Black Magic Cinema Camera Thoughts *Discussion* Anyone?

[Corey Benoit]

Just wanted to have a little discussion about the black magic camera, since I did not find anything on this site.

From what I have seen, the black magic camera is going to put their boot to canons face. Not only that, it seems as if they have kick RED in gut pretty hard. 2.5k for $3000!

From the raw 13 stops, which is pretty comparable to RED's epic, and one right? I just have been drooling over it!

I was going to save up for either Sony EX1R, pmw350, or Panasonic HPX500. But I always LOVED RED!

HOWEVER, this black magic camera has got me in total shock, I am not sure if I am the only one but I am completely obsessed over it!

I already have 20+ canon lenses, 2 fully built shoulder DSLR rigs, viewfinders, tons of cards, tons of lights and support and custom built MAC monster.

Soooo, I am definitely going to buy it. I just wanted to hear what everyone else thinks. Any thoughts guys??

They need to hurry the hell up and release it!!

[Thomas Wong]

The only thing that i am holding my trigger is the battery life.... I still can't find a solution on how to use it for a day of filming

[Brian Drysdale]

My understanding is that you can use external batteries with the BMC and the internal battery is intended to allow hot swapping of batteries.

[Simon Wood]

There are a few threads here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...omparison.html

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...announced.html

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...ma-camera.html

[Ronald Jackson]

Is there a "Crop Factor", so called? I'm interested in wildlife videoing, so as much magnification as possible please. If, say, a 400mm SLR lens is only "1x" then not much use.
Interchangeable lens 3 chipper, 1/3 or 1/2 I suppose in an ideal world.



Ron

[Corey Benoit]

Originally Posted by Ronald Jackson

Is there a "Crop Factor", so called? I'm interested in wildlife videoing, so as much magnification as possible please. If, say, a 400mm SLR lens is only "1x" then not much use.
Interchangeable lens 3 chipper, 1/3 or 1/2 I suppose in an ideal world.

They make battery packs for like 300 bucks and they last for like 8 straight hours of shooting, and they connect via 1/4 x 20 on the bottom. Same size as the camera also.

Ron

Originally Posted by Thomas Wong

The only thing that i am holding my trigger is the battery life.... I still can't find a solution on how to use it for a day of filming

crop factor is 2.5. If you have a 400mm lens its going to give you a focal length of about 1000mm.

[Jim Michael]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

My understanding is that you can use external batteries with the BMC and the internal battery is intended to allow hot swapping of batteries.

According to a guy who gave a presentation on it a couple of months ago, there is an external power port that goes to the internal batteries and it's a non-locking port. If plug gets pulled power is drawn from the internal and risk of a failure associated with the event was categorized an none, i.e. no voltage interruption resulting in recording interruption provided internal has some capacity.

[Alister Chapman]

Originally Posted by Corey Benoit

crop factor is 2.5. If you have a 400mm lens its going to give you a focal length of about 1000mm.

No, the focal length of the lens will still be 400mm, the focal length of a lens does not change. The field of view will be 2.5x narrower.

[Robert Turchick]

Switronix makes a version of the Powerbase 70 for it now. I would like to see them start shipping the camera!

[Chris Barcellos]

I started this thread, where there has been some discussion on the Camera, as we await its shipping.
Chris Hurd has promised us our own subrforum once the camera is shipping. It has been shipping in a few cases, and is now going to increase, so I hope Chris obliges and provides the new subforum for this exciting entry into the cinema camera race.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/blackmag...us-anyone.html

[Corey Benoit]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

No, the focal length of the lens will still be 400mm, the focal length of a lens does not change. The field of view will be 2.5x narrower.

thus giving an effective length of 1000mm, i have a 7d i am very aware of crop factors.

If i put a 17mm on my canon 7D its effectively 28mm, and if i put 17mm on the BMCC its 42mm.

[Brian Drysdale]

Equivalent field of view to using 1000mm. All this is something people shooting film had to learn when changing between 16mm and 35mm, but you quickly learn to use the equivalent lenses without saying it's a different focal length. Soon you can pick the lens without crop factor stuff, which got even more complex when Super 16 and Super 35 became more common, plus throwing in 2/3".

Saying a different focal length just becomes confusing when used on say a 1/3" camera, some of which used stills equivalent focal lengths on their markings instead of the actual focal length.

Abelcine now have the Black Magic Camera in their field of view comparator. AbelCine - Field of View Calculator

[Shaun Roemich]

Alister is correct. Focal length impacts FAR more than JUST field of view...

[Finn Yarbrough]

Here, you guy can see the crop-factor for yourselves, on a 20-30mm zoom, shot mostly at 20mm:

Brothers (an early BMC adversity test) on Vimeo

And very dark, in ProRes. Even though I'm not thrilled with the noise, I know that very few cameras could have handled that barn as well.