As everyone who has pre-ordered a
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera knows, Blackmagic Design's promised ship date for this eagerly anticipated camera was "sometime in July". Well, according to
this post on Instagram, it looks like Blackmagic is on track to fulfill that promise.
B&H appears to be hands-on with the camera, and expects it to be available on July 25th. In addition, it is reported that cameras are starting to trickle out to
Canadian dealers - and accessory manufacturer Wooden Camera has posted four great hands-on videos showing
Wooden Camera accessories on the
BPCC.
The first of these videos reminds me of many of the reasons I look forward to shooting with this camera (in addition to the promise of ProRes 422 and CinemaDNG RAW):
- Unbelievably compact size - 220mbps ProRes 422 video in a camera the size of a point and shoot
- Standard SDXC cards (e.g., the
$67 Sandisk Extreme 64GB SDXC) - no expensive SSDs or even CFs
- 1/4"-20 mounting screws on the top
and bottom of the camera
- Standard
Nikon EN-EL20 internal batteries - and uninterruptible power using the internal battery as a backup for hot swapping external batteries.
The cages and rails shown in the Wooden Camera videos are a little over the top for my shooting style - but I have ordered a $25 Wooden Camera hot shoe to mount mics or lights on top of the camera, plus a $50 Cavision Loupe with a $6 3.5" rubber adapter to turn the LCD into a viewfinder.
Combined with my $22 Rainbowimaging pistol grip (with trigger)
, I am hoping to turn the BPCC into a "Super 8" style cinema camera.
I'll let you know how it turns out!
If you're not already on the list, you can pre-order the $995 Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera from Adorama here.
