Savannah Miller

From what I understand, Blackmagic uses the same IR filter in all of their cameras. If this sensor design is less prone to IR then it will look cleaner than the other cameras, but the Gen4 color science will also help improve the images to. I feel that whatever IR filter BM uses is just not enough for their sensors and they tended to show a little too much IR compared to the Alexa in similar situations. With the new Gen4 color science and a stronger IR cut filter like those found in the Rawlite OLPFs will you see too much IR reduction and will the shadows start looking green?

That logic is wrong. It's more like you expected a synth but you are getting a synth with more controls. You can still make the familiar sounds of the old synth but it's a better starting place if you don't want a specifically defined "sound."

I think the color is just more accurate with the new Pocket 4K. In the past the footage had more of a look to it, and now the color is better so you have to do that yourself. Putting a heavy "look" on something makes it hard to judge the performance of the camera, so Blackmagic chose the route of grading it themselves and making sure it accurately represented the camera. A lot of the Kinefinity Terra footage (especially Phillip Bloom's stuff) is hard to judge the color science of the camera due to haphazard and heavy grading. I have no idea if Kinefinity cameras produce nice images because all of the graded material is very artistic.

Doesn't look like any gimbal was used. I'm guessing almost all of it is just a monopod and the opening shot looks like an imperfectly balanced glidecam/steadicam merlin shot.

With the opening shots theres a good opportunity to hear the sounds of the flames as the balloons are being filled.

i think it really shows off the dynamic range well. It has a very nice look to it as well. I would love to have some ambient audio there considering the camera has such high quality built-in microphones. This footage definitely looks better than anything I've seen from the Terra 4K.

5DIII uses pixel-binning. That generally does not artifact like line skipping does.

I have seen images from GH5s and Terra 4K so I know what to expect as far as dynamic range. I don't think Blackmagic should have any problems with color science either, so in that regard I have realistic expectations as to what the footage will look like. I think the Blackmagic camera will have obvious limitations but not much different than people who come from cameras without autofocus and IBIS like 5D Mark III, etc.

LP-E6 canon battery is almost the same size as Panasonic batteries, but not sure if it has the same juice. Blackmagic cameras use FGPA which is a less optimized board compared to an ASIC and requires more power. It has an advantage of shorter production cycles especially in lower volume cameras because you can easily make last-minute adjustments if you want to add more features. ASICs is very locked in as they are expensive to manufacture. They use solid state peltier cooling to handle the heat distribution and that uses a lot of power. I don't know if other cameras use that but it does make a difference. I don't think type of compression plays a big part in heat, it's mainly the sensor. Blackmagic is not very experienced in building DSLR form-factor cameras yet, in what is only their second attempt they produced a camera at half the price of the GH5s that will likely be a serious rival in image quality. I think Blackmagic made the right compromises to get it at the price it is.

Blackmagic can't get their battery life much better unless they use a different cooling method and/or switch to an ASIC which will likely not happen any time soon. They optimize their cameras fairly well for the features they do have. An articulating screen would be ridiculously hard to design with a screen that size. It probably was much easier to use a monitor they already know is of a high quality. Blackmagic has probably looked into autofocus by now and it is really expensive.

If anyone knows about color science it's this guy. I don't know him, but he seems like a really smart guy and knows alot about Blackmagic camera development. Before 2014 he used to share a lot of stuff he shot on Blackmagic cameras and that was incredible stuff too.

Yeah but the idea that they will match completely just because they're gen4 is probably not true. RED cameras cost 10x more than Blackmagic and have higher sensor rejection rates, yet their cameras do not match.

Scenario 2 is correct because sensors on their own have levels of customization. On top of that, things like Blackshading and cooling further make a difference in the noise and dynamic range of the sensor. Color science and quality of the image is also subjectively chosen, and I believe the dual-gain sensors naturally have better color due to the higher bit-depth. I could be completely wrong about the dual-gain sensors having nicer color, but that could be the reason the Alexa has always been ahead of RED in that area. Either way, the FGPA does play a role in color science.

I don't know if i believe that though as color is also determined by the sensor too. It's not like they'll magically get good colors similar to the dual-gain 4.6K just by using "Gen4 color science."

That's true. But you get a general idea of how much there is and the distribution of shadow/highlight DR. Some cameras may have more FPN than others, but you can lift up the shadows and at least see what's there.

As much as two cameras with the same sensor doesn't indicate that the images will look the same, you can generally get an idea of what dynamic range is like. Camera manufacturers aren't stupid these days and if there was a way to squeeze out more DR out of the sensor they'd likely all be using it. Color science is another issue entirely.

Dual-gain sensor is a different type of sensor. Blackmagic has refrained from making a pocket 4K for years because they could not find a sensor they could cool that also had good enough dynamic range. Fairchild does not make a 5K sensor and I am not sure Kinefinity most likely did not pay for its development. Who else sells these kind of sensors?

The question is where they were sourcing a 5K dual-gain sensor from. Blackmagic paid millions of dollars for Fairchild to develop the 4.6K sensor with switchable rolling/global shutter. Where did they find this sensor? And furthermore, how were they able to successfully cool such a sensor in a really small body? The camera would not have been announced if they did not have a working sensor and/or partly functioning prototype. Obviously the camera was dropped, but from specs alone that camera was market-leading with switchable global/rolling shutter, high dynamic range, and a small form factor.

The real miracle was the Kinefinity Terra 5K was supposed to be a dual-gain 5K sensor with switchable rolling and global shutter. Where were they getting that sensor from? And how were they able to cool it properly to fit it inside of one of their Terra bodies?

The terra 5K had market leading specs WITH global shutter. It had similar dual-gain tech that BMD and Arri uses, so maybe they had issues with cooling it insider their really small bodies.

That's true. DR is subjective, but if you shoot raw and push around the files, you can generally see how much is there. With the Terra 6K they claimed 13 stops and then 16 stops in "golden 3K mode." There's barely a discernable difference between the two modes. I saw some raw samples of Terra 4K and no matter how much you push around the images or denoise, the DR is not there.. And on top of that, they at least are not consistent in how they measure these numbers across their different sensors. They just want to put up big numbers to impress everyone.

The problem with the Terra 4K is they claim 14 stops of DR and there just isn't that much. Even if you use the ridiculous Phil Holland method of measuring DR, it's just not there. I understand these are all subjective claims and you should test for yourself, but it's one thing to just flat out lie about how much DR a camera has. 12 and 14 are not the same number. But I believe Geoff Boyle had issues with the files in Post so he didn't want to give them a bad rep yet.

According to advertised specs, the Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro claims 15 stops of dynamic range. The C200 claims 13, and they advertise that when shooting RAW lite you can produce up to 15 stops of dynamic range. That sounds more like when RED claims such ludicrous 16.5+ stops of DR. Sure it's all there if you frame-average 10+ frames together, denoise and crank up your ISO to 512,000. I don't think you're missing out on anything.

Netflix requires 10-bit 4:2:2 LOG minimum in 4K or higher. Obviously the would prefer 4:4:4 or RAW if you could do that instead. But for network tv shows, no one wants RAW or 4K. Even I work on netflix shows doing VFX and I hate 4k. It sucks.

To be fair if you emailed kinefinity and told them you were interested in shooting a major network TV on their cameras they would give you 8 bodies and all the support in the world.