Phil Blooms Black Magic Camera review

[Andrew Reid]

Indeed you can get a c-mount 12mm F1.3 that covers the sensor for $100.

Search for Computar 12mm F1.3.

SLR Magic 12mm F1.6 an even better choice though.

[Philip Bloom]

[quote name='nigelbb' timestamp='1347019020' post='17531']
The good thing about Phillip Bloom's work is while he is an excellent camera operator & has a great eye for an image he is no DoP so most all of his work just uses available natural light. Contrast this with the super-slick professional demo piece 'Afterglow' from John Brawley on the the BMCC involving 1.2K HMI lights, reflectors & flags & a even a Steadicam operator all designed to make the image from the camera look as good as possible. Philip's Naked Cinematographer approach is the opposite of the latest Zacuto Shootout where the best DoP wins rather than demonstrating what the camera can do without any outside help.
[/quote]

sorry that you don't really know my work or consider me a DP. Each to their opinion. Doesn't matter than 99.9% of my work is lit. Often in complicated ways but I guess you my work more than I do! :)

[Germy1979]

..I wonder if Michael Bay ever gets on a forum when he's not blowing shit up, sees somebody bashing the piss out of him, and drops the law...

Insert foot.

[quote name='Philip Bloom' timestamp='1347210080' post='17646']


sorry that you don't really know my work or consider me a DP. Each to their opinion. Doesn't matter than 99.9% of my work is lit. Often in complicated ways but I guess you my work more than I do! :)
[/quote]

[markm]

I think most of the world know you're a DP Phil. Welcome to the forum!

[Philip Bloom]

[quote name='Germy1979' timestamp='1347219447' post='17651']
..I wonder if Michael Bay ever gets on a forum when he's not blowing shit up, sees somebody bashing the piss out of him, and drops the law...

Insert foot.
[/quote]

The difference being that Michael Bay is not part of this small community that we have...little bit of respect for each other goes a long way! :)

[moebius22]

Nice review Phil. Good to have you here.

[sanveer]

I think Philip (Bloom) just gave Nigelbb a mild heart attack (or a severe one) ... :P
Philip, I felt, that even though, your review of the BMCC was technically interesting, it was a little unfair. I feel, it has helped break the slow pace, of unimaginative camera building, and the slow pace of technological developments, that have been cause by the cartel effect of the big camera makers (Canon, Sony, Arri etc).
Even though the BMCC is an over-weight, non-weather sealed, behemoth, and the tranfer methods, data size and speed will be a serious headache (apart from the fixed battery), it still is a very worthy effort, especially considering the price, the image quality, and that, BMCC is one of the last people at the HD party. Its next camera, when it comes, will consider all the feedback (obviously including yours), but, for now, this IS a worthy competitor, to everyone around. Barring none.

[matt2491]

[quote name='Philip Bloom' timestamp='1347210080' post='17646']
99.9% of my work is lit.
[/quote]

Lit by the sun you mean...

Just kiddin :P

[QuickHitRecord]

Some years ago, Philip Bloom opened my eyes to DSLR video. His work has helped pave the way for a lot of bigger and better projects for me. Most were lit. Some weren't. A successful image is a successful image.

Back to the camera: Sebastian at Cinema5D posted that "full operability" for the MFT model will likely come at a later date via firmware update (probably after they iron out proprietary issues with Panasonic and Olympus; here is the link: [url="http://***URL not allowed***/news/?p=12831"]http://***URL not allowed***/news/?p=12831[/url] ). Put that together with projected firmware updates to allow file deletion-in camera and Ikan's cheap battery solution, and you're well on your way to a pretty shootable camera. Still a lot of variables, but there is hope.

[nigelbb]

[quote name='Philip Bloom' timestamp='1347210080' post='17646']sorry that you don't really know my work or consider me a DP. Each to their opinion. Doesn't matter than 99.9% of my work is lit. Often in complicated ways but I guess you my work more than I do! :)[/quote]Sorry, I didn't mean to be insulting & obviously I have got the wrong idea of your work from 5D2 pieces like "Sofia's People", "Cherry Blossom Girl", "San Francisco's People", Skywalker Ranch" etc; C300 work like "Le Mont, La Pluie et La Nuit: The beauty of Le Mont St Michel" or even stuff you did with the Letus adaptor like "Return to Dungeness". All of which I assumed just used available light but maybe they all involve subtle & complicated additional lighting that is just very natural looking.

You have a great eye for an image & I am a big admirer of your work. Your popularising the 'film look' first with 35mm adaptors & latterly with DSLRs has been an inspiration to us all.

[markm]

[quote name='matt2491' timestamp='1347241028' post='17672']
Lit by the sun you mean...

Just kiddin :P
[/quote]
The sun is a nightmare practical light that constantly changes all the time. Imagine your house light dimming brightening and moving. Controlling it working with it is a massive part of the job on a film set. Happy times spent for sound waiting for aircraft to pass and clouds to move let alone setting lights reflectors and all sorts of stuff to get the picture right.

[andy lee]

Philip is a great Director .
he shoots great pop videos too with complex lighting.
Philip has done more than anyone else on the internet to get DSLR's into people's hands and get them starting to shoot good looking images.
He is very open with his knowledge.
his website is an open resource of infomation.

His BMC review was very interesting and lets you see exactly what problems you may have with this camera on a commercial shoot.
I shoot pop videos for a living so it was very interesting to see his review.
My big concern is the rolling shutter issue as I move the camera around alot on shoots


Philip ...what can you compare the rolling shutter to? is it as bad as the GH2?

Andy Lee


ps - I can't remember anyone else on this forum working for George Lucas..............enough said !!

[jgharding]

That's a good review, covers lots of little real-use details about the things I figured would be niggly, it's good to see that they actually are niggly and I wasn't just being an arse! Could've done without/different way of handling the Kessler slider plug in the middle though as that bit just felt like an advert squeezed in there.

I don't think I'll buy one of these cameras but I might try one out or hire it as the kit will have all the batteries and the like as part of hire, no doubt. The footage does look nice. I've not yet seen anything that stands out though. That battery thing is a proper hassle though by the looks of it... I think it'd piss me off pretty quickly, as coupled with the need for rig etc, it'll start to impact portability quite heavily.

Still small for a 'cinema camera' though, so I'm sure we should all still be happy we even have such a thing available!

[Philip Bloom]

[quote name='sanveer' timestamp='1347231516' post='17665']
I think Philip (Bloom) just gave Nigelbb a mild heart attack (or a severe one) ... :P
Philip, I felt, that even though, your review of the BMCC was technically interesting, it was a little unfair. I feel, it has helped break the slow pace, of unimaginative camera building, and the slow pace of technological developments, that have been cause by the cartel effect of the big camera makers (Canon, Sony, Arri etc).
Even though the BMCC is an over-weight, non-weather sealed, behemoth, and the tranfer methods, data size and speed will be a serious headache (apart from the fixed battery), it still is a very worthy effort, especially considering the price, the image quality, and that, BMCC is one of the last people at the HD party. Its next camera, when it comes, will consider all the feedback (obviously including yours), but, for now, this IS a worthy competitor, to everyone around. Barring none.
[/quote]

i think it was incredibly balanced. I made it clear i love the camera but made it clear to there are many things to consider. BMD were actually pretty cool about it. I asked them at IBC and they said all fair points. in their own words "it's not bad for a first attempt is it!?"

[Germy1979]

[quote name='Philip Bloom' timestamp='1347228693' post='17661']


The difference being that Michael Bay is not part of this small community that we have...little bit of respect for each other goes a long way! :)
[/quote]

...perhaps you haven't been on dvxuser recently... They have to shut the forums down long enough to sweep up the eyeballs over there.. Lol

(sometimes i wonder if i should be "lol" -ing... This is a forum, not a text message.)

You probably won't respond or be back to see these comments Philip, but we all respect you. I've really learned that if you're reviewing or testing a camera or a product, it's suddenly not okay to be a human being. Most of us pre ordered this thing with no experience with it. So we need to see what it's potential can be in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. We needed to hear things like "rolling shutter"... Even though we don't want to. I don't know if you got paid to do a 45 minute in-depth review on it, but something has to justify the time you spent making and editing it. I would assume it was to show the curious world of investors and budding cinematographers- what this camera was about.

So thank you for your time man:)

[galenb]

@Philip: Well, I think your review was fine and I enjoyed it very much. But looking at the original comment above and ignoring the comment about not being a DP (it's kind of an obvious mistake if you are just going on what you see on your website), I think he was actually paying you a compliment. A lot of us here on the forum are big fans of natural light (or at least natural "looking" lighting) and tend to shun the glitzy Hollywood style so to say someone makes great images without having to use a bunch of lights is actually a compliment around here. ;-)

[jgharding]

Natural light is the bomb diggity, the sun has a lot of watts. ;) Plus I can't count the number of times I've rigged up about three different lights and thought it looked a bit dead, then switched one off and gone "oh, now it's good".

[quote name='Philip Bloom' timestamp='1347293387' post='17709']
BMD were actually pretty cool about it. I asked them at IBC and they said all fair points. in their own words "it's not bad for a first attempt is it!?"
[/quote]

They're pretty modest! For an absolute newcomer to cameras it's pretty amazing to give what they have at this price point. That good relationship with Apple shows in the stylish manufacturing, though ergonomics could do with a bit of consideration...

I keep thinking about the little niggles, then pinching myself and realising I'm moaning about a camera that shoots 2.5k raw (or more usefully, DNxHD) for the price the 5D MKii cost back at the start.

Sure you gotta rig it and patch it as you do with the 5D ii, but just like the 5D ii did back then it's kinda offering something unique for less cash so there's gonna be suffering involved.

Luckily as the review says, plenty of the issues can be sorted by firmware, bit by bit. I can see them bringing out one with interchangeable batteries too for the next model, because that -- on top of the EF mount -- is a design point that can be justly questioned.

I'm interested to see how long it takes to get to rental houses now...

[Andrew Reid]

With all version 1.0 products in the history of time, they by their very nature have flaws. It is is up to us to find them and I feel Philip did a good job of finding the ones this has. All good feedback for Blackmagic to act on when it comes to camera 2.0. Already they have acted with the mount issue.

The only thing I would have liked to have seen Philip cover is raw and how it grades. I am sure there is more dynamic range in the raw than in ProRes and I'd have shot it raw and transcoded to 2.5K ProRes to avoid the pink and give my eyes a feast on my Dell U2711. Apart from that it was a nice looking piece, sensitively shot.

[HurtinMinorKey]

Adrdrew, speaking of the Dell u2711, how does it compare to the 27 inch imac monitors?

Overall I liked Phil's review, but I was afraid it would never end.

[Andrew Reid]

Considering the Dell was half the price, that had a lot to do with it.

I compared the 27" Cinema Display and iMac directly to the Dell before buying it. The blacks and contrast of the Apple displays have a slight edge. But most of that comes from the glossy finish so it has the draw back of your ugly mug mirrored in it. The Dell is a matte finish. Colour was slightly more vibrant on the Apple, but the Dell is also very good in this regard. Backlight uniformity is definitely better on the Apple screens though, that is one weakness of the Dell.

Broadly speaking they are in the same league. Apple's stuff is pricey though for the little bit better image, and the glossy screen I am not a huge fan of.

The U2711 and Cinema Display are both high end displays, they are a big leap in terms of resolution, contrast and colour from your average monitor.