Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

I've made a good living shooting/producing video, radio and TV-broadcast for the last 15 years.
Now maybe the productions with about 100 000 000 viewers world wide isn't something as fancy as "film", I still think I'm allowed to give my opinion on a forum.

And you do absolutely not have to agree with me in any way.

But please, we have never met, you have no idea about my life nor I of yours. So let's stick to what we know and give opinions based on our self, not others.

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

My first more serious attempt to shoot and edit raw footage, dealing with raw in post is very timeconsuming and I"m not satisfied yet with the output as I noticed very fine aliasing, still need to find out what codec to use when I export from after effects. My workflow was to import the raw dng into after effects and colorcorrect in adobe raw, then export to canopus hqx avi and edit further in Edius, only that export to hqx avi does not seem to work very well, need to find another solution there.

My impression so far shooting with the pocketcam, it is worth shooting in raw for me, I have tried to colorcorrect prores but have a hard time getting good results, in raw however colorcorrecting is much easier but also much more timeconsuming.
The level of control is addictive, there were some very harsh shadow/highlight contrast in my video but I was able to balance that in post, something my GH4 would not allow me to achieve.

Only shooting itself is not exactly fun, I only shot for max 10 seconds per clip to save time in post when I had to render out the footage, I had a loupe with me for the screen yet I had several clips that where not in focus (I let the camera prefocus but I should have used the peaking as well on all shots)
Not being able to tilt the screen makes it impossible for me to shoot from low angles.
I only turned on the camera when I knew what to shoot, took my shot and turned the camera off, in total I managed to get 12 minutes worth of footage on one battery.
Setting exposure is a bit tricky, I used the zebra's set to 95% and just changed exposure until the zebras where gone in the image which worked well for some shots but not so well on others, this can result in getting more noise in your image, will have to experiment more on that.

This is a camera that I only will be using when I have a lot of time to setup, when there is a script so I know exactly what to shoot, when my shots are very short and for occasions where I will be dealing with shots that require a good balance between light and dark, shooting inside building with lots of backlight from windows should be easy for this camera to handle. Now I need ot find the time to figure out a better workflow :)

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

Well done Noa, very nice. On my screen there is a yellowish tint and it is a tad soft as one might expect. Glad that you are enjoying the process. It was definitely worth buying, eh :-)

Cheers...

John

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

Yeah, I did not get the color exactly right but I noticed many bmpcc clips have that yellowish tint, they all probably, just as I, don't know how to colorcorrect :D That tint should be easy to correct though in Edius but I it's not that I dislike the way it is now.

But I have to say, it's not bad for a first serious try, and that it's a bit soft, that's because we all are spoiled with 4K these days.

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

I get that yellowish tint working with ProRes so it comes with the sensor, perhaps, as does the softness. I found sharpening in Vegas Pro worked just fine where it was appropriate. Clearly pin sharp is not always appropriate and I agree; 4k is something else in that regard.

I would go so far as to say for a first attempt it is more than just not bad but in fact is damn good! Lovely subject matter too.

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

I had my wife take a look, she doesn't do video at all but has a canon 60d which she extensively uses for photos, I always show her my personal work and this is the first time she said the color looked weird, I"m going to have another go at it the following days to color correct so it looks more natural.

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

Made some changes, not directly in after effects with adobe raw but shifted the color a bit in Edius and added a bit more punch to the footage, I feel it looks better now.
I"ll go out one of the following days to shoot side by side with my gh4 so I have a better idea how big the difference can be and how much it's worth to shoot in raw, too bad I didn't have my gh4 with me at the time of this shoot, the very first shot of that lady sewing at that table it was very dark where I was standing and the window was very harsh in contrast yet I managed to balance the shadows and highlights pretty well, would like to have seen how my gh4 woud handle such a shot.

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

[QUOTE I feel it looks better now.[/QUOTE]

Totally agree :-)

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

I have to say it's pretty good! Good job!

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

Nice Job, Noa.

Re Workflow:

My understanding is that RawPro4, assuming you have loaded the Cineform codec available with the GoPro Studio app, will convert raw footage to Cineform raw.

I actually have the last Cineform paid for version, but I saw Jake Seagrave indicate that Cineform's raw codec is available with the free GoPro Studio app.

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

Thx :) Chris, would I not loose the easy grading ability with Cineform raw? When I colorcorrect the raw dng's in aftereffects with adobe raw it takes just one click on "auto" to have a good starting point to tweak the image further, it only takes time because you need to correct every single shot in that way and not to mention the very long render times to get a editable file. I have seen that edius will be getting raw support in coming updates but I doubt it will have the same color correction tools like adobe raw has.

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

Noa:

Cineform Raw, like other raw codecs, is designed to preserve the raw benefits of latitude, etc.. With Cineform, after conversion, you can go into Studio and apply a base color correction that essentially carries over in the original file. You can choose a lut, as well as input and output settings, add sharpness and contrast, etc, And, with the original file on a time line in your editor, you can go back to studio, make a further change, or just return the file to its original settings, and it will instantly change in the editor.

On other hand, you can also download and use Davinci Resolve Lite from Black Magic, which is a high end color correction tool.

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

Thx, I tried resolve but it looks to complicated for my use, I do have gopro studio though and will experiment with the cineform raw to see if that works better.

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

Yeah, I agree with the complicated part of Resolve, but I think things will become a bit more familiar in the next version.

I just got an email from Raw4Pro which explains that it now has the Cineform codec free:

"We have received a number of inquiries from people who don't quite believe that RAW 4 PRO v4.4.1 comes with completely FREE CineformRAW.

This is understandable, given the fact that CineformRAW was selling for about $500 for some years.
However it's true - you can get it completely free (no additional charge) with RAW 4 PRO now. We tested CineformRAW output up to 4K.

This is in addition to ProRes on Windows, H264, and DNxHD outputs.
RAW 4 PRO accepts compressed or uncompressed DNG input, as well as JPG timelapse folders. All Blackmagic cameras supported. Odyssey 7Q RAW DNG supported. Reads and syncs D16's AIF audio."

FYI, I was involved in testing early on, but I have no financial interest in Raw4Pro.

Re: Bmpcc sold at 50% discount, is it still worth buying?
 

I think (hope) Chris is right. What puts me off about Resolve is that it doesn't act like a normal PC program - you have to preset the directory you'll use and you can't add clips to the directory while the program is open (you can add them but it won't see them.) It only runs full screen, you can't minimize it (have to completely close it) etc. The actual operation of the program isn't so confusing, just the logistics around getting it running and aiming it at your media. It still smells like a stand alone workstation app, which it was.