Black Magic: Official $1,995 raw cinema camera topic, series 2

arknox

Spoke too soon :-) They've put a new update about a minute ago.

MovieArmada

Hi,

Ok good news everyone as the test run of sensors have just been built into cameras and they look good. Very good. So we have just given the sensor supplier the go ahead to commence volume production of the sensors and we hope to start getting them within the next week to start building cameras. How many cameras? I am not sure, as we have all stopped production and so we all need to restart production and see how many they can produce. However we will be working hard to build as many cameras as possible over the next few weeks.

I hope people start to see more cameras shipping, but it might be a good idea if I post another update early January to update everyone on how production is progressing.

As for the micro four thirds model, it's ready to go, however the problem is I feel until we are shipping a whole bunch of EF model cameras, there is little point building any of the MFT model. So we will ship as many as we can and then perhaps see where we are mid Jan and do a few MFT models then.

It is sure a relief seeing this problem coming to a close. I cannot believe this happened and it's been an incredibly frustrating delay. However I am feeling really positive now.

Regards,

Grant Blackmagic Design

hay

lol, translates to: if you pre-ordered anytime May onward, wait until February for another update.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Update seems not really good. And it seems like version that I wrote some time ago about issue with sensors that are not related to glass seems valid.

We'll know exactly in a month or two. Wish them luck.

Aria

Meh! This is NOTHING compared to the RED issues IMO. They say they got a good shipment and volume production is a go. Unless they experience unexpected issues again, which would seem a bit odd if you finally got it figured out, then it sounds like GOOD NEWS. I'm hopeful that in 2013 the camera can turn out to be a smash success. We should all want to see this camera succeed IMO.

Were mistakes made in this process? Most definitely but in the end if they say they've got it figured out now and they can build cameras that's a good thing. We'll know for sure shortly so it's really not a big conspiracy or anything. They either start shipping cameras again soon or not. We're talking about 2 to 3 months it seems for them to get both EF and MFT rolling at a considerable level.

robmneilson

Finally at least some progress...hopefully this means I get my MFT mount at some time in Feb. It's been a long wait, but will be so worth it.

I wonder when their next firmware will come out?

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Finally at least some progress...hopefully this means I get my MFT mount at some time in Feb

They said that won't make any MFT cameras before normal EF production won't run and most orders will be shipped.

Plus next update will be in January.

So, i think, more probable date in around March or April.

robmneilson

I hope you're wrong, but I can see that happening. What's the numbers on EF pre-orders?

RRRR

Considering there is such a delay in the MFT mount, why not make it active? Focus and aperture control would be enough at a first stage and increase lens options even further.

sicovdplas

@robmneislon ALOT; nobody knows facts but i guess it's around 5k+

robmneilson

@sicovdplas Hmm, I'd IMAGINE they could mass produce 3-5k worth of cameras in a month when they are up to full production. So hopefully the MFT won't be delayed that long. However I have no idea what I'm talking about in regards to a realistic manufacturing number.

sicovdplas

@robmneislon I think they can (BMD) but the sensor company can't. The big issue is the vacation coming along, so the production will be down. (Christmas / New Years) The strange note is that if the problem is fixed, why are they not in full production.. this confuses me.

disordinary

They said that they would do a run of EF mount lenses and get back to us, they also said they wont do any MFT's until that initial run of EF cameras is done - therefore hopefully MFT manufacturing starts in January.

shian · Denessa BMD CU (0.00.04.17).png

I'm loving the RAW quality of the BMD cam. Don't love shooting with it...at all. It's a horrible pain in the ass. Video coming later this week of the shootout with colleague @CollierLandry where we set the BMCC, 5DMKIII, GH3 and GH2 Intravenus against one another in a narrative hi-contrast, hi-DR challenge - 16:1 to 64:1 contrast ratios being tested.

This is a still from the BMCC RAW 64:1 test series - only thing that's been done to it, is a curves adjustment to bring the blacks down. No conscious fill light was used. The fill you see is from lights that were set behind me that happened to be creating a very soft fill, and were reading around 3-4 EV versus the hair light which was at 11EV.

sherwood

"As for the micro four thirds model, it's ready to go, however the problem is I feel until we are shipping a whole bunch of EF model cameras, there is little point building any of the MFT model."

Huh? Why the frak not? What an absolute dog's dinner of a product rollout!

shian

A teaser for the shootout between BMCC, GH3, GH2-I, and 5DMKIII - Results Show coming soon.

pchristoph

@shian always admired your lighting and camera skills. I'm looking forward to the end-of-the-world shootout. I'd say the clips were shown in order of price. (if I'm wrong, I'd be even more happy than I am with the awesome gh2). Also, did you light the scene for each camera - or did you use a single light setup. Continuously great work shain. thanks.

shian

Details are on the vimeo page.Let the vitriol begin. And definitely download the file. Vimeo really skews the results.

Not the most polished, professional test ever, but we had 1/1000th the budget of Zacuto, and very little time. We do our best to stress the BMCC, 5DMKIII, GH3, and Hacked GH2 in a High Dynamic Range shootout.

We went to some lengths to mess with the framing so as not to have the sensor crop give away which cam is which; primarily so that you'll focus more on which one(s) you like instead of trying to identify each cam. These comparisons have been graded down to the lowest common denominator to be as "equal" as possible. But in Part 2 we'll show you the raw footage.

HHL

....so, here's what I need: (and we'll see if the BMC works for my purposes)

I need a camera that will let me "get away with more". That is to say that when I'm off with my exposure by a little bit....I can still "save the shot" in post. Now....sometimes nothing and no-one can save me from myself, lol.....but I want a little more room. Here's to hoping that BMC does that for me.

ps....thanks for posting the vid Shian.
pps....in the second test shot, camera 2 is 5DM3. The "soft image" really hurts on that one.

Cheers!

shian

part 2 is live now -

shian

Included are some thoughts on shooting with the BMCC and it's footage.

kholi

I'm sure you figured this out or already knew this, but if you're spitting material out of Davinci you can switch from 24 to 23.976. There's a very obvious difference in Cadence between the two.

Not sure what software you were using though, so. I noticed the same thing when I first started working with footage, the switch cleared it up but I often forget to do it during delivery.

shian

Despite all the things I didn't like about operating the cam, I LOVE the focus assist! The double tap to zoom in, and repeat to zoom out is VERY cool! But a little warning overlay that you're in focus mode would be nice.

mintcheerios

@shian

Thanks for doing these videos. Just got done with part 3 and there's a lot of nice info in there that you can't find in other reviews.

fix

@shian, again thanks for the test. simple and to the point. I thought cam 1 had some strange shutter behaver at some point, now that I see its the BMCC I´m a bit surpriced. could it be that its not using shutter speed but shutter angle and i was a bit off?

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