New! Blackmagic 2.5K Raw cinema camera!

[Thomas Smet]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

It's not 2.5K resolution, it's 2.5K bayer pixels so the real resolution will be roughly full HD. The BlackMagic sensor is 8.8 mm x 15.6 mm with a 17.9mm diagonal which is a little bigger than super16, so I make the crop factor about 2.5. As your tied to the ZE/EF mount, getting any kind of wide FOV is going to be very hard. A 18mm lens would represent a "standard" lens. For a good wide angle you'll need something in the 8 to 10mm region. Great for wildlife shooters! Sensitivity should be comparable to an EX1 as the pixel size should be pretty similar.

Not sure I agree. A lot of Gh1/GH2 users shoot with Nikon and FD lenses that are 24mm and don't seem to have a lot of trouble. We also are not only shooting wildlife. I've also heard on a much larger thread for the camera that the crop factor may be more like 2.1 or only slightly larger then M4/3. I typically shoot with a M4/3 20mm and find that plenty wide with a crop factor of 2x so I can probably live with it a tiny bit longer. I realize some people like to shoot ultra wide but that is not everybody and this camera has plenty of options of wide shooting. M4/3 users have dealt with this for a couple of years now and it has not been as big of a deal.

If you are a FF shooter then yes the adjustment phase may be awkward but if you are a M4/3 shooter or even a 7D shooter it should be an easy adjustment.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I had missed the battery challenge. For wildlife how do you manage with just one internal battery?

The massive crop factor will help in getting some PoV shots. Recently I was filming a massive salt water crocodile. It is the biggest me or my team has ever seen in our life. I was using the heavy Canon EF 400mm f2.8 L IS USM lens with a 2x II TC. With the BMD I could have got just its teeth.

The other question is how good are its weather sealings? Can I fit it to a boat?

Due to its small sensor size, I am interested in knowing how will be the noise characteristics. Will the footage intercut well with Canon footage or will it stick out like a sore thumb due to the higher noise?

[Aaron Holmes]

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more footage from this camera. If nothing else, it's a reason to wait a little longer to see if this camera's announcement provokes any others. I'd posted this elsewhere, but I definitely agree that the built-in battery is one of the silliest design decisions made here. Leave that stuff for cell phones, please!

Ergonomics are definitely a bit odd, but probably not a deal-breaker for anybody. At $3k, one probably has budgetary room for a rig.

[Mark OConnell]

Originally Posted by Sabyasachi Patra

The other question is how good are its weather sealings? Can I fit it to a boat?

Just from looking at the photos I'd guess you could forget about any weatherizing. Have to wrap it in a raincoat. The crop factor is a plus for wildlife shooters but for me the lack of any overcrank, even to 60p, makes it a no go. Bummer.

[Josh Dahlberg]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

The only advantage M4/3 has is that some of the lenses are cheaper and two lenses at equal focal lengths are a bit faster.

To restate, the m43 lenses are also much smaller and optimised for smaller sensors (which is the whole point of m43). Producing a standard lens for m43 doesn't pose the same difficulties as the wide lens you'll need to obtain equivalent field of view with EF mount.

So for instance, the Panny/Leica 25mm 1.4 is a very small, high quailty prime that would be perfectly matched for this camera as a standard lens.

To match it in EF mount you'll have to buy the vastly more expensive, larger and heavier Canon 24 1.4 (and only use a small portion of a rather pricy optic!).

I'm not disagreeing that you can get by with EF, but the Canons were designed with much larger sensors in mind. m43 is just about bang-in in terms of sensor size optimisation... would have been nice at least as an option.

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

I've also heard on a much larger thread for the camera that the crop factor may be more like 2.1 or only slightly larger then M4/3. I typically shoot with a M4/3 20mm and find that plenty wide with a crop factor of 2x so I can probably live with it a tiny bit longer.

The Gh2 is 1.83 crop in video mode (not so far from APSC @1.6). The BM camera is said to be 2.3, but I agree with the right lens and technique it won't be too challenging to obtain shallow depth of field look if desired.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

EF has a lot of zoom lenses at a constant f2.8. M4/3 does not have a single constant zoom lens and the fastest you can get is f3.5 on the wide end.

There is an excellent Panasonic 7-14mm F/4 zoom which at 7mm is as wide as any lens on any camera that isn't a fish eye (it's around a 14-28mm FF equivalent). There are also two reputedly excellent but expensive Olympus zooms which as far as I know are unique in the camera world as they are constant F/2. They are the 14-35mm & 35-100mm which on M4/3 have an equivalent FoV to a 28-70mm & 70-200mm respectively.

[Jacques Mersereau]

I heard a rumor on the plane home that already 3500 people are in line to purchase it.
Needless to say, had one of the other *known* camera makers come close ($5K) to
matching this kind of price/performance/features, they too would be selling many
thousands. Well, maybe in another year they will.

[Jacques Mersereau]

This is interesting. The Awards for NAB have been announced and BMD won, not for the camera, but for Resolve 8.0 lite. Best Value Award was handed to Lite Panel?!!!

Looks to me that the industry is trying to ignore what is CLEARLY the best value award of the show.
IMO, whomever gives out these awards, or at least the best value award, no longer has any credibility.

Sony, ARRI, HP, Blackmagic Top StudioDaily Prime Awards | Studio Daily

[Nicholas de Kock]

Originally Posted by Sabyasachi Patra

I had missed the battery challenge. For wildlife how do you manage with just one internal battery?

It has a professional 12-14V DC input so any Anton Bauer/ V-Mount battery will give you enough juice to run for days. The internal battery is purely for worse case scenarios if you ask me.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Jacques Mersereau

This is interesting. The Awards for NAB have been announced and BMD won, not for the camera, but for Resolve 8.0 lite. Best Value Award was handed to Lite Panel?!!!

Looks to me that the industry is trying to ignore what is CLEARLY the best value award of the show.
IMO, whomever gives out these awards, or at least the best value award, no longer has any credibility.

Sony, ARRI, HP, Blackmagic Top StudioDaily Prime Awards | Studio Daily

They must have had some criteria that excluded new products because it looks like all the winners are actual shipping products rather than anything newly announced this year.

[Meryem Ersoz]

I finally found a moment to upload a couple of snaps from NAB at the BlackMagic booth.

Shots of the camera with both types of mounts. A shot which illustrates the location of the audio jacks. A shot of a 128gb media card.

I have shots of the menus - I'll post them if you like but they aren't very good - I don't like to post very soft pictures, but I'll do it if someone would find it of value. All I had at NAB was a Flip cam, and it doesn't close focus at all.

I'm not really in the market for new cameras right now, but I love companies, like BlackMagic, who put their best foot forward in every endeavor, so this project has my attention, for that reason.

[Meryem Ersoz]

one more - the display at NAB - just so you can feel as if you were there!

[Tom Miller]

any one else concerned that 470gb or what ever it is only gets you 5 hours! i guess that's the price you pay for 2k

[Evan Donn]

470gb only gets you five hours with ProRes/DNxHD. For the full 2.5k raw you're only looking at about an hour in the same space!

120gb SSDs are available right now at newegg for $99, that gets you nearly 80 minutes of prores - per minute that's about the same as you get with sandisk CF cards for a DSLR.

[Robert Turchick]

Originally Posted by Evan Donn

470gb only gets you five hours with ProRes/DNxHD. For the full 2.5k raw you're only looking at about an hour in the same space!

120gb SSDs are available right now at newegg for $99, that gets you nearly 80 minutes of prores - per minute that's about the same as you get with sandisk CF cards for a DSLR.

Ahhh! And now the real discussion begins! I was curious about the space requirements for raw. I saw the 5hr spec for pro res which is just fine for my needs.
1 hour taking 470gb is a different animal altogether!!
Gonna need my own personal "cloud" of storage for that stuff!

BH is taking pre orders BTW!!