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Blackmagic cameras and EOSHD coverage


Andrew Reid
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Going to seek the opinions of my valued readers on this one...

 

With the Magic Lantern raw, we're in the creative field of shooting raw with incredible image quality from Canon DSLRs. Obviously this changes things quite a bit especially for Blackmagic's still delayed cameras.

 

Resolve is my main grading tool for Canon raw footage. 4K and Micro Four Thirds mounts are still unique features, but as I run EOSHD myself (there's no team) I don't really have the resources to cover so many cameras, nor do I need so many cameras for my filmmaking.

 

That means dropping a few from the schedules.

 

The way it is going at the moment I will have 4 Blackmagic bodies! EF, MFT, 4K and Pocket.

 

Which ones do you want to see continued coverage of on EOSHD?

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OK thanks everyone. Pocket Cinema Camera held onto.

 

I've cancelled my orders for the 2.5K Micro Four Thirds and 4K cameras with CVP and had my deposits refunded. Was in first 5 for the MFT camera and within first 30 for the 4K model but I've waited 6 months for the MFT version and still no sign of it. Enough is enough.

 

 

I would like to review the 4K camera but Blackmagic will have to make a move and support my coverage, as I'm no longer prepared to wait in an endless queue for one.

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It's a difficult one. If I could afford decent lenses I'd go with the EF 2.5k The 4/3 2.5k has that nice big fat overhead plus a larger sensor for more bokeh and probably better to use. The 4k with global shutter is the best on paper but no footage so far and the pocket camera is the lowest resolution smallest sensor but it is convenient.

 

Personally I want the 4k but again its more waiting and no footage. so I think go with the EF 2.5k.

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Pocket, as it really is a budget camera, its MFT & S16 size sensor -  & there's footage out there which could suggest it'll come out first.

The 4K is interesting, but the only signs that it might ship is from CVP which has now put up a shipping date instead of a Pre-order sign.

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We already know the quality of the Pocket Cam's sensor...it's a moire-ridden, lower-res 1:1 crop of the original cam's sensor. What we don't know about the pocket cam is how many bugs will be in the first implementation of BMD's MFT support...so one thing you might do is visit a shop/rental house with your pocket cam and try each MFT lens and see and list which won't focus/iris/is properly. I'm confident once all is said and done the BMD pocket will offer better color and DR than the GH2/GH3 but far worse ergonomics, lens support, moire, stills, real (as opposed to simulated via aliasing) sharpness/resolution, and total cost of ownership. Anyway they're just starting out making cameras. 

 

The 4K cam is what's interesting from them...S35, 4K ProRes, EF glass...we already know the ergonomics will be terrible and lens support still iffy but just how awful is that sensor to get it this cheap? The only competitors to it for that res under $25K TCO are 1DC and Scarlet, the former a bit of a kludge and the latter quite long in the tooth at this point.

 

Regardless Andrew, I hope BMD doesn't "help you with their coverage" as I think you're one of the only bloggers willing to straight up criticize a mfr and their products, and that's invaluable. Even if you aren't perfectly fair and even in your critiques I think online camera reviewing would lose a lot if you got corrupted into "being a team player."

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I'm definitely still interested in reading about BlackMagic. But I did loose interest in buying one myself. Cancelled my pre-order on the Pocket. Still, I read a lot about things that I will never buy, it's just something I'm really interested in. Probably most interested in the 4K model, not because of I will ever use it, but because it is the camera that is the most unknown to date and I'm curious what it has to offer to the world of video. Anyway, that deifnately shouldn't be a reason for you to buy one Andrew :)

 

Funny thing: when I joined EOSHD about a year ago, I thought it was funny that the name was EOSHD, while this really was (is) the place to go to for GH2 shooters - one of the reasons I joined here as well (and anamorphic shooting). After all, the name has made a come back it seems ;)

 

Sure don't hope it turns into a Canon only thing. The power of the blog is that you write about almost everything that _could_  be interesting to filmmakers. Whatever the brand or the price. That's what I like.

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Personally, I think the $3000-4000 camera coverage is what most serious filmmakers will be interested in, so 5D/BMPC is my preference. But we can't expect you to buy every camera you review, I think we should all help out with community-submitted reviews and tests more, I'm pretty sure we'll find forum members here who'll have access to BMPC and be able to run some tests. 

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The pocket and 4K are the most unique so they get my vote. The other two are a bit "meh" now. TBH I'm considering cancelling too, I'm pretty high up the 4K queue, but there's no sample imagery, almost no-one who actually ordered even the first camera has it

 

I'm also not convinced I need that much future proofing.

 

After recently handling Epic footage 4K, the resolution was a headache. The raw was lovely, but the huge resolution makes everything sluggish. That makes the 5D a better option, oddly enough. Plus I love stills.

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The pocket camera would be interesting to me. Especially if tested with some of the small m4/3 pancake lenses - the tiny size & portability is very interesting with that combo. With major struggle, I once hiked 8 hours up a mountain with a DSLR. I got great shots, but never again I'll be stupid enough to bring a camera that big & heavy :)

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The amount of moire won't depend much on the codec as it's not the codec that's creating the moire. The moire/aliasing/false color artifacts are created by the sensor and have to do with the specific alignment of the lines being shot vs. the grid of the sensor photosites. In an A/B comparison if that alignment is altered at all...simply changing the camera settings can do so...the moire amount will be altered too. The codec might exaggerate or suppress moire by reducing resolution in a biased manner but ProRes HQ is capable of carrying an awful lot of detail without much bias. One typical approach to resolving this for bayer pattern sensors is having an oversampling sensor with an OLPF, which the original BMCC and the pocket variety do not have.

 

I don't see much difference in moire in those test shots, it's the converging lines image that I care about (the verticals/horizontals are too sensitive to exact alignment to rely on, although they can show how bad things can get) and we don't have straight-from-camera downloads to judge (Why not Andrew? When you do A/B comparisons please give us all the relevant camera settings for reproducibility and straight-from-camera files to download so we actually have something concrete to discuss. Thanks.) so I don't know whether the post-processing on the RAW is changing how apparent the effect is (a color chart like an X-rite passport would be nice to include within the frame when we are evaluating color differences). Purple fringing is a lens artifact and not related to moire, but it can be exaggerated or suppressed by post-processing too.

 

If we wish to present something as scientific evidence of fact then we have to produce it scientifically. I know it's more work and not suave or debonair but it's worth it. Right now I'm not ready to confirm ProRes (Which bitrate of ProRes are we talking about? Also not included in the article. Or even the BMCC "Tech Specs" page. So much for specs.) "makes moire worse." Downsampling can make moire worse, but I consider that a bit different than a codec, even though some codecs will e.g. chroma subsample and that can have an effect.

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Pocket Camera and 4k camera for sure.

 

The other 2 models are redundant at the moment, as I see it, since the EF mount was always a bad choice and the MFT mount still has a weird sized sensor, not allowing for most 16mm cine lenses, and why on earth is it passive? The Pocket camera addresses all these issues, plus it uses standard SD cards and cheap batteries. Another issue is the uncompressed raw, which was addressed by the 4k camera.

 

Also, the price is too close to the 4k model for them to be a good choice at all, maybe slightly cheaper at $2500 they would make a bit more sense... I feel like they listened to their clients and fixed all the main issues of the original camera on the 4K and the Pocket Camera, but the original Cinema Camera is still as lacking as it was before. Now if they only could add audio meters and a file manager...

 

Something I was thinking about though, how can they record uncompressed raw into the SD card on the Pocket Camera? Isn't that impossible at the moment on the 5D3? Is the problem in the 5D3 the SD card controller speed or is it the SD cards' speed in general?

 

Whatever happens though, Blackmagic should add compressed raw to ALL their cameras asap, that's a huge flaw in both the CC and the Pocket Camera at the moment. There's been some contradictory talk of this but nothing clear so far...

 

Anyway, who here will be able to resist the $995 Pocket Cam? :)

 

 

We already know the quality of the Pocket Cam's sensor...it's a moire-ridden, lower-res 1:1 crop of the original cam's sensor.

 

They say that it's a sensor with the same technology but not the same exact sensor, so maybe you should wait and see before having an opinion. The question is still how long you must wait...

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Something I was thinking about though, how can they record uncompressed raw into the SD card on the Pocket Camera? Isn't that impossible at the moment on the 5D3? Is the problem in the 5D3 the SD card controller speed or is it the SD cards' speed in general?

 

They never said anything about uncompressed raw. I've only heard compressed raw somewhere down the line.

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They never said anything about uncompressed raw. I've only heard compressed raw somewhere down the line.

 

You're right, there's been come confusion and different people from Blackmagic have said different things.

That explains how they can write to SD cards then.

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