Michael1

It looks pretty good, but I'm not really seeing the wide DR here, at least not by Blackmagic standards. Michael

Why not Windows 8? I've converted two of mine to Windows 8, and have installed a lot of Windows 8 machines. I noticed an immediate speed improvement. Michael

DxOMark is only for stills, not video. Michael

What about wide angle? Michael

A few pre-production videos are starting to surface. My initial impressions are the GH4 doesn't look as cinematic as the BMPC, and the flesh tone colors look slightly unnatural. Michael

For editing home movies, I would get something like Cyberlink PowerDirector. It supports 4K, and you can't beat the price (under $100) for what it does. For playing back 4K, I would connect your PC with a good NVidia card installed to your TV's HDMI port. The computer will automatically scale it down to 1080p. Michael

That's not a very high shutter speed for capturing clear stills of sports or other fast action - not in the stills world anyway. I have yet to see high quality stills from video that would be comparable to what you would get from a high quality, modern DSLR. I'm keeping an open mind, though, so if someone can post some along with the video they were grabbed from (so we can see the video wasn't completely compromised to grab stills), that would be great. Michael

I don't see how this is possible, given the slow shutter speeds. Here is their take on it with a 5K EPIC at 120 fps raw. http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2012/05/15/is-it-time-to-eliminate-stills-from-your-shoot/ Michael

When you can buy a 4K cell phone, but not a 4K DSLR, something is seriously wrong. The camera market tanked in 2013. It's really simple. The camera companies are not innovating. You can't keep selling the same old thing year after year, and expect people to buy it. Michael

All the reports of hot pixels is concerning to me. Some report they are bad enough to see them during daytime shots. Michael

If I can get a $99 Nokia Lumia 1020 smartphone with a 41MP sensor, the camera companies have really run out excuses. What are people supposed to do? If someone has a $6000 Nikon, but needs to shoot some video, are they supposed to then get out their $99 smartphone??? This is why camera sales are in the toilet. These people really need to get off their butts. Michael

The world has moved on, and Nikon hasn't. The days when most people wanted just a still camera or just a video camera are over. The public has seen that a cell phone can take stills AND video. People don't want to carry around two cameras. They just don't. Putting out a camera at this price level with crude video, equivalent to a Flip video camera, is like putting an 8 track tape player in a modern luxury car. It makes no sense. Michael

This is the review I have been waiting anxiously for, checking back every day! It did not disappoint. It's a great balanced review, covering the pros and cons, as well as, the best applications for this camera. Thanks, Andrew! It appears Blackmagic again came up with a camera that is unmatched for a filmic look in this price range, and quite a bit above its price. I really love the look of the footage. As Andrew points out, though, there is a heavy price to pay for using this camera beyond the purchase price, that will have to be weighed by the potential purchaser. Michael

Pulling stills from video would be great, but I see several problems: 1) Slow shutter speeds, creating blur with any movement. 2) Rolling shutter on cameras without a global shutter. 3) Color subsampling - much more color information in a 36MP still than a 8MP video frame. 4) Lower dynamic range Look at a 4K video, even the demo samples from Sony and Panasonic, which look incredibly sharp when played back. Then stop it on a frame. Suddenly, the still images really don't look anything close to what you would get from a good still. Here is an article about some guys who took 5K EPIC cameras shooting at 120 fps on a commercial video shoot of a ski movie, and pulled stills from the raw video. http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2012/05/15/is-it-time-to-eliminate-stills-from-your-shoot/ The results? The video sensors, while amazing for video, can't match those of a good DSLR for stills. The second factor was motion blur due to the slow shutter speeds. The third factor was the autofocus can't match a good DSLR. Could it get there at some point? With enough engineering, yes. That depends on how determined camera manufacturers are at producing cameras that allow the user to pull high quality stills from video. I don't think it is on their radar yet, though. Michael

I would wait. Not only may there be new cameras, but there appear to be quality problems with the BMPC (bands and lines running through images). Also the firmware is not done yet (no raw). To me, the camera still appears to be in beta. Michael

The BMPC is a fair amount smaller than full frame. The BMPC sensor has one third the area of full frame. This video looks good to me. It doesn't sound like full frame is for you, but many people like it. On the other extreme, some people are best off with a camcorder. Different cameras for different people, otherwise, we would all be buying the same one. Sounds like you got just the right camera for you. Michael

There are some complaints about low light performance. Even BlackMagic says the BMPC is not for low light shooting, and that sensor is bigger than MFT. That's not to take away from their top notch well lit images. I think we are all on here to see about moving on from "good" looking images to "great" looking images. Full frame has its advantages in low light, especially with a fast f1.4 lens.

As you said, the consumer is not the focus of the site. However, if you are on the market for more of a prosumer camera, and you really want to learn the ins and out of cinematography and the equipment (not just point and shoot), then you can still get some tips here with thorough reading. Michael

I am hoping that in the not too distant future moire and aliasing will be behind us, with higher resolution sensors, and on board processors capable of full sensor processing. Michael

So what you are saying is you want a full frame sensor, and a lot of bokeh. :D Michael

Shooting raw does not get rid of moire and aliasing. It just means the sensor data is not compressed. The only want to get rid of it is to oversample a high megapixel sensor, use three chips, or under-sample the sensor in luminance (blur the image).. Michael

It's nice to see Panasonic come up with a new codec. The data rates on 4K are getting ridiculous. Think about 880 Kbps ProRes. That's 110 Megabytes PER SECOND! That's huge! I was doing a little reading about H.264 recently, and the new features support 444, 422, and 10 bit. Microsoft also added these codecs to Windows 8.1.

The D5300 with its APS-C sensor appears be the exception to this. Nikon has somehow figured this out, because the D5300 seems to have zilch moire and aliasing, while retaining a sharp image. Michael

This would be partially correct. The data is usually 8 bit, and it has gone through the debayer, so it is color sampled down to 422 or 420, whatever the camera supports. What it hasn't done is gone through h.264 compression. Here's Andrew's take on external recorders with the D5200 compared to the BMCC. http://www.eoshd.com/content/9730/prores-vs-prores-a-first-look-at-uncompressed-hdmi-with-the-nikon-d5200-vs-the-blackmagic-cinema-camera Michael

How's the built-in audio on the D5300? Cinema5D said there was a lot of hiss on theirs. Michael