Blackmagic CEO: 4K Production Camera Shipping "This Quarter"

In an excerpt from an interview with TVBEurope, Blackmagic Design CEO Grant Petty has nice things to say about ARRI and Chyron - but he also has some choice words for other camera manufacturers.  The headline for all the folks who have Blackmagic Production Cameras on pre-order, however, is the lead para of the article, which says, "After a short delay caused by issues related to the sensor, Blackmagic Design says its £2500 4K Super 35mm digital camera will ship this quarter..."
Let's hope that's true. It would be a great Christmas present for all the folks on the pre-order list!

A Whole New Camera - Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera Upgrade to CinemaDNG RAW!

Yesterday, Blackmagic set the filmmaking community on its ear (again!) with the announcement of the firmware v1.5 RAW upgrade to the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera.

With the addition of lossless CinemaDNG RAW, the BMPCC is now the least expensive unhacked 12-bit RAW solution in the marketplace, and a tremendous value for money at $995.

There are already some impressive examples of RAW footage, like this one from Ron Stratton on Vimeo Plus:



First raw video from Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera
I guess it's time to pick up a few $127 Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB cards and start shooting RAW. 
Or, for about the same price as 4 of the Sandisk cards, a $328 Blackmagic HyperDeck Shuttle and a $200 ADATA 256 GB SSD (Adata offers more GB per $ than the other brands on the Blackmagic approved list.

I shoot ProRes with an ADATA 64GB SDXC card - it's a rock solid performer with no dropped frames. ProRes, we hardly knew ye.

First Narrative Short Shot With Pocket Cinema Camera

Another sign that we may be about to get our cameras! They are starting to appear in the hands of consumers who don't seem to have special relationships with either Blackmagic or with dealers.

A talented amateur who goes by "Jsflimz" has posted a 1080p action short on YouTube.  As far as I can tell, this is the first Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera footage with the whole package - actors with dialogue, VFX, and post-production (cutting and grading). Check it out (please watch at 1080p):




This is clearly an amateur production with a couple of rough spots, but the dynamic range here is very exciting and, dare I say it, "filmic".

This is what I had hoped the camera could do - give amateurs access to the dynamic range and bitrate to allow them to get past the typical DSLR's horrid compression and 8 bit colorspace.

Reading Jsfimz' notes in the comments section is informative too - but not at all  like reading "American Cinematographer".  Here, the filmmaker describes his motivation:

"btw i dont have any experience at all. i just do this short films for fun. instead of getting drunk everynight. this and fishing is [sic] my outlet"

Nevertheless, he did a great job.

If you're as impressed by the image quality here as I am, and you've been waiting to see some narrative from this camera before ordering, you can go ahead and pre-order your Pocket Cinema Camera here or by clicking on the Adorama display ad below.

If you don't want to wait for the Pocket, you can order a Cinema Camera EF or MFT from Amazon. It won't cost you anything extra, and it will help to keep posts like this coming.

Blackmagic CEO: BMCC Price Drop to $1995, Pocket Camera Now Shipping!

Okay - just one more Blackmagic post.  Grant Petty, CEO at Blackmagic Design, continues to shake up the camera industry.  Here is an excerpt from an email he sent out overnight:

"Camera Update 

The new Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera is now shipping and there is a software update for it posted on our web site. 

There are some new features in the software for the Pocket Cinema Camera. You can now focus by pushing the focus button when using an active MFT lens. This makes it very easy to accurately focus. The focus peaking feature is still there and you enable it by double pressing the focus button. The focus zoom feature is enabled by double pressing the OK button. 

There will be an update for the 2.5K Blackmagic Cinema Camera soon that will also add these features, plus new de-bayer processing that will improve the cameras sharpness when shooting non RAW files. 

The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is not yet shipping as we need some more time. Our first batch of sensors was delivered only this week, so we have not been able to complete the software for the camera.  

We expect to start shipping in about 3 to 4 weeks once the final software work and testing is completed.

Blackmagic Cinema Camera Price Reduction 

We have worked very hard over the last year to be able to build the Blackmagic Cinema Camera at a lower cost so we can reduce the price and allow access to digital filming to a wide range of cinematographers and photographers. 

We have done it and from today the Blackmagic Cinema Camera EF and MFT models will be reduced in price to US$1,995. This is very exciting and is one of the proudest moments of my life to be able to do this! 

I think people will be able to use the savings to invest in some exciting lenses and rigs to really boost the creative possibilities. The Blackmagic Cinema Camera is a fantastic design that's now well proven. The advantage of the 2.5K sensor is it has enough resolution to eliminate the bayer resolution loss of a HD sensor, but when shooting RAW it produces files that are too not to big to store and work with easily. It's a fantastic solution. 

All orders placed that have not yet been filled, can be reduced to the new lower price."

There is lots to digest here, but at least two groups of people should take immediate action - if you are still within the return period for your new BMCC EF or MFT - you should probably send it back.

And, if you have an order in for the BMCC at $2995, you should cancel it and re-order at the new price to make sure your card isn't charged the full $2995.

Although there has been a lot of (understandable) gnashing of teeth and rending of clothing from people who have had their Cinema Cameras for long enough to be outside of the return window - overall, this is great news for the community.

This puts a 2.5K projection quality image in the hands of film schools, high schools and consumers who would otherwise never have had access to a cinema camera.  It will also force the hands of the big manufacturers, who will, I predict, have to include RAW and native ProRes in their next generation of cameras below $5000.

And, lost in the buzz over the price drop, is the great news on the Pocket Cinema Camera firmware upgrade. Now, push-to-autofocus, in addition to auto-aperture, is enabled with system MFT lenses.  This is a critical addition to the camera's feature-set, and will make it much more usable out of the box.

Here are the links to the latest firmware upgrades for Windows and Mac (sorry Linux users, you're out of luck).

Now, back to waiting by the mailbox for my Pocket Camera.  If you haven't ordered yours yet, please use this link.  If you can't wait, and you need a BMCC at the new $1995 price right now, please order the EF from Adorama here (with a free set of handles) or the MFT from Amazon here - or click on one of the display ads below.  Thanks for your support.

First Shipment of Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera Left Factory on July 24th!

Hat tip to Olivia over at Oliviatech for the great find.  Here is an informative video (candid?) with a marketing rep from Blackmagic Design.  Shot at the "Day with Blackmagic" event in Burbank on July 25th:

Blackmagic Exclusive Interview from Christopher W Hill on Vimeo.

Pretty much in line with what we heard from Blackmagic UK via Andrew at eoshd and parsed in my earlier post.  But the specifics of the shipment date for the Pocket are new.  The first cameras left the factory on July 24th, and, according to this rep, were supposed to be in the reseller channel early this week.

Should be real soon now.

If you haven't pre-ordered your Pocket Cinema Camera or 4K Production Camera yet, please click on the links and get on the list at Adorama.

That way, you too can hang on every word uttered by anyone wearing a Blackmagic logo on their shirt.

If the Pocket Cinema Camera doesn't start shipping by next week, the Blackmagic reps at the August 8th New York event should probably wear body armor.

If you're tired of waiting, or you need to shoot RAW 2.5K right now, the 'classic' Blackmagic Cinema Camera is in stock at Amazon right now in both MFT and EF mounts.

Sony F5, BMCC, RED Scarlet Shootout

522 Productions in the DC area just posted this great little shootout between the new Sony F5, the Blackmagic Cinema Camera and the RED Scarlet.

They were able to compare side-by-side video of the BMCC and the RED, but they had to go with screenshots on the F5 because they use Adobe Premiere and the camera is so new it doesn't have an Adobe plugin yet. Nevertheless, they liked the ergonomics, the menus, the manual controls and the overall handling of the F5 most of all.  In part 2 of this shootout, they'll compare workflow in post for all three of these cameras. 

If you need a camera with film-like dynamic range and 2K or greater internal RAW recording, and you don't want to wait for the BMCC, the F5 is pretty much the only game in town.  And, even after the BMCC starts shipping in volume, the F5 will be the only 2K+ RAW camera below $20,000 with 120fps and XLR inputs. They are in stock right now for $16,490 at Adorama.

Blackmagic Design Rocks the Cinema World - Again!

I guess you can tell from the name of this blog that I'm a bit of a revolutionary - that's why I like "insurgent" companies like Blackmagic Design - whose mission in life seems to be to upset the old order.  Well, they did it with the original $2995 Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera (BMCC) for EF mount a few months ago, and now they've done it again with a new Micro 4/3 (MFT) mount version, announced at IBC 2012 in Amsterdam.  The new version will be available in December for the same $2995 price! (see image below, with Voitglander 17mm f/0.95)

This is great news - one of the major criticisms of the original camera has been the EF mount - which seemed to be a poor match for the size of the BMCC's sensor, limiting lens choices at the wide end.  This problem is dealt with much more easily with the new MFT mount.  With the MFT mount, the camera is opened up to a range of manual lens options not available with the EF-only mount, such as the $549 SLR Magic HyperPrime Cine 12mm T/1.6 - while still retaining the ability to use manual PL or Nikon lenses with inexpensive adapters - or EF lenses in auto mode with a $600 Redrock LiveLens Active Lens Mount.

So, for $4 or $5K (plus SSDs), you can have a camera with 2.5K resolution that shoots 12 bit RAW with 13 stops of dynamic range and will mount just about any lens ever made?

Although this blog is nominally about the hybrid still/cinema camera convergence, and this is "just" a cinema camera - I am still excited.  Because what this blog is really about is the revolutionary democratization of image-making made possible in this century by the breakneck pace of change in technology.  When I was in film school, Super 8 sound cameras were revolutionary.  The idea that amateurs could actually get lip-synced sound in their movies without a clapboard and a Nagra was pretty heady stuff. My Super 8 sound camera actually had full manual audio level control (I wish my GH1 and GH2 had that!).

But sadly, the image quality from those cameras was terrible, even by 1970s standards.  The images were grainy (even at low ISOs - or low ASAs in those days), the registration was awful, so the picture jumped around, and the resolution was so low it couldn't stand up to projection on the big screen.  Okay, 16mm was better for projection, but not much better.  And it was an order of magnitude more expensive (not just the cameras and lenses - but the film stock and processing cost a fortune).

Fast forward to today - and with a few thousand dollars, a film school or amateur or indy pro crew can produce image quality with nearly the dynamic range of film that will stand up to the 2K projection in most theaters. No more excuses.  Thanks Blackmagic Design!

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