zephyrnoid

Just imagine what will happen whent the big three wake up and realise, the transition period is OVER and they must deliver a small form-factor video centric camera that's not yet another tired DSLR shape. MOST shooters of stills, including retired me, only really needs an 8-12 MP compact for stills. If I was shooting stills for money, I'd rent a Hassy Digital. For now, My stupid coolpix cameras refuse to die.

The trouble is that once the BMCC actually ships the topography of the camera selections will be different than the 'thoretical' situation of a theoretically shipable camera in a non theoretical year. 2012 ;) In the time it takes a company liek BMC to ship ONE flagship product, the big three are scurrying to ship a half dozen cameras. That's exactly the trouble with RED, they can't keep up and instead, tip thier hand to the big boys. Which is wonderful, but not for BMC

I used Nikon all my life it seems. Sad they didn't jump on the video bandwagon sooner. Still, ANYONE can deliver me my dream camera, since NO ONE has done it yet ;)

Yea but DPR is now mostly amatuer pixel peepers. Once Phil sold out to Amazon, that was it. Besides, DPR has got to be 95% still shooters doing travel and flowers and for that the Olympus OMD EM5 seems to be the best, I sure would prefer it if I was still shooting stills.

Mr. Reid How can you include the BMCC as a contender in 2012 when it's not shipped ?? Does anyone have a firm ship date?? Anyone recall how long it took RED to ship Scarlet??? So in reality, #1 in 2012 is the GH3 If the BMCC even ships in 2013, we can probably say it has an edge over anything shipping in Q1, Q2 or Q3 2013 ;)

I'n too lazy to read the specs, but is FCPX running with proxies? How do you manage the file sizes otherwise?

Holly %$#@! That's cool. I thought I was looking at GH3 footage graded or something. My home movie cameras (modified flip MinoHD) are in the trash now. How much is this thing....

"plasticine images" ... compels me to run out and see it. After all, plasticine images counjour up 'pastic', which invokes 'Kitch'... a dear favorite art genre of mine. Bring on the PLASTICINE I say!

[url="http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/1649-slashcam-conclude-blackmagic-cinema-camera-review-compares-to-canon-c300/?p=23151"]Here ya go.....[/url]

Friends. The BMCC is  'beta' product. It's common for companies to jump on the 'gee whiz' technology bandwagon with betas, sprinkle some demo units around to super grateful and ebulient 'testors' and as the community of interest boils up with pros and cons, quitely and yet furiously, plan the NEXT model. At some point in this lifecycle a sweet spot is reached and that's no longer the beta model, but a full blown mature product. THAT's the product that is the embodiment of reasonable compromise. Early adopter are generous, sometimes foolhardy but always on the beta's side since they really didn't pay for the demo unit or have so much cash on hand it doesn't really matter. When we can attach monetary income to the equation and conversation, I'd love to chat. For now, the BMCC has the best price/performace in the Raw capture category if you do not have to load it up all the way or edit in RAW. Andrew's conversion tactic from RAW to Prores may still mean he gets a better image to work with, certainly, we all know that RAW allows for 4:2:2 color which is a boon to ChromaKey if nothing else. Just remember. it is a beta.

Just to be safe, I studied the beautifully produced Philip Bloom 'Genesis' GH3 demo and noticed that fine lines seem to have been completely AVOIDED in the script. I guess if you can plan them out of the scenes, there will be no more moire :) Sadly, there are alot of these lines in modern architecture.

It's kinda sad. My crappy and obsolete Canon HV20 is worth what? $50? It already has the Moire Killing sensor and softness you all desire. Too bad it drops frames and has a rolling shutter effect. Oddly, it delivers uncompressed 4:2:2 out of HDMI to an external recorder. I can't believe we're seriously talking about selecting a "softer lens to avoid it on the BMCC and GH3 etc."

A scrip is brewing in my head. A comic parrody of the Moire Fear Mongering. I fear it will be a hit ;)

Different Strokes For Different Folks
For Hollywood productions, with huge crews and stratospheric budgets, the ideal set of parameters are always available. For Independent or 'Off-Hollywood' productions, it's all about compromise. I do keep hearing this incessant refrain-That shooters may want to switch formats but the 'investment' in lenses precludes an easy or cheap switch. That's understandable, particularly in a world where the CAMERA end of the equation evolves more rapidly than the glass.
That's unfortunate.
I should point out that the tried and true rules about investment in hardware apply to movie making gear, unless one happens to be independently wealthy and the equipment is merely a 'collection'. There's a recovery period and if you are not recovering capital investments, you have no business whining about the cost of switching.

Having said this, allow me to share my analysis of the playing field for how it may impact one's decision with respect to the BMCC in particular and this echelon of digital video cameras in general. I will NOT reiterate what I've written before in this thread.  1.  There IS a 'sweet spot' where the overall feature mix of a particular line of cameras/lenses hits the highlights for each camera man and producer.
 - Want lots of bokeh even with normal focal length lenses for obviously  shallow DOF? > Large Sensor i.e. 35mm (AKA FF) is your solution. Trade off? Hyper-precise focus is a must and thus > loss of focus is a greater risk.
 - Want to shoot night scenes with minimal noise in available light and get the widest DR ? You need a camera that delivers RAW footage and is capable to taking a compliment of fast and expensive glass.
 - Want the maximum DOF for minimized focus loss? Go to the smallest sensor you can or stop down a lot with larger sensors. 1/3,2/3, 4/3 - MFT.
 - As we all know, the greater the 'crop factor' of the sensor, the tougher it is to procure fast/wide lenses
These are examples that complicate the decision making process.   There is an ideal' format that minimizes the crop factor of the sensor, is large enough to furnish credible bokeh but not with too short a DOF as is provided by FF sensors. That format is S35.
 S35 does sacrifice the 'tighter' focus range of the smaller sensors but it should make focus pulling at wider apertures a bit easier than on the shallow DOF FF cameras. The crop factor for S35 is 1.5 vs 2.3 of the BMCC's sensor. 

I can only assume that S35 is not in wider use due to the cost of the sensor.

That's also unfortunate. It almost solves all the downscaling issues from 100% FF, making wider & faster lenses MUCH easier to formulate than for M43 or the BMCC's sensor, providing credible Bokeh and shallow DOF. 

[url="http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/tokina-10-5mm-fisheye-blackmagic-canon.jpg"]http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/tokina-10-5mm-fisheye-blackmagic-canon.jpg[/url]   Finally. Why can't SOMEONE give us an S35 camera that fits into this form-factor. We don't need a digital bolex or a RAW camera that looks and feels like a glorified doorstop. We just want a small'er FS700 style design  

In some defense of Canon, the ridiculous Trust Fund Baby mentality of the 'instant' HD film maker boom of the past 6 years is what caused Canon to go nuts selling cameras to idiots with more money than talent ( or paying assignments). As a businessman that regularly sells strategy services, I would have advised them to do just that,. No one forced the Canon DSLR community to subsidise hybrid technology that could only shoot 12 minute clips at a time. But obviously, millions went out and bought these cameras at the going rate.

Why woud Arriflex buy anything that RED owns? Alexa is the RED beater, I don't get it? When the 'Big 3' were wondering how the chips would fall in the Global economic downturn, RED was using it's own capital along with that of private investors to launch a daring move into a proprietary CODEC and HW. I wrote in 2008 that the Big3 would quitely watch and then gradually move into RED delivery territory. They have done just that. Meanwhile, Arriflex seemingly avoided the hype machine and simply focused on one camera for the Pros. IF RED had delivered Scarlet on time, and rather than mixing things up by confusing its customers with too broad a product mix, also focused on just one direction, things might have been different. As it is, RED is having a fire sale.   I have 12 hats because I wear a lot of hats :) [url="http://www.gearstylequarterly.com/Images/Eleganza_scrn.jpg"]Here's one......[/url]

I made a mistake in posting my Looong prior post, to which Andrew so graciously responded. A mistake because my 'mommy' wants me off the forums alltogether. No sleep for me these days.She has allowed to me to say "thanks"  to Andrew and to warn him that I have archived his response page (along with my comments) for future analysis. One of us will owe the other a round of drinks in 2016 ;) Finally.... If Sony goes bust before RED Digital, I'll eat all 12 of my favorite hats :D

A fabulously thorough and well thought out piece. 1) "It is interesting that whilst Canon, Sony and Panasonic battle each other for the $3000-$6000 segment of the market with their C100, FS100 and AF100 – Blackmagic Design quietly sit there with zero competition. The Japanese divided that market between 3. Blackmagic could take it all for one and one for all." More intresting is that this VERY argument was made by RED Digital six years ago, and yet RED is suffering from loss of 'niche'. No. The 'big three are already cosolidating and when they figure out that the way to beat the BMCC is by pooling thier resources and eliminating duplication of effort, BMCC will be past history, just as I fear, that RED shall be shortly. 2) The BMCC is a great deal  for cinematic caliber capture and workflow and indeed a Scarlet/C300/C100 killer. ProRes is a great CODEC and a wise choice. So was the genius of direct to SSD capture. Bundling Resolve and calling it a '$1000 freebie' is disengenious- however. Further, I fear that when the SSD form-factor/capacity connundrum is bested by smaller denser media (SD/CF etc), the 'other' BMCC advantage will have been lost. 3) There are numerous reasons why the BMCC is risky and while $3K is indeed small change for earning film-makers, it's an investment for hobbyists. Allow me to enumerate these key shorcommings : [list] [*]As I mentioned, the storage platform of SSD is likely to to be superceded by smaller/denser media, resulting in camera obsolescence and thus, devaluation. [*]The current body design and data connectivity of the BMCC is too 'protoype-like' to enure the test of time. Buttons in the wrong places, missing XLR adapter and most fearsome of all, heavy reliance on touch screen UI rather than button/dial based SUI. Not knowing the MTF of the touchscreen- the customer has no way to compare that to traditional SUI button/dial interfaces that have a pretty good history of reliability. Then again, perhaps a three year 'shelf-life' is enough ? [*]BMCC's choice of sensor size was poor. S35 would have put the BMCC right where it would be 'future proof' untill about 2016, when who knows what the dominant sensor technology will be at that time. [*]A whole lot more 'bread and butter' shooting is becoming dependent on small unobtrustive mirrorless cams like the Panasonic GH series and similar DSLRs. Sure, we know their many shortcoming vis a vis CODEC artifacts, limited post color space etc.etc. But as much more end-user consumption moves in the direction of mobile hand-helds and tablets, the value of cinamatic low arifact delivery of 2k-4k to the silver screen will diminish considerably! [*]The most easily dismissed feature of the Sony Sub $15K cameras is slo mo. Though a fad in 2012, slow motion ( and time lapse) will figure more prominantly in the future, not only for TVC's of food, cars and lifestyle pieces, but also in the fastest growing segment of the consumer user domain- action sports. While I respect the author's scope in reporting for 'Cinematic' Shooters, it's important to bear in mind that the big three hybrid camera Co's that he cited, Panasonic, Canon and Sony can eat BMCC's 'lunch' if they can only devise a way to make the uncompressed HD workflow easier and more accessible. The 'big three' are focused on cash-flow and survival. BlackMagic had better do the same or they will be 'roadkill'. [/list]

As the inventor of HTPO and a human factors professional by trade, it's really encouraging for me to see the work of our industry finally being recognised for its value in the real world. Indeed, the article is really only part of the story. Intresting aspects that were only touched on or were not cited...[list] [*]Note that 4K appears to have a greater impact on 4K ready TV than in theaters. There's an excellent reason for that. As we learned from the article, the wider the scan field of the visual system, the more 'work' it has to do to compile a mosaic of the whole scree,. The smaller (yet closer) the screen, the less work in building a mosaic and this tends to promote the perception of higher resolution [*]Now that the 'cat is out of the bag' with reference to viewing distances and how that impacts the perception of resolution, will we see differentiation in ticket prices depending on distances from the screen? ;) We should ! [*]Andrew astutely notes that he still appreciates classic film, even with all it's technical on-screen degradation. This is a key point as it underscores the importance of everything else related to film making– besides the fundamental resolution. However, not all movies are epic narratives. Some movies are technical or commercial– and those movies benefit hugely from higher perceived resolutions. [/list]

[quote name='EOSHD' timestamp='1354113482' post='22523'] Marketing. There's no way they can compete with Canon when all the dummies out there are obsessed with sensor size with their 'bigger is better' mentality. [/quote] In my business, Appologism is a cardinal sin (I'm a human factors professional). The Full-frame obsession is crumbling already. For location and ,multicam work, it will die soon. For compact form-factor S35 or nearly that, should be the sweet spot. You'll see ;)

Great Review. With your permission, I'll link to it on my facebook Panasonic GH3 group page. Some items to consider:[list=1] [*]OLED screens are so lovely but I wonder if you happen to know of references that talk about MTF of the color LUT on these panels? I've been reading some pretty disturbing reports of OLED Samsung screens changing colors dramatically in as little time as one year. [*]If you want to own and properly coin the term "Digital Degradation", allow me to suggest that you do so immediately in Wikipedia with a link out reference to this very review. You might want to note the disambiguation to > Generational Degradation, which while different, is also derived from digital imaging. [*]Most footage ( including some of your own prior comparison footage) from the GH3, seems +5 too Yellow in overall cast. Why haven't more people complained about this? Given that the color space is 4:2:0 post color correction should be annoyingly difficult on the GH3. Finally..... [*]I disagree about Panasonic releasing a full-frame mirrorless, as I put far more stock in S35 sensors for the future of small form factor film making than full frame. My reasoning is that the combination of bokeh and moderated lens bulk , should be better in S35 than in Full Frame. -------Zephyrnoid [/list]

Fabulous news. I've been waiting for breakthoughts like this, to help push things in the right direction. It has been my contention for a while that S35 is THE sweet spot for ideal sensor compromises in the service of video and even most stills ( in hybrids). What I doubt is that BlackMagic Cinema's reliance on a certain SSD as making them the ideal host. They are not and I wager that once the BMC SSD drive is rendered obsolete, the field will be wide open for hosts.

[quote name='peederj' timestamp='1351577974' post='20581'] We learned with the Scarlet vs. C300 price comparisons that the only thing worth comparing pricewise is [b]total cost of ownership[/b]. Sure the camera body may cost $15K but what good does that do you if you need another $20K of proprietary add ons to shoot at the quoted specs and media costs $40/minute at those specs. I'm sure when you have the proper info you will go over TCO for each attractive camera option in practice. [/quote] Absolutely! And let's not foget. There is no sane Professional Video without a duplicate camera or a close B at the very least. So let's get real folks. No one contemplating an upgrade from a 'high end DSLR' is going to get in at the base sticker for the basic package alone. And as peederj so astutely notes, apart from the TCO, you have gargantuan captures to archive that will result in a completely different budget for editing than garden variety HD or even 2K. So let's keep dreaming of a sub $5,000 pricepoint for this stuff OK ? In about 5 years we'll be there. For now.... there's always rental !

Excellent Interview. Yes. Make 'em squeal. This pullquote from EOSHD should be make into a bold with quotation markes around it as it underscores the key reason why a 'global' camera policy needs to be put in place by the consortia of all the camera makers. Interoperability is critical and Canon's failure to address this is a bit worrisome at the pricepoint for a '4K' DSLR. [b]"[i]For as long as PAL countries use 50hz electrical lighting the technical reasons for shooting 25p in the field are relevant. Even if you sync the shutter (i.e. 1/50) you can not avoid strobing or flickering under many common practical lights and street lighting when shooting 24p. "[/i][/b]

"a military contractor ......and must be used to the most rigorous testing standards....." cough... chuckle :P