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Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K


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3 hours ago, mercer said:

Raw in the C200 is advertised at 15 stops. CLog3 is 13-14. So same or better. 

With that being said, the Ursa Pro, C200, and EVA1 are all fine cameras. I assume the P4K will follow suit and be an amazing tool for any low/Micro budget filmmaker and most likely will continue with the moniker as a baby Alexa. 

So pick your poison and go and tell a great story, they’re all capable tools. 

C200 has "15 stops" of dynamic range but that's a manufacturer claim.  Blackmagic at least in my view is a bit more realistic with their dynamic range claims and Ursa Mini has about a 1 stop advantage over the c200.

Like JB mentioned.  No prores, no timecode, etc.  It's like canon knew exactly what to do to make this camera not useful to professional shooters and crews so that you'll buy their better cameras..

Ursa Mini Pro has minor compromises, but it clearly shows the difference between an affordable camera built with market-segmentation in mind and a camera that is built with no limitations.

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EOSHD Pro Color 5 for Sony cameras EOSHD Z LOG for Nikon CamerasEOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles for All Canon DSLRs
53 minutes ago, John Brawley said:

Doesn’t shoot ProRes. 

Inconsistently can’t shoot 12 bit and has to shoot compressed RAW to do it.

Doesnt as easily look like Alexa as the UMP does.

Doesnt do TC. Major major problem in a multi camera TV drama series. That makes it instantly a non starter by the way for any serious regular use.

Unergonomic to use the way I like to operate.

The only thing it can do better for the way i shoot is AF.  And I don’t really use AF.

JB

I’m sure you could do wonders with a C200. Your work with the E-M5 Mark II was inspiring, so the C200 and one of your Zeiss’s would probably be pretty epic. 

Plus, Canon Log 2 has a very similar curve as LogC with middle grey both at around 40. Granted, I get your point and agree it’s not for every job and wouldn’t suit your needs.

But without a doubt, a lot of indie, micro filmmakers could make a gorgeous calling card short with it.

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4 minutes ago, mercer said:

I’m sure you could do wonders with a C200. Your work with the E-M5 Mark II was inspiring, so the C200 and one of your Zeiss’s would probably be pretty epic. 

Plus, Canon Log 2 has a very similar curve as LogC with middle grey both at around 40. Granted, I get your point and agree it’s not for every job and wouldn’t suit your needs.

But without a doubt, a lot of indie, micro filmmakers could make a gorgeous calling card short with it.

You can't use it for TV drama because timecode is required.  You also cannot shoot raw or 4K acquisition without approval from very specific people, so not a chance you will get approved to use it anyway.  

VFX would not like it if you're sending them 8-bit 4:2:0 files.

The C200 is a really good camera, but Canon was very direct and strategic with how they chose to cripple the camera.  From an image standpoint, the color doesn't match as nicely to Alexa either, but that can probably be worked around with an experienced colorist.

 

For single shooters not working with a crew, they might find the C200 better than the ursa mini pro, so it's a different market.

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14 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

Think that is bad check out the Data Usage on the Arri Panavision 65 @ Open Gate 6.5K, 5858mbs! 10 minutes on a 512gb card!

 

Yes but they had to do this all the time with the VENICE due to flaws with the camera itself, but a bet a firmware update will soon fix this camera.

 

10 hours ago, John Brawley said:

I think Zero Dark Thirty has some of the best night work. It was shot at iso 200 on alexa. 

And people think you need high ISO cameras to shoot night scenes!

2 hours ago, mercer said:

I’m sure you could do wonders with a C200. Your work with the E-M5 Mark II was inspiring, so the C200 and one of your Zeiss’s would probably be pretty epic. 

The E-M5 mkII had a minor usage, so production could live with its flaws. But for one of the main cameras then you'd expect more from the C200 and not be so crippled, a C300mk2 would probably suit JB better than a C200.

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26 minutes ago, jonpais said:

In my whole life, never have I heard anyone, professional or enthusiast, state that at a certain price point, only one camera or brand is acceptable. This is beyond fanboyism already. It’s fanaticism.

In the professional world, which John Brawley works in, you CANNOT use a camera that doesn't do 10-bit 4:4:4 minimum as a main-body camera or secondary camera because it's not useful for VFX and post production.  You can key 4:2:2 HQ stuff if you have to, but it's not a good Idea to use it for a large amount of shots.

Likewise, it's very ridiculous to use a camera that does not offer any sort Timecode functionality when you're using multicam as a lot of people in the post production process rely on timecode, and it's an essential feature of modern production.

Then if you go into the limitations of the camera and what it doesn't do compared to other similar cameras, then you start to see issues.  FIrstly, the C200 has no timecode.  It only has 1 SDI output, meaning if you need to use a viewfinder (the inbuilt one is not useful in a lot of configurations) then you can't wirelessly monitor as well.  How are you going to convince production to use a camera where they cannot see it in video village or the first AC cannot use the monitor to check focus?

Blackmagic builds cameras that are maybe not as practical as some other cameras for independent, single shooters, but when it comes to professional features, it's clear that Blackmagic cameras are in another league in terms of what they offer.

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3 minutes ago, jonpais said:

False.

Name another camera under $10K right now that you could use as an A-camera to shoot a network TV show and no one would fuss.  The closest thing is the C300 mark II which they used on Grace and Frankie, but I have experience with that show and those images sucked to use in post.  And at $9,999 it's barely under 10K anyway.

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3 minutes ago, jonpais said:

Your statement says professional workflows. It does not specify tv dramas.

Fair enough.  I'm referring to high end, million dollar productions.  People are suggesting other cams that JB could try out, but in reality as sad as it is, there aren't too many cams that can compete with the Ursa Mini Pro and what it offers.

Ignoring price, the new Venice camera with the tethered head looks like an interesting option.

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44 minutes ago, jonpais said:

In my whole life, never have I heard anyone, professional or enthusiast, state that at a certain price point, only one camera or brand is acceptable. This is beyond fanboyism already. It borders on fanaticism.

Who has said that? 

JB and others here have said a wide range of cameras are acceptable such as: ARRI / RED Weapon / UMP / Sony / etc

(Savannah Miller is just talking about under a specific price point. Heck, no different from if I claimed that under $100 there are NO CAMERAS that are suitable! haha)


Just that the C200 specifically has got some flaws holding it back (probably intentionally so!) from big network tv shows. 

21 minutes ago, Savannah Miller said:

In the professional world, which John Brawley works in, you CANNOT use a camera that doesn't do 10-bit 4:4:4 minimum as a main-body camera or secondary camera because it's not useful for VFX and post production.  You can key 4:2:2 HQ stuff if you have to, but it's not a good Idea to use it for a large amount of shots.

Really? I think 10bit 422 can pass mustard for many shoots even at the ten thousand dollar plus per day level of shows (heh, although that is way under his budget level I'm sure). 

 

23 minutes ago, Savannah Miller said:

Then if you go into the limitations of the camera and what it doesn't do compared to other similar cameras, then you start to see issues.  FIrstly, the C200 has no timecode.  It only has 1 SDI output, meaning if you need to use a viewfinder (the inbuilt one is not useful in a lot of configurations) then you can't wirelessly monitor as well.  How are you going to convince production to use a camera where they cannot see it in video village or the first AC cannot use the monitor to check focus?

Cam op monitor + 1st AC + video village 

Easy to quickly run out of video feeds. You can work around it, this I think is not a deal breaker, but it does place another strike against it if you only have one SDI output. 

 

19 minutes ago, Savannah Miller said:

Name another camera under $10K right now that you could use as an A-camera to shoot a network TV show and no one would fuss.  The closest thing is the C300 mark II which they used on Grace and Frankie, but I have experience with that show and those images sucked to use in post.  And at $9,999 it's barely under 10K anyway.

I'd count under $10K (that do 4K? As if we stick to 1080/2K that opens up many more doors! And as many are not shooting 4K anyway...):
C300mk2
FS7mk2 + XDCA 
Terra 4K / 6K 
Kinefinity MAVO
RED Raven
URSA Mini Pro
URSA Mini  4K / 4.6K
URSA 4K
AJA CION

And now if you count secondhand cameras:
Arri Alexa Classic (oops, not 4K!)
Sony PMW-F5
Sony PMW-F55
Canon C500
etc

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4:2:2 HQ is not ideal for green screen, although you can definitely work around it.  It's much nicer if the camera shoots Prores as throughout the entire post production process everybody can I/O the same file format, but XAVC and other Sony codecs are not a deal-breaker.  Good thing with Ursa Mini Pro is the monitor is at least adjustable so you don't need another.

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Although some of these like say the AJA CION or URSA 4K have other flaws, and would only get a serious consideration if say it was a very small network show on a tight budget and you're offering them a killer package deal. 

 

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4 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Who has said that? 

Savannah Miller said so.

In his post, which I quoted verbatim above, he said that for under $10k, only the UMP is usable for professional workflows without hassle. Which is not true. Afterward, he amended his statement to million dollar productions. Hello?

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Terra 4K/6K does not do Prores 4:4:4.

Red Raven does not do Prores 4:4:4 and in a usable kit is over 10K.

Kinefinity MAVO is $9,949 for the basic package which is pretty close to $10K. 

AJA Cion is huge and not a nice image.  Size/weight is the main reason you'd ever use a camera that's not a top tier manufacturer.

Anything requiring an external recorder is disqualified too because I conclude that external recorders are lame.  If it's a camera specific recorder that mounts to the back of the camera (like a codex recorder) then that's acceptable.

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3 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

96% of shots (figures sourced from: my ass!) on a tv show are not green screen. 

That is true.  The amount of green screen depends heavily on the show.  Comedy shows (american ones) love car driving scenes, and a lot of them use various methods to achieve them.  If they do go with green screen, there can easily be 100 shots an episode if it's a longer scene.  If they use projection or a trailer, then there is of course, none.  For VFX though, a 4:2:2 image is just not nice to work with because you never know what you'll be required to do.  I see no reason when your budget is high to shoot anything less than 4:4:4.

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7 minutes ago, jonpais said:

In his post, which I quoted verbatim above, he said that for under $10k, only the UMP is usable for professional workflows without hassle. Which is not true. Afterward, he amended his statement to million dollar productions. Hello?

You said:

oh wait... I see, you said "at a price point"

Meh, I will disagree and say that is perfectly reasonable. 

What high speed camera is acceptable above the $100K price point? Possibly only the Phantoms. 

What sound recorder is acceptable above the US$14K price point? Only Aaton. 

Ditto if you go DOWN, what is the only acceptable timecode recorder under $500? Only Zoom of course. 

What is the best slow motion camera with built in lens under $700? Probably Sony. 

If you make a narrow enough definition you might be left with only one brand. 

That is Savannah Miller thinks he (she? Don't want to assume gender! :-P ) has done. 

But I dunno, I'd disagree. But I don't feel the general principle of the claim is unreasonable to make in itself. 

 

9 minutes ago, Savannah Miller said:

Terra 4K/6K does not do Prores 4:4:4.

Yeah but like I'm saying , 10bit 422 is plenty for many. Each production can have a bit different needs.

 

9 minutes ago, Savannah Miller said:

 Red Raven does not do Prores 4:4:4 and in a usable kit is over 10K.

But it does 422, and "usable kit" can start to make definitions even more vague! Let's avoid that please. 

 

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