It’s been interesting to watch the response to this camera. 9 days after NAB, the thread about it on the EOSHD Forum has amassed over 92,000 views which equates to 10,000 a day for a single forum post. That’s the most enthusiastic response to any camera release in the history of EOSHD going back 8 years. People want RAW recording – and they want it for cheap.
It begs the question of Panasonic and Sony in particular – why are you not implementing raw and ProRes on cameras like the GH5S and A7S? And it is not just about the codec. It is the 3D LUT support in-camera and the ability to bake those into your images rather than bend some picture profile settings to your liking. It is about sharing these settings online (in the form of LUTs) for in-camera recording as well as post. It is about Resolve 15 becoming a real alternative to Adobe and Apple, in a market where competition is much needed due to the iffy direction of the established leading products.
Now just 2 weeks after NAB the Blackmagic Pocket 4K thread has 105,000 views on the EOSHD forum. How does this level of interest compare to other models? The Panasonic GH5 has had a sticky headline thread on the forum since January 2017 – a run of 1 year and 4 months. 336,000 views. So in just 14 days, Blackmagic already has a third of the interest garnered by one of market leaders over a period of 500 days. Let’s compare it to other similar recent releases like the Fuji X-H1. This also has a 70+ page thread on the EOSHD forum (Blackmagic Pocket 4K now goes to over 82 pages) and has been a constantly discussed presence since early February this year. 87,162 views is pretty good in under 3 months – but the Blackmagic achieved that number in 8 days.
The subject of raw video on the Canon 5D Mark III by Magic Lantern garnered 136,000 views on the EOSHD forum… but that’s since 2013. Hard to believe that is 5 years ago now! The other most popular topics have been the Panasonic GX85 (278,000), Sony A6000 (164,508), Sony A6300 (133,000) – all affordable models. The Fuji X-T2 (114,000) also did well. It goes without saying these have been around a lot longer than 2 weeks though!! Compared to another camera only just released in the past month – the popular Sony A7 III – that post on the forum numbers in the region of 50,000 hits – half of the Blackmagic.
All I can say is… Well done Blackmagic. You are on to something.
The others must follow suit.
