Close Menu
    EOSHD Shooter’s Guides
    • New EOSHD Pro Color 5 is out now, for all Sony mirrorless cameras including the A7S III!
    • EOSHD C-LOG and Film Simulation Picture Profiles for Canon
    X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube
    X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube
    EOSHD.com – Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews
    STORE
    • Forum
    • YouTube
    • Instagram
    • 𝕏
    • PRO COLOR 5
    • EOSHD C-LOG
    • Store
      • The EOSHD 5D Mark III 3.5K RAW Shooter’s Guide
      • The EOSHD 50D Raw Shooter’s Guide
      • The EOSHD Anamorphic Shooter’s Guide 2nd Edition
      • The EOSHD Sony A7 Series Shooter’s Guide to Full Frame Lenses
      • The EOSHD Panasonic GH4 Shooter’s Guide
      • The EOSHD Panasonic GH3 Shooter’s Guide
      • The EOSHD Panasonic GH2 Shooter’s Guide
      • The EOSHD Sony A7R II Setup Guide
      • The EOSHD Samsung NX1 Setup Guide
    • Cart
    • Contact
    • More
      • EOSHD Reviews
      • EOSHD Cinematography
      • About EOSHD / Andrew Reid
      • Blog RSS Feed
      • Facebook
    EOSHD.com – Filmmaking Gear and Camera Reviews
    You are at:Home » Grant Petty reveals origins of Blackmagic cameras (concept was offered to major manufacturers)

    Grant Petty reveals origins of Blackmagic cameras (concept was offered to major manufacturers)

    Andrew Reid (EOSHD)By Andrew Reid (EOSHD)December 5, 2013 News 4 Mins Read

    bmcc-iscorama

    Blackmagic CEO Grant Petty has revealed he approached camera manufacturers in 2011 with the idea of producing a DSLR-style model with high dynamic range and increased video quality but was turned down.

    “They don’t care about the product. Their only goal is to extract as much from the business as they can. It’s incredibly short-termist, and greedy”.

    I agree 100% entirely with Petty here. In my view, rather than moving the industry forwards with timely technological advancements, Canon, Sony and others are playing a short-term profit taking game. 2013 has been a particularly grey year for Canon, with no new interesting Cinema EOS or DSLR models to be released, the company ended the year with two cynical marketing attempts – a white 100D for the Christmas market and a Asia-only barely improved EOS M2 sequel to their poorly performing mirrorless camera. This in a year when Sony brought the 36MP full frame A7R mirrorless camera to the table and Blackmagic offered a 4K cinema camera for $3995.

    In approaching the camera manufacturers in 2011 with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera concept, Petty said he was beaten back.

    “They wanted to do their own thing. So we had to do it ourselves.”

    “I’m stunned at what is wrong with companies when we acquire them and we can examine them internally. There are so many pressures on businesses just to be bland, never to take a risk.”

    “We’ve never taken any outside investment at Blackmagic and we have no debt. As soon as companies do that they are beholden to a new master.”

    4K camera shipping soon

    Blackmagic themselves have taken a lot of criticism, for delays and short supply of cameras but when you stand back as an observer to look at what they’ve done, I think it’s a monumental achievement.

    “What’s healthy is feeling you did something rather than just sat in meetings all day”

    “We are not psychotic about making money at all costs or hardcore sales. We are unashamedly geeky. We want to be friendly and be of service.”

    In the feature at TVBEurope, Petty describes his company as having a “healthy work ethic”, with only 350 employees, and until recently Petty himself was involved with every aspect of every product even writing his own marketing copy.

    “My job is to bind it all together and set the culture. I wish I could do more. I don’t have any grand vision and I’m surprised and delighted when it works. When we announce something that surprises the market at a trade show, it’s often because we ourselves have only made the decision to go for it a couple days earlier.”

    And obviously that has implications for the timeliness of their launches sometimes, but it’s still an approach that does more for me as a customer than almost any other company.

    Petty continues…

    “You get really nervous when you do something creative because you can get it utterly wrong. Sometimes I’ll have an idea and I can’t sleep for weeks, wondering if it will work and if we can get it out the door before someone else does. I constantly feel we are not good enough, that there are so many thing sot fix, and not enough time. But I am overwhelmed and grateful that people like what we do.”

    As Blackmagic will discover soon enough (as Apple did under Jobs) – if you genuinely set about to change the world, profit begins to flow naturally as a consequence of that, rather than as a consequence of pure profit-chasing.

    Of course not every company thats sets out to innovate and change the way we use technology succeeds.

    But if one company deserves to it’s Blackmagic.

    blackmagic bmcc cinema camera grant petty interview pocket camera
    Andrew Reid (EOSHD)
    • Website

    British filmmaker and editor of EOSHD. On this blog I share my creative and technical knowledge as I shoot.

    Related Posts

    Camera prices – Have the Japanese taken leave of their senses?

    Read More

    What to expect from Nikon’s first RED mirrorless camera, the Nikon Zr

    Read More

    The Panasonic S1 II pricing is wrong – so is the entire product strategy

    Read More

    EOSHD Pro Color 5 for All Sony cameras

    EOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles for All Canon DSLRs

    EOSHD Z-LOG for Nikon cameras

    Articles by category
    • Anamorphic
    • Featured
    • Filmmaking
    • Interview
    • Lens
    • News
    • Opinion
    • RAW Video
    • Reviews
    • Rumors
    • Satire/Opinion
    • Shooter's Guides / LUTs / Colour Profiles
    • YouTube
    Blog post archives
    • Instagram
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
    © 2025 Andrew Reid / EOSHD

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.