Jeff Orig

Any idea when the kickstarter campaign will be?  Thanks.

Any idea when the kickstarter campaign will be?  Thanks.

That's not rolling shutter.  Those trains are actually bending the space-time continuum.
 
;)

That's not rolling shutter.  Those trains are actually bending the space-time continuum.
 
;)

That's not rolling shutter.  Those trains are actually bending the space-time continuum.
 
;)

That's not rolling shutter.  Those trains are actually bending the space-time continuum.
 
;)

That's not rolling shutter.  Those trains are actually bending the space-time continuum.
 
;)

That's not rolling shutter.  Those trains are actually bending the space-time continuum.
 
;)

Great solution! OH hang on where did I put my sensor lab, firmware programmers and last but not least my spanner.

Two points I want to add.
 
1.  Will this be another Blackmagic Design over-promise and under-deliver?  Another huge shipping delay could occur because of something unexpected happening.   For example, they get more orders than expected combined with some sort of supply chain delay cause problems again.  
 
2.  I agree with Vidrios and just want to reiterate that regardless of Black Magic's history of over-promising and under-delivering, these are still truly amazing times to be a filmmaker.  Just a few years ago we dreamed of shooting images of the quality you can get on a  Canon T2i.  Now, you can get a used T2i for under $400!  WTF?  You can't even get 4 minutes of 16mm film processed and transferred to HD for $400.  See http://www.colorlab.com/ for pricing on that.  
 
Anyone that is upset about Blackmagic, Canon, Sony, Red, etc. should take a step back and calm down.  These are exciting times and we should all be grateful for all of the tools available to us.  Aren't you shooting on something already?  If you think the tool is going to make you a better craftsmen, think again.  Good filmmakers can take whatever tool is handed to them and make something good.  
 
But if you are still truly upset, then, go make your own camera.  If you really know what's best and it's easy enough to criticize someone else, then why don't you go and fix it and go be a millionaire selling the world's greatest camera.  Yes, this previous statement is a little sarcastic but it's really meant to put it all in perspective.  I really believe these companies are doing what they think is best.  You can't please all of the people all of the time.  Camera makers and anyone that makes anything has to make choices that won't be perfect for everyone and maybe not even for most people.
 
Either way, thanks to Andrew for this blog, thanks to all the camera makers for these awesome tools, and thanks to all the filmmakers that share their knowledge.  Truly amazing times.

I will say this, as I'm sure there will be people who are infuriated.  If you look at this as a Kickstarter campaign, you essentially crowdfunded a company's first camera. $2995 would get you a camera before everyone else (yes even with all the shipping problems).  A few friends of mine have received there's.  In truth they said to me, it's a little annoying, but hey, we have our cameras and that's the price of being one of the first owners even if they did come late. Anyway on kickstarter campaigns, as we know, there are great products and when one invests in a product, you will pay the price for it. 
 
This goes with virtually any product on the market.  Apple should make us all very familiar to this process. Heck I paid nearly $6000.00 for their Mac Pro bundle in 2006, and the price steadily dropped to the point where you can have the same specs in a freakin' Macbook Air for $999 today. Back to my Kickstarter campaign analogy.  Many times when a small company tries to get its foot in the door on making a new product we all want and could not afford before, many of us will invest with that company and try to be among the first.  Problems happen.  Some kickstarters never even come to full fruition but many, usually end up delivering later than anticipated. 
 
Let's take Defygimbal or Besteady for example. These two companies are creating the best competition to Freeflysystems ridiculously overpriced (like Canon)MōVI. In order for these companies to get their feet off the ground, sometimes you still have to pay a price to do it that may be pricier than you thought it would be. Defy's $2300 Gimbal only gets you 2 lbs of weight capacity.  But know what? It works and works well!! Once you figure in the cost of materials and what it takes to build it than it becomes understandable.  And then Besteady's first product is priced at $600 more but for that price you get nearly 4lbs of weight capacity. 
 
Maybe in the future when more people buy these products these will drop in price as well. It's the cost we pay of being the first in line.  It's just many of us were used to being so darn upset at Blackmagic that all we can do is get mad.  I still say, if they make us upset, fine but we have a decision on whether or not to purchase products through this company or the next. It's still an uphill battle. They're fighting against Canon, Nikon, Sony, and RED but all these company's are arrogant, and have a right to be. They've had decades of establishing themselves as industry leaders. But tell me this, name any other company that offers 3 cameras who all produce a RAW image, one is 1080p, one is 2.5k and the top of the line is 4k with global shutter and super 35 for $1000, $2000 and $4000 and offer the industry leading color correction program for free with two of those offerings?  I have been rooting for these guys from the beginning and now for $2000.00 you can own a proper 2.5k camera? Could they be improved with aliasing and moire, telling you the battery life, letting you delete your clips in camera, telling you how much ssd room you have left? yes a million times over yes, but if this is their first offering of cameras, I hope they eventually get to the point in the next 2 years of seriously disruping the market.  Canon's C300 is way over priced and so is their 1DC, but hey people will pay for it because it's a sure thing.  Now you can get 4k raw with globaal shutter for $4k.  I hope we can say , TAKE THAT CANON! (maybe a sub $10k C300 price drop in the near future?) We shall see. I love the free market for this reason.  Competition is good.  Let's enjoy it. We who buy these products are investors who want these guys to succeed. There WILL BE moments that anger us. Let it be what it is.  Don't forget even Apple has had huge shipping delays on their products that are unexpected.  I'm not looking to compare the two companies. I'm just saying, this company, Blackmagic Design, is changing the game for us Indy filmmakers and this is an exciting time for us.  We used to have to kill ourselves and go into severe debt to get in the game. Not anymore. 

@PAVP :
 
I would call Apple anything but modular, except for the Mac Pro line.  But every other product they make, is a closed system with very few tweaking options for the user (especially compared to Windows).
However, I think this is Apple's strength, cos it allows you to focus on what you want to do, and not how you want to do it (since Apple has more or less decided that for you).
 
Furthermore, I don't think you understand the difference between developing and engineering things, and actually making them.  There's a huge difference between something like Magic Lantern, which is purely development and a much more horizontal process, and mass-scale production, which by definition has a more vertical and hierarchic structure.  It's the only way to keep production as cheap as it is.  If you want your production to be more modular and flexible, this will increase your costs exponentially (and people are already up in arms about camera's costing too much today).
 
Also, you say you want manufacturers to poll users so they can make the cameras that you and me want.  Problem is that we all want different things : you might need 4-track audio when shooting, while I don't need a mic nor headphone port.  Or I might want 50p while you'd rather have a built-in vectorscope.  I might want RAW, while ProRes is fine for you.  I might want a built-in viewfinder, while you prefer uncluttered HDMI so you can attach an external screen.  The only way to make everyone happy, is to include ALL possible demands from users.  Which increases costs and has clients skip the camera cos it has way more features than what they need.

I see it differently : we're all spoiled without even realising it.  For 98% of my work (commercials, music videos, documentaries and wedding videos) my T3i and Nex5N give me all I need.  I've never had any complaints whatsoever from any clients, nor TV-stations (my music videos are broadcast on national TV) that the image quality of my work wouldn't be good enough.
 
Only 3 years ago, all of the people who complain about Canon today, would've given up both of their legs for a camera that you can buy today for a little over 400 EUR. 
 
Last year I was in the market for a new camera.  I was considering a second hand 5D MkII, but opted for a T3i and a NEX 5N.  Both cost me less than 700 EUR.   That's even cheaper than my very first HDV camera (a Canon HV30).    I can shoot whatever I want, and the NEX gives me wonderful slowmotion when I need it.  On top of that, both cameras are extremely good photo cameras, which has allowed me to do more photo assignments.
 
I'm not even talking about the Mosaic Engineering AA filter for the T3i (which significantly improves the footage and gets rid of 90% of moiré and aliasing) or Tragic Lantern for the T3i (which allows you to increase the bitrate to >120Mbps).
 
What I'm trying to say is that today even the cheaper DSLR's are no longer limiting filmmakers.  All this talk about dynamic range, sensors, ... is interesting for people who like to indulge in the technical side of things, but the vast majority of the audience and clients couldn't care less, as long as the result looks great.

I still think it's worth the wait.  $4000 for 4k raw/prores or $1000 for raw/prores video?  I can wait another 6 months for those things.  I don't know of anything else that is out there that comes close in terms of price/features.  If there is, let me know and I'll put my order in for those cameras.  The ML mark iii raw workflow is still in Alpha, so I don't really count that yet.  
 
Was anyone really expecting Black Magic to deliver in mass quantities on July 25, 2013?
I know we all hoped they would.  I bet Black Magic thought they would too, but really I thought, at best, it would go to a few ambassadors and we would get ours a few months down the line.  At worst, we all wait another 6-12 months and we just keep shooting how we are shooting now.  We still have great cameras to work with.
 
Andrew is probably one of those few ambassadors to get theirs early.  But I don't mind.  He does a ton of work getting information out to the community.  I appreciate his findings before I get mine so I don't have to go through so much trial and error.
 
Black Magic might consider learning the phrase, "under-promise and over-deliver."  It will add to their goodwill/brand.  Imagine if they said they would deliver in 2014 but actually delivered in July 2013?  We would be blown away.

We use FCPX and recently edited Red Raw with our 13" MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM.  We recently upped the memory to 16GB in that machine from www.MacSales.com.  My point being that pure power is not necessarily needed if you are using FCPX.
 
Granted many old school editors hate FCPX but I personally think it is the future.  I was a hater of FCPX before but have grown to love it.
 
Just something to consider.  For a $1100 real Mac with FCPX, you could be editing raw.