Andrew Reid

Really, how many people bought a 5D or 7D for video? We're not just talking indie filmmakers here Bruno. - Students - Consumers - Hobbyists - Small studios - Indie filmmakers - Freelance journalists - Corporate filmmakers - Music video directors - Hollywood filmmakers - Even Philip Bloom That is a pretty big list from the smallest guy to the very top, a VAST slice of the imaging market. I believe Canon should do their market research and try to realise what they are about to lose. I hope it is giving them sleepless nights. A bit of a fright is the only thing which will get them innovating again, in my opinion they have had it far too easy so far.

You sound positive about the 4K EOS. The problem is I don't [i]need[/i] to spend the $15,000 it may cost and I don't [i]want[/i] to spend it. Since it isn't $3000, the 4K EOS isn't really a Canon DSLR but a commercial industry tool made for Hollywood. I care about price, I really do. Not just because I am a tight arse but for the accessibility and change it brings to the art of cinematography and I will continue to champion that cause, and live by what I write. For paid jobs - all that is moot of course. Who cares about the cultural stuff and accessibility when you just want to deliver for a client? However $15,000 for a camera with no 25p, articulated screen or peaking is a lot of dosh. For that much money it needs to be practical, available, cost effective and a good image. So far the 4K EOS ticks only one of those boxes and that box has some disclaimer about being MJPEG and 8bit! Then there is a further question - do I even need 4K yet? Right now 4K is for the future. If I was gunning for an immediately cinema release on the big screen, and I'd spent $250,000 on my content it would be silly not to get the best camera I could afford. So the 4K EOS might well be that camera in its finished state. I certainly wasn't blown away by the prototype's image last time I looked though. As you said - even the 5D2 is good enough for a theatre screening. DSLRs looks good in an actual cinema. Surprisingly a 65 foot screen is far less demanding on the viewer and per pixel perfection than a sharp monitor on your desk, eyeballed up close, peeping at each individual pixel. Projection is softer. You cannot see a visible pixel pitch. The viewer doesn't notice the flaws in a theatre screening as much. But if you showed them two images side by side, raw 12bit and 2.5K vs the 5D2 would be a no contest in the cinema. The raw image would look even better and by a considerable margin. Besides, a cinema screening is not my immediate aim in 2012. My immediate aim is your 2.5K display right, or your laptop screen, or your television. Many of us have a far better chance of becoming better known via putting our work online. My audience at the moment simply don't have the displays to view my work in 4K. If the audience can't see it, what is the point? I'm still not convinced the 4K EOS will have much going for it at $15,000 relative to the competition when it eventually comes out. Everything else about it apart from 4K resolution (and it doesn't come close to real 4K resolution from what I've seen) is sub-par compared to the best of the competition. Sony have full frame camcorders on the way. They have the A99 as well. Under $3000. Blackmagic have this cinema camera you may have heard of. And I don't yet need 4K, and it is probably rather soft 4K which is probably more like 2.5K in reality so not exactly a USP. My $15,000 is safe for the time being, the lower priced options are just TOO DAMNED GOOD!

Get an Iscorama. They kill the focussing barrel on the prime and you focus with the anamorphic. Zero breathing. And 16:9 is for television anyway :) Remember the sensor is larger than Super 16mm, if you put a Zeiss S16 cinema lens on the Blackmagic it will vignette.

[media]http://vimeo.com/48091268[/media] Shipping in 'a sizeable volume' of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera is due to start in 1-2 weeks time. In addition, Dan Chung reports, new features such as a double-tap punch-in focus assist and ISO 200 have been added.

You can guarantee that when Blackmagic discover that pot of gold, Canon will jump in and attempt to copy them and grab a share of the market. Where innovation leads the way, a corporate giant follows. You are damned right they have a risk aversion. They probably even have an entire risk assessment department! I have been telling Canon via this blog for 2 years that they are not making the best of the golden opportunity they landed as backwards in with the 5D Mark II. If they think hiving it off to Cinema EOS is making the most of the opportunity, they are wrong. A mass market price point makes waves. They will have to take a hit eventually, either in their margins or market share.

Before that we had small chip or very PITA 35mm adapters. Indeed it is all about balance. Small chip is too deep, gives you no creative control, full frame is abused. It is like anything in film, known how to use it, know when to use it - judgement is key. If your actor is going constantly in and out of focus and your location is always a bland creamy one-tone background it looks rubbish. Gale Tattersall on House knew how to make use of a full frame sensor and extremely shallow depth of field in the framing of peoples eyes (showing the emotiveness of their eyes) and small interior spaces in low light. Many filmmakers, Orson Wells for example with Citizen Kane knew how to use a deep depth of field where it was most appropriate. It isn't one style which is better than the other, it is about having the choice and assigning them correctly. I am glad we have the choice. The people who give DSLRs a bad name by shooting poor work with them should not detract from this.

I'm happy the DSLR community has had this [i]opportunity[/i] to wake up from compressed footage, you forget we had no choice for under what it cost for a Red!

I agree the 5D3 (and 1D X for that matter) are nowhere near AND they cost more. It has been such a relief to be liberated from Canon's let downs by other companies which have chosen to keep a good thing going, unlike the ones who started it all with the 5D Mark II under $3000. - 5D3 is 720p at best. It is nowhere near a 1080p camera let alone 2.5k - The codec has tons of mosquito noise in the lows and mids - The 8 bit codec has banding and stepped gradation - The fall off from highlights is sudden and not smooth - In the shadows, when you boost the black levels they fall apart - The image is noisy even at base ISO because of the poor compression engine - The sensor still skips too much data - Colour sampling is only 4-2-0 - The mirror gets in the way of my lenses - can't use anamorphic OCT 19 on it - If you get your exposure or picture profile wrong at time of shooting you can't fix it later - The noise grain is blotchy - At high ISOs there's even less detail even with high ISO noise reduction on minimal Great stills camera though. I honestly feel the Canon DSLR era is now official at an end. Unless they can find a way to jump start it quick.

[color=#333333][font=Helvetica, arial, sans-serif][left]I was running the beta, maybe that could have something to do with it.[/left][/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Helvetica, arial, sans-serif][left]Here are my specs for the curious. It's only a Macbook Pro 17" but a high end one[/left][/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Helvetica, arial, sans-serif][left]Quad 2.2GHz Core i7[/left][/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Helvetica, arial, sans-serif][left]Radeon HD 6750M 1GB[/left][/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Helvetica, arial, sans-serif][left]OCW 256GB SSD 6G (550MB read, 525MB write)[/left][/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Helvetica, arial, sans-serif][left]8GB RAM[/left][/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Helvetica, arial, sans-serif][left]Thunderbolt[/left][/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Helvetica, arial, sans-serif][left]OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion[/left][/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Helvetica, arial, sans-serif][left]Professionally, Resolve isn't really designed to be run on laptops, is it? So I'll be using a AE / Premiere workflow as a stop gap before possibly upgrading to a dedicated workstation for Blackmagic Cinema Camera projects.[/left][/font][/color]

With grain this fine at 2.5k raw, running Neat Video if you want a smoother look is no problem. Detail will be intact unlike at high ISOs on a DSLR. The C300 also has nice fine grain but 50Mbit 8bit has its limits versus mighty 12bit raw with 13 stops of DR. C300 has archival advantages and is good for people doing commercial jobs in a tight time frame though, with a lot of Canon glass. Archiving 5 years worth of raw footage if you shoot a job a week is going to be costly in storage and physical space to store the drives on shelves. HurtinMinorKey did you watch the footage on a 2.5K display? Makes a huge difference over 1080p.

I'm early in my Resolve adventure but it was impressive at first glances. However I don't get smooth playback of CinemaDNG in it.

I've seen the original files straight off the camera many times. The BMD looks better in my opinion. More film like and 12bit.

The C300 is good. But it just doesn't excite me. We're looking beyond an industry tool with the Blackmagic and DSLRs. It is changing filmmakers, especially aspiring ones and newcomers. The C300 is just a good 1080p cam. Anyway, why pay $15,000 for an 8bit MPEG camera when you can now get this kind of 12bit raw for $3000? If image quality is a priority (under ISO 1600) I'd go for the Blackmagic based on the footage I have witnesses from both that and the C300. The BMD is more filmic. It's raw. End of story.

When you consider how films are actually shot, extreme shallow depth of field and fast wide angle are gimmicks. I actually am starting to find too much bokeh distracting. It was nice to have when the 5D Mark II came out 3 years ago. We've moved on. Besides the sensor in the Blackmagic is hardly what you'd call small chip.

http://vimeo.com/48085024 IMPORTANT: On the Vimeo page for this clip, click download to get the 2.5K 80Mbit clip. Don't bother watching it full screen from the stream, it is a pale imitation of the full 2.5k file. I've been experimenting today with Blackmagic Cinema Camera workflows. I use Adobe Premiere as my main NLE. I am not an FX guy so rarely use After Effects. But it comes in very handy here. Premiere cannot yet edit the CinemaDNG files natively, performance is very limited, it interprets the footage at 1fps, requiring you to fix this for every clip and image quality suffers greatly, possibly because it doesn't allow you to edit in glorious 12bit. Here's the solution that's working best for me...

[quote name='jcs' timestamp='1345654901' post='16225'] Yes- how about a resolution chart shot? Then we can compare apples to apples. [/quote] A chart will not allow you to compare apples to apples, the 5D Mark III does not have 12bit raw. It isn't 4-4-4 1080p. It is downsampling from a 22MP sensor and skipping so much info. If you want to compare apples to apples, wait for my Blackmagic vs Alexa test in a few weeks.

Also comparing this to the C300 is not apples to apples. $3000 vs $15,000.

[quote name='nigelbb' timestamp='1345715976' post='16276'] In the blog entry Andrew in fact wrote "Resolution is superb. Best I have ever seen for the price. Better than the C300 and better than the GH2." I seriously doubt that BMCC has better resolution than the C300. [/quote] [img]http://www.eoshd.com/comments/uploads/inline/1/50362bc9bef44_bmd11cropres.jpg[/img] This is a 1:1 pixel peeping crop of 2.5k raw with no sharpening applied. 2400x1350. The C300 has a similar level of resolution to the GH2, around 900 lines. This looks more like 1100 lines. What gives you the idea that any 1080p camera exceeds that?

I don't understand this request for charts and facts when the evidence is staring one in the face. The colour red is red, does JCS also need a chart to prove that too?

Are you serious!?

Nice grades by Sam Morgan Moore here 'The file that can go a mile' http://www.sammorganmoore.com/backlot/the-file-that-can-go-a-mile

I've taken some time to grade John's raw files here http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/1168-eoshd-grades-the-blackmagic-camera-raw-cinemadng-files/

http://vimeo.com/47933090 Don't forget to head over to John's site and have a go at grading the raw CinemaDNG frames as well. [url="http://johnbrawley.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/afterglow-dngs-are-out-in-the-wild/"]Download the DNG file clips from John Brawley[/url]

[img]http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/bmd-one-660px.jpg[/img] Above: my first go at grading the Blackmagic Cinema Camera raw output The above frame is scaled to 660 pixels wide for the blog. [url="http://www.eoshd.com/uploads/bmd-one.jpg"]Click here[/url] to view the full 2400 x 1350 frame in your browser and another full frame [url="http://www.eoshd.com/uploads/bmd-pale-skin.jpg"]here[/url] John Brawley and Blackmagic Design today released the first raw DNG files from the camera. Here's my take on how the raw camera stands up.

[quote name='rungvang' timestamp='1345646247' post='16210'] Well, it doesn't suprise me since China can copy or fake pretty much everything with a cheap price and decent quality [/quote] This doesn't give them enough credit I'm afraid. The technical expertise and talent you need to build a cinema camera like this is extraordinarily high. They didn't just order everything from Germany, or copy some white paper by Arri.