Andrew Reid

Above: Prospect, a short film shot on the 2.5k Blackmagic Cinema Camera

The Blackmagic Cinema Camera was the first foray for the company into the camera market and was announced 2 years ago this month. I know many users were expecting more from firmware updates in the meantime to add basic features and also features promised by Blackmagic themselves. Many were expecting these to be announced this week at NAB. Instead Blackmagic revealed new cameras, one in particular the URSA being packed with new features.

So I asked Blackmagic some tough questions and here are the answers...

Read the full article here

I would agree with you canon has failed to innovate.. and it bothers me a lot. However I wouldnt call the  "C" cameras a failure they are many advantages to them and a lot of people swear by them..In all honesty i think they are great cameras just overpriced. I think you also seemed to dismiss what i said about running my lenses through adapters.. i just dont want to do that. At some point 5d type cam will shoot 4k the a7s almost had me if it would have shot 4k...so this doesnt it mean it cant happen, lets not forget that the 1dc was the first dslr to shoot 4k and you cant deny the footage is beautiful but it is deff overpriced.. with that said I think these cameras are great in terms of pushing the markets. It will push canon to come along and do their game, i guess they are just not ready for it right now and thats a shame, they could have owned the market. I think my main message is dont get caught up on these cameras hype right now and sell all your current lenses for m43 lenses.. I think you will kick yourself later on if canon or sony comes around another camera that isnt m43 that shoots 4k and it is affordable. I dont know if you noticed or not but theres even rumors that this is the last m43 cam from panasonic.. so yeah.   

 

Stop comparing everything to Canon.

 

"Rumours that the GH4 is the last m43 cam from Panasonic". This is manna from heaven for Canon fans like yourself and non-Panasonic people, who have zero answer to video on the GH4. Nikon loved this rumour. People who want Panasonic to fail got a real kick of out this. This thing I have seen swirl around the internet for days like there is substance to it. Actually it was a shitty april fools joke at 43rumors and Personal-View (Vitaliy Kiselev), one that is actually damaging the business. Panasonic's people, some of them anyway, are angst at it. Even though it was a joke it harms the brand to put negative bullshit out there into the rumour mill and as we now see, trolls and possibly even Canon affiliates or sales people keep the whispering going on forums, because it is in their interest to harm the GH4 and the Micro Four Thirds brand as it is a rival system.

I thought this would be an article on the 4K capabilities of the Leica S.....

 

No it's a news article.

 

The 4K capabilities of the Leica S are completely unknown at this moment. You're expecting me to write about something which is a complete unknown. Where's the logic in this?

Andrew  gives me a strong impression that he just want to push people to just get the gh4. His comments  always gives the vibe of  "as compared to the gh4". The thing is that the gh4 just doesnt work for everyone. Yes it is awesome, yes is amazingly priced, yes it gives amazing images.. etc.  but the problem is people have heavly invested on the canon lenses and some people dont want to sell their canon lenses to buy m43 lenses because m43 are less of a standard in case you want to upgrade later on. I could use my canon lenses on almost any camera but with m43 we simply cant. And yes the speedbooster exsist but we dont want to run through adapters and other quirky work arounds. There are just many things like this one i pointed out that are just too many problems...The thing is that i just want people to realize is that the gh4 is not perfect and you shouldnt just jump ship because of the hipe... and i know andrew is not puting a gun on anyones head to buy any one camera, hes just giving his opinion which is very valuable, I just feel like these articles are not as objective as they could be because of the hype. Just my two cents. 

 

This comment put me in a bad mood so the reply is going to be pretty harsh I'm afraid.

 

You are not offending me so much as offending logic itself.

 

"Compared to the GH4" - fact is that since the GH2, this series of cameras has been THE benchmark for performance and all-round features for 90% of my readership, at the affordable price level. It is and continues to be the benchmark I compare stuff to. In the case of the medium format stuff, even though they are completely different price points, you'd still want to know if the video feature set lived up to the benchmark, wouldn't you? Or perhaps I should start comparing everything to the 1D C instead? A camera only a few people can afford and one that doesn't even feature 1/5th of the stuff that the GH4 does. Not even peaking.

 

Not a very good benchmark is it?

 

For 4K the GH4 is the current most promising solution. Everything else either has an extremely high price tag (1D C) or a potential deal breaker (A7S rolling shutter and no internal codec). Also I write EOSHD from my own perspective, it is a mixture of subjectiveness and objectivness. You have to be really thick not to be able to tell them apart. Thick people come to me all the time and say "hey andrew, stop stating your opinion as fact". I say to them... "hey learn to fucking read".

 

And if you have a lot of Canon lenses and want a 4K solution, you know what to do. 1D C or C500. Get your wallet out and good luck!

Here's a GUI I quickly put together:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/download/s9wyyfw9qvh8cfl/GH444_GUI.dmg

 

You still need to download the original gh444 file.  Let me know if it's broken.  It's super basic.  It doesn't provide any info on progress, but it'll let you know when it's done.

 

Great stuff!! Thanks a million James.

Because full frame is just too small, Sony are supplying a 4K video capable sensor to Leica and Pentax in the region of 40 to 50MP. According to a Leica rep at NAB the company is planning 4K video for their implementation of the sensor in the Leica S. Indeed Pentax have already announced that their 645Z will record 4K video.

Read the full article here

"Luminance is more important than chrominance, so that's not so bad. So best case, we have 10-bits of information in Y and 8-bits for U and V"

 

I think Thomas did indeed mention 10bit luma in his original post.

 

The luma data alone is enough for a nice true 10bit black and white image. U and V contain the colour information. So luma (i.e. the bit important for smooth gradation and high dynamic range) goes 10bit and colour remains at 8bit. Am I correct here or talking out of my arse? :)

Just add an EVF and Amira style shoulder pad and it would be usable on the shoulder without that unnecessary 10" screen.

I am going to buy this and within my circle of professional photographer friends this camera is a hot topic. There was some mention of the camera handling 2.7k internally? It would be nice if this was an option to record at that res. Mostly im interested in the low light performance for photos with this camera as I mostly do events photography where flash is quite often not allowed.

 

The camera handles 4K internally it just doesn't encode it, instead it sends the debayered final image to the HDMI port instead (uncompressed).

 

Can't compress the 4K image to XAVC...

 

This feature is reserved for their cheaper cameras like the AX100 ;)

The large LCD should be detachable, and with a cable you could mount it somewhere else or take it off for shoulder usage when you'd rather have an EVF.

 

Simple.

Stainless steel huh? Well they have really thrown the kitchen sink at that camera ;)

Just tried it and works to output the DPX, the files look superb. I opened frames in Premiere, which does not treat it like a clip, but the frames grade superbly and look amazing.

 

However Resolve 10.1 gives me flickering playback with some frames shifted, some half black, to a random degree. Anyone else had success with Resolve yet?

Here's a 16 bit PNG file, converted from a DPX file output by gh444:

 

'>

 

Impressive.

I'm no mathematician either JCS but my eyes tell me the GH4's 4K grades for 2K like a 10bit codec. It looks and feels completely different to the 8bit stuff I'm used to. Hopefully Thomas can put this to rest and explain the maths behind it in a way we can all understand?

Great news. How are you finding the 2k images Thomas? Does it smooth the slight aliasing on the car windows in the Porsche shot?

A few days ago Thomas Worth of Rarevision (5DToRGB and RAWMagic) asked me for some original files from the GH4 so he could develop an experimental app he had in mind. The result is an embryonic new command-line app for the Mac, which takes 8bit 4:2:0 4K files from the GH4 and resample them 2K 10bit 4:4:4.

Read the full article here

These images (>download the original 4K file at Vimeo to get even a clue of the full performance of the camera) are rather lovely. The colour, texture and detail is quite amazing. I'm also very impressed with the 2K slow-mo at 96fps.

Read the full article here

Indeed so let's not say we will pay more than $2000 for it.

 

The sensitivity and XAVC-S is nice and I will definitely sell my A7R for it but the price doubles when you want to make use of the camera's biggest selling point, 4K, whilst that is not the case with the GH4.

Sorry, Copy seems to be kaput. I'll link to each individual file separately on a new page. Got to rush off now though, so will be tomorrow now.

 

For my needs I find the HDMI model a very useful companion for my future GH4; its a YAGH on steroids, its an external 4K recorder, it has an fullHD iPad-like video monitor, and more... all that in one single package, for me I found that convenient. 16 pounds of awesome, I know, a heavy price but its workable.

 

If I want light weight for run and gun gigs or get some quick shots just unplug it and you're good to go.

 

Now, price its not available for this model, if its more than $2k - $3k, I would not buy it... although thats the price for external recorders only, if you want XLR inputs thats another accessory...

 

Also, theres no info on whether it can be upgraded to add a sensor in the future.

 

I think it's to early to celebrate or complain, so will see.

 

PS: I honestly don't know WHY they used a 5D for the preview picture... makes no sense.

 

Agree. GH4 would have made more sense.

 

Can see the advantage of unplugging if you want small size.

 

I just think what most people wanted was a similar solution but smaller and less overkill.

One of the enigmas emerging from the A7S is whether you can shoot 4K in APS-C crop mode as well. This would allow the use of standard Sony E-mount / NEX lenses, Canon EF-S and Nikon DX lenses, even PL cinema lenses on the full frame sensor.

Sony's information (above) implies that is the case with "both resolutions available at both full frame and APS-C size".

I dug a little deeper to find out more...

Read the full article here

Not sure - do the HDMI > HDI converters work in 4K?

Come on black magic.  Redesign the pocket with an evf, proper sized battery compartment for sony NP style batteries, CF card slot and user friendly interface and prores LT.    Give us an all in one solution that can actually be used in small budget situations that works like a dslr.

 

I would love the 2.5K BMCC sensor in a decent form factor with more features. They had 2 years to make this but didn't.

Indeed. I thought Blackmagic had a nice unique product line going, providing for a genuine market that existed and needed the products... and then suddenly here they are putting all they R&D and best software features into a couple of high end cameras aimed at Arri and Sony, at a price tag too low for pros and too high for 90% of the previous user base.

A clue is in the body. It is A7 based with same shutter. It doesn't have the more expensive trimmings of the A7R body.

 

Therefore I am expecting the price to be around about the A7 level, which would be a steal.

 

The recorder is likely to be the more expensive part... but still considering the end spec you are getting - full frame 4K ProRes 4:2:2 with 14 stop dynamic range... it ain't bad.