TC

@cameraboy Apologies if I have made a mistake.  Let me take a look at all the new links flying around, seems I am behind the times.  If it is truly 88db of dynamic range, that is very good news indeed.

Signal to noise ratio of the Mysterium X sensor in the Red Epic and Scarlet is listed as 66 db. [url=http://www.red.com/store/products/epic-m-collection]http://www.red.com/store/products/epic-m-collection[/url] - click on tech specs Signal to noise ratio of the sCMOS sensor is listed as 16000:1, which in decibels is 10 log (16000) = 42 db. [url=http://www.scmos.com/]http://www.scmos.com/[/url] Where does the 88db figure come from that everyone is quoting?  Alarmingly, the sCMOS sensor seems to be from 2009.

[quote author=moebius22 link=topic=613.msg4399#msg4399 date=1334886943] The internal battery is wrong headed and a problem. [/quote] Agreed.  Two bad design decisions with this camera: internal battery and EOS mount.  Everything else is all we could hope for (and more) at $3000.

[quote author=Rinaldo link=topic=613.msg4379#msg4379 date=1334871920] What I don't understand is WHY THE HELL they included that bizarre tube for the lens mount, instead of making a lot shorter lens-to-sensor distance, allowing us to use MUCH MORE avalilable lenses.... WHY WHY?!?!??  :-[ [/quote] Agreed!  So many good design decisions with this camera, this is not one of them.  Not only do we have a big empty tube sticking out the camera, we will also have big heavy wide angle lenses on the thing, lenses made big and heavy by their retrofocus design due to the mirror in the SLRs for which they are made.  But there is no mirror in this thing.  It is silly.

[quote author=johnbauerphoto link=topic=613.msg4336#msg4336 date=1334840258] What kind of processing power do you think will be needed to properly work with the camera's files especially the DNG RAWs. [/quote] In video encoding you have a trade-off between processing power and hard disk speed.  If you leave the video uncompressed your processor has very little work to do, but you need a very big and very fast hard drive.  If you compress the video heavily, your processor has to work hard, but the hard disk doesn't.  So the raw from the Blackmagic cam is the first of these - processing power should not be an issue, but storage speed and capacity will be.

[quote author=Simco123 link=topic=613.msg4335#msg4335 date=1334840021] Canon, Nikon, Sony and Panasonic are not daft ... that is why they refuse to charge a big premium for video features on dSLR. [/quote] Have you been following the news in recent weeks?  What is the $8k mark up on the 1D C over the 1D X, if not a (very) big premium for video features?  Check Westfall was interviewed at NAB and asked why the 1D C was so much more expensive.  Apart from the headphone jack his answer listed only firmware features.

[quote author=popalock link=topic=613.msg4328#msg4328 date=1334836272] Camera hardware specs aside, keep an eye out on what they do with the software - that's where things might get real interesting.. [/quote] Yep, Resolve 9 now includes a 'Conform' tab where you can edit clips and also renders out audio.  It is within a hair's breadth of being a full linear editor.  Blackmagic are not only taking on Canon, Sony and Panasonic.  They are taking on Apple, Adobe and Avid too. 

Let's hope that this time next year we are long past worrying about whether Canon will throw us a bone and give us 1080p60 and are instead anticipating the Atomos Shogun Super35 Cam, the Convergent Design Scorpio 4K camera and the Matrox IrisCine SuperSlowmo Cam.  All shooting raw, Cineform, Prores or DNx to 2.5" SSDs.  And all less than $5k.

Great post.  The business practices of companies such as Sony, Canon and Panasonic have worked to the detriment of consumers for a long time.  But fortunately a few enterprising companies have woken up to this fact.  Not only can smaller companies compete, they can better the giants in so many ways.  The price gouging, crippling, and artificial market segmentation of the big companies to protect their vested interests has left a gap in the market so wide you can drive a bus through it.  And think about this too: in an interview at NAB Blackmagic said they developed this camera in a year.  One year.  And this company has never even made a camera before.  Compare that to the four years the Canon spent doing nothing but adding ISO 100,000 and a headphone jack to the 5D mark II.  Canon, the largest camera manufacturer in the world.  I think Blackmagic's move will wake up a lot of other small companies with similar expertise: AJA, Atomos, Matrox, Convergent Design to name but a few.  The next year is going to be very interesting indeed.

Nikon have just released the D3200 with Sony's superb 24 megapixel APS-C sensor.  Not sure whether the HDMI output is clean - press release is a bit vague.  Price: $700.

[quote author=cameraboy link=topic=579.msg3954#msg3954 date=1334403545] re-write the firmware from scratch is almost impossible task without sdk ... [/quote] Yeah, I suspect as much myself.  Well, we can but hope. 

[quote author=nightvision link=topic=579.msg3952#msg3952 date=1334396082] What is so darn difficult about a small stealthy dual use stills/ video cam with true 1080P, 4:2:2 and no digital artefacts? I don't expect that much given the fact the technology is there. [/quote] The 5D mark III is more than capable of giving us that from a hardware point of view.  That's the frustrating thing - the camera we all want is on the market right now.  But the functionality has not been unlocked because Canon wants to protect a few thousand sales of 1D C cameras to Hollywood.  I wonder if the Magic Lantern project could go even further?  Instead of hacking the existing firmware and adding features, changing a few parameters in Canon's code, would it be possible just to re-write the firmware from scratch? 

I wonder if Canon HQ is aware of the overwhelmingly negative reaction to their recent product announcements, crippling-by-design, pricing and release timing?  OK, some people are happy with the 5D3.  But not just on this forum, but everywhere you look on the net people who are serious about video are talking about ditching Canon and buying cameras from Sony, Red or Panasonic.  And these are often people who were brought into video by the 5D mark II.  ie. Canon customers.  In the stills world many product, food, architectural and landscape photographers (who don't care about shooting at ISO 102,000) are switching to the D800. I have already sold two Canon cameras and one lens since the 5D3 was announced.  And I have another boxed up on the floor waiting to go out the door.  Will the message get through to the suits in head office?

@Per Lichtman.  Interesting posts as always, thank you.  And, yes, Apple have been able to command a higher margin with good design.  But that is not what Canon is doing.  Canon is trying to demand a higher margin by artificially limiting the hardware they are selling you.  And that is what annoys people.  Compare the 1D X/C and the new iPad.  If Apple followed Canon's approach, they would release the new iPad for $500 to match the iPad 2.  But it would have the retina display limited to 1024x768 in software.  They would then release the new iPad PRO 3 months later for $1500 with the Retina display fully unlocked.  This is what Canon is doing.  This is why I and others are so angry. 

It's almost like we are at the dawn of the age of computing.  But, after the early success of the Apple I and II, the Macintosh is released in 1984 with a price of $10,000 (not $2,000 as actually happened) targeted at enterprise users.  Apple also released a 'prosumer' version, with identical hardware but called the Apple II mark III which had a deliberately blurry display and a large red dot permanently displayed in the corner of the screen.  Also, although the processor was capable of operating at 8Mhz, the Apple II mark III included a special system BIOS which ensured that 3 out of every 4 processor cycles went unused. "This kind of computing power has always cost at least $10k" explained Steve Jobs on release of the Macintosh.  "We don't want to revolutionize the world of personal computing, we want to defend that price point.  Our margin on the Apple II was 40%.  With the Macintosh selling at $10k it is 800%.  As technology continues to improve we will defend our pricing structure and see our margins increase further."

I wonder if it will have deliberately soft 4k output to protect the C500.  That would only be fair, right?  5D mark III owners have to suffer deliberately soft 1080p output to protect the C300.

[quote author=cameraboy link=topic=572.msg3805#msg3805 date=1334241708] at least  we know full power of digic 5 sensor .... [/quote] Exactly.  As if it wasn't obvious already, this makes it very clear that the output of the 5D mark III is deliberately crippled (softened) by the firmware.  If the Digic 5 can even do 4k of course it can do sharp 1080p (at 60fps too).  We can categorically state that the limitations of the video mode on the 5D mark III are not hardware related.  That is what annoys people.  The 5D mark III is (in terms of hardware) everything we wanted it to be.  But Canon have f*cked it up because they want to charge us $15k for clean 1080p. 

At least we know how much Canon want for a clean HDMI out.  $15k.  But only 8 bit, though. "External Recording & Monitoring. The EOS-1D C is capable of simultaneously recording 4K or Full HD to on-board CF cards and outputting a clean Uncompressed, 8-bit 4:2:2 Clean HD signal over HDMI for external recording." [url=http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2012/eos_1d_c_4k_cinema_camera.shtml?categoryId=22]http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2012/eos_1d_c_4k_cinema_camera.shtml?categoryId=22[/url]

Have you ever known a company more cynical?  The 1D C is basically another $8k for a firmware upgrade and a headphone jack on top of the $7k 1D X. 

Yet another recording format?  With the patents held by Canon?  Is that really what this industry needs?  The video world is a mess of competing file formats, frame rates, gamma values, colour spaces, frame sizes, compression algorithms and more. We need a set of open standards suitable for capture, edit and broadcast, agreed internationally and available for all to use without having to pay royalties. 

I just contradicted myself within the space of three sentences in my last post.  Feel free to ignore me.  I'll stop writing now before I make more of a fool of myself.

[quote author=jaybirch link=topic=548.msg3600#msg3600 date=1333981325] Propriety hardware might seem like a rip off, but it is built for a reason. Reliability.... [/quote] Jay, I've never used P2, no.  But in terms of solid state memory reliability I would rather trust a specialist manufacturer like SanDisk, Lexar or Intel than a generalist such as Panasonic.  In my experience solid state devices from the Japanese giants are more expensive and slower than the equivalent from the specialists.  Can't speak for reliability, I haven't had a single solid state memory card or SSD fail from any manufacturer (touches wood).  Anyway, don't want to argue with you, thanks for the input and happy shooting! [Edit]Plus I am philosophically against proprietary formats.  But you've probably guessed that already.

[quote author=jaybirch link=topic=548.msg3595#msg3595 date=1333976971] Hopefully 128GB and 256GB P2 cards at reasonable prices too. ($900 and $1600?) [/quote] That doesn't sound so reasonable to me.  You can buy a 240GB Intel 520 series SSD (just released, 6Gb/s performance) for about $300. 

Yep, it is official and will be here in June, just two months away.  Last week I commented here that Canon should have priced the C300 at $8000 and released a 4k camera at the $16000 mark.  Well, I was totally wrong.  Now $5k looks too much for the C300 and they need to release a 4k res camera for $8000 which can also shoot super slowmo.  Sony have shown us just how outrageous Canon's price gouging really is.

I am rather astonished by this.  Agree with FastFisher and this would be better tackled from the software (firmware) side.  The width of a physical pixel on the 5d III is 6.25 microns.  So the anti-aliasing filter will introduce a blur on this length scale to prevent aliasing in stills.  Probably a blur of around 3-5 microns.  The pixel pitch for HD video on a full frame sensor is 19 microns.  So the anti-aliasing filter should really not be having a big impact on the video image.  However, I have just looked at James's video and the footage with the filter removed is some of the cleanest and sharpest HD video I have ever seen.  Amazing.