this project has my attention, for that reason.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

one more - the display at NAB - just so you can feel as if you were there!

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

any one else concerned that 470gb or what ever it is only gets you 5 hours! i guess that's the price you pay for 2k

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

470gb only gets you five hours with ProRes/DNxHD. For the full 2.5k raw you're only looking at about an hour in the same space!

120gb SSDs are available right now at newegg for $99, that gets you nearly 80 minutes of prores - per minute that's about the same as you get with sandisk CF cards for a DSLR.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

Ahhh! And now the real discussion begins! I was curious about the space requirements for raw. I saw the 5hr spec for pro res which is just fine for my needs.
1 hour taking 470gb is a different animal altogether!!
Gonna need my own personal "cloud" of storage for that stuff!

BH is taking pre orders BTW!!

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

I'm not sure because i wasn't around when 1080 came around but Im sure it was the same deal as far as storage. As technology moves forward Im sure it will become more practical and it will be a non issue.

Storage Rates 5 MB/frame in RAW 2.5K fits about 30 minutes of 24p video on a 256 GB solid state disk. Compressed HD formats fit more than 5 times the amount of RAW video.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

Chris - is it too soon to have a separate forum for this baby?

Blackmagic Cinema Camera
 

So I just found out about this camera and it sounds amazing for the price. However, is there any footage shot from the camera anywhere? Doing a google search hasn't turned up much. I would love to see some raw footage.

Re: Blackmagic Cinema Camera
 

Blackmagic Cinema Camera - John Brawley

I am not sure this is RAW footage. I saw the BMD at NAB. They had three hooked up to monitors
pointed at a Tiki hut with models hovering around. The hut had a yellow hue to it.
The viewfinder looked like it had a yellow cast. That could have been all the yellow in the scene.
The broadcast monitor looked better and more balanced. BUT, remember, this shoots RAW and
comes with Resolve to grade the 12bit RAW stream it records on board, so I would estimate that
the color could be pulled all over the place if necessary.

This was the deal of NAB 2012 imho. Despite it's plastic like shell and lack of places to hang externals,
there promises to be a LONG wait list.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

Not too soon, no, but there's not gonna be a lot of hands-on to talk about... for awhile, anyway.

Re: Blackmagic Cinema Camera
 

This is going to be the interesting question - how flexible is the image? Even between RED cameras, the EPIC image is much more flexible than the RED ONE, even with the same color science. You can push the EPIC all over the place in the grade. RED ONE is a bit more limited (though still one of the most flexible images available).

It will be interesting to see how flexible the BMD image is - certainly with their experience with Resolve, the outlook is promising. But even all RAW images are not created equally.

And delivering this camera with both Ultrascope and Resolve makes it almost too cheap to pass on...it's an insane value. It's great to see what another company, with no trickleware model to protect, can do.

And very nice to meet you and get a chance to hang out at NAB last week, Jacques - good luck with the Superior shoot - hopefully you can put one of these BMD cameras to work!

Re: Blackmagic Cinema Camera
 

C'mon, Jacques -- it has three 1/4-20 sockets in a row right across the top!

Not to mention places to hang, externally (via the neckstrap bales).

Pic attached... see?

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

It would be fun to get a hold of some RAW sample files of this camera and then push them around in Resolve to see what they do.

Re: Blackmagic Cinema Camera
 

These are fine for a microphone or a wireless - but you can't build a true cinema rig with them. The rigging options are limited for sure. Plus, 3 holes doesn't equate to three items - it just shows you where you can put them, but the width of objects like a secondary monitor for your focus puller or a wireless video signal - all that stuff won't fit on the top of the camera. No doubt 3rd party options will be forthcoming...or a cage system - does make it awkward though.

At 2.5K RAW, it's cinema grade, for sure, but the ergonomics have some limitations which will require a bit of tinkering.

For documentary shooting, it looks fantastic.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

Agreed. Just messing with Jacques a bit; he and I go waaaay back.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

The camera looks great value but the optional Blackmagic Cinema Camera Handles at $195 while not in Zacuto territory seems very expensive for a piece of bent metal & a couple of bicycle handlebar grips. Blackmagic Design: Blackmagic Cinema Camera Models

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

Expect an Ebay version for $30.00 a month after release.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

Probably I'm pointing the obvious, but the quoted 2.3X crop is somehow misleading. The crop factor of the BMD sensor compared to S35 (24X13.5 HD aspect) which is the motion picture standard is only 1.5X which is not bad at all. Certainly much better than the 2.2X of the 2/3inch ENG.
You can get a 2.8 DOF equivelant with 1.8 lenses. Since many L primes and Zeiss lenses are 1.4 or better, for me the sensor size is not an issue, apart from the lack of choise in the wide end. On the other hand we must not forget the benefit of working with the center of these wide coverage lenses.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

I found it funny though that by adding a simple lcd hood or a handle they have got 3 "incredible versatile" versions. I think accesoires companies will have a blast developing add ons for this thing.

Re: New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!
 

And compared to M4/3 like the GH2 it is only 1.2x.

I think the reason why so many are calling it a 2.3x crop is due to the use of EF lenses which typically people think of using with a FF camera on the high end. You are right however that in terms of S35 it isn't all that bad. Now if it would have supported PL lenses I think people would question it as much