Leaderboard

It costs millions. From what I've seen (first hand experience that is) at several companies it's a two year development cycle at minimum to make a camera. That's dozens of engineers. Many iterations of sensor fab customising alone. Not to mention the in-house development costs. And there's no such thing as off the shelf sensors. Just ask Apertus. They still haven't made a feasible camera after how many years ? JB

Yeah when you figure you get about a $10,000.00 lens with it in FF equivalence than yeah it is a bargain compared to the GH5. I think he is right. Look at Resolve. They Are giving it away literally. And the Studio one is Only 299 bucks, They are nearly giving that away also. They want you to buy a BM Camera and use BM Resolve, and then you are hooked, in a good way, into the BM Voodoo or whatever you call it.

Funny how the cost of a camera warps the expectation of the price of accessories. JB

As someone less than politely pointed out on the other thread, I appear to have been a bit of a lazy arse in the almost 12 months since I tripped over and found the Cinelike d thing. You may recall it happened because I was researching making a hardware controller and after several iterations, here it finally is. And yes, it does look rather like a calculator doesn't it? The different iterations (including an Android app at one point!) have been in pursuit of making something small, standalone, self powered, fast connecting, push buttons and with an integrated screen at a lowish cost and, well, here we are. Here is the finished spec and features : Compatible with all Panasonic Lumix cameras that can be controlled by wifi Integrated USB rechargeable battery Full colour screen 20 keys with 3 bank switch keys giving 60 direct switch operations of functions Control of Aperture, ISO, Shutter Speed, White Balance, Colour Profile, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness and Noise Reduction. Automatic unlocking of Cinelike D and Cinelike V on GX80/85, LX10/15 and TZ10 Control of manual focus in fine and coarse steps Control of One Shot AF Control of Record Stop/Start Store and Recall 8 focus points 4 selectable transition speeds between focus points Store and Recall 8 setup presets (each consisting of Aperture, ISO, Shutter Speed, White Balance, Colour Profile, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness and Noise Reduction) Presets are stored in non-volatile memory so are available in any session. Boot time to camera connection and control under 2 seconds. Wifi control range tested to 20m. Optional accessories : Interface module to support Nintendo Nunchuck controller for manual focus control (native lenses and adapted lenses with smart adapters) and zoom (integrated lens cameras and power zoom lenses only) Wireless interface module to sync remote record and stop on supported Tascam, Zoom and SoundDevices audio recorders. The controller fits a regular cheap cellphone to threaded adapter holder so as well as being used handheld it can be mounted to anything you have a need for with the right attachment so could be on a cage or a gimbal or whatever. I'm going to be doing some more testing of it in anger in the next couple of weeks and I'll put up a video of it in action then. So, I have been a bit less lazy than first imagined By the by, the controller has both wifi and bluetooth so it begs the question would anyone be interested in a version of it for the Pocket 4K ??

LOL. @jonpais I think that @webrunner5 has never used a gimbal. Or a camera, I am not sure. Asking why one would even need a gimbal using an A7 because it has IBIS is beyond me . Now I am not saying that you need a gimbal, depends on your work and style, but that's a different question. The thing is IBIS does not replace a gimbal and if it does for you that simply means you do not need stabilized footage while walking/running which is fine.

The Mark VI is a very unique camera It's very close to a mini RX10II without the mic input and better slow motions features. The lens is also sharper than RX10II that can take better stills. I think a reasonable price would probably be $850-900. The look of having 240fps @ 200 mm is quite interesting, very similar to FS700 which cost $9000 back in 2013:

Well FedEx just dropped this puppy off... let’s see how she manages with Canon RawLite!

Is funny looking back at this thread, as only two years later it dropped even further! To half or even a third of the price!

Rx100 doesn't have more tech, but it has a lot packed into a tiny body. Look at the zoom range of that lens. The internal ND filters, that pop up viewfinder. Crazy stuff for a tiny camera. There's a few things Blackmagic does not have that the Panny cameras do have, but largely I feel if Blackmagic had more experience building a smaller dslr/mirrorless form factor camera, then the Pocket would cost exactly the same AND have more features. Blackmagic didn't add a waveform monitor because they said it's very computationally expensive, and probably not worth the tradeoff when they can add other features. They probably also felt that anamorphic is seems pretty niche and if you really need it, they have other cams that can do it. Rotating screen they do not have, but not sure how easy it is to build a 5" rotating screen. They did take the easy route and use a display they know that people are happy with. Autofocus is the main thing that Blackmagic doesn't have. If they were able to add phase detect autofocus and used some of the newer Sony sensors, allowing higher ISO performance, they would steal more business from other manufacturers. In many ways this cam at least fixes some of the gripes that people have about blackmagic's being either too big and heavy or poor ISO range. The aggressive pricing of this camera and better ISO performance is a huge step in converting a lot of new people to Blackmagic.

Im guessing Blackmagic is not making a lot of profit on the pocket 4K cameras. I think they just want to take over the market and build their name up to the masses and in the meantime also converting users from Adobe to Resolve.

Does panasonic sell higher volumes than Blackmagic? The Rx100 series of cameras has tons of features packed into it, so I can see how development costs are high, but I do feel that the Panasonic cameras are just priced like everyone else, with higher pricing given to their better models. Blackmagic just prices things however they want, so you really see how cheap it is to build cameras. They priced this one at $1295, but if they could get it down to $1000, I'm almost certain they would. It does sort of put into perspective what stuff really costs, because this camera is basically an entirely new body design with a new type of sensor as well, with tons of PRO features as well. Blackmagic is the only company building cameras less than $2000 that license Prores inside of them.

FS5 looks like can be had for $3000ish.. so that only 2x the price. The electronic ND is really helpful. This guy really utilize his FS5 to the best potential But it does come down to what you need and what not.

Honestly any camera that produces a good picture and is at least 1080p is relevant in 2018. We're so spoiled these days!

Loved my adventures in Bali. Too many tourists though.

That is a LOT of money for a cage for a cheap camera LoL. Nearly half the price of the camera! http://www.8sinn.com/index.php/supported-cameras/blackmagic-pocket-cinema-camera-4k/8sinn-bm-pocket-cinema-camera-4k-cage-top-handle-pro.html

IMO there are better options available than the expensive blackmagic egpu with an outdated AMD chip. The only reason to pick this is if you have a thunderbold monitor. NVIDIA should be a better choice for Resolve/Premiere.

Looks like 8Sinn is ready with their new BP4K cage. Here are some pictures:

Ah I will probably just stay with my Sony stuff, or heck might try the Canon 5D mk III my son has. I don't want to start over to be honest. And your point is well taken about all the cost in reality the PK4 would really cost. I guess I am just bummed out about the harassment crap from parents. It is just not fun anymore. So why even bother.

Haha, I've grew up in small town KS, so I'm quite familiar with the backroads of the midwest. One of my favorite games to play is to just drive and flip a coin at an intersection every once in awhile and see where I end up. I'm currently in Fort Wayne, which is actually surprisingly rich with interesting subject matter and local art, so really no excuses there. That said, I have relatives that live in the shadows of both Rocky Mountain NP and Glacier NP...none of them have made a trip this direction for the purpose of scoping out the local terrain. My first serious run with the A7III will be next weekend. I'm due to cover a car show in a pretty idyllic looking little town, so hopefully I'll do it justice.

It is Really a Aperture Range: f/2.8-8 whether you like it or not. A 2.8 is a 2.8 is a 2.8 I don't care what camera it is on. This is a silly argument. Sounds like DPR.