We recorded perhaps 10 minutes for the first scene before switching to a SanDisk Extreme 480 GB SSD that I own.
That card would hold about 15 minutes of raw footage.
My test camera came with a Kingston 120 GB SSD, qualified by Blackmagic for raw recording. I decided to test this time in some actual video production, and connected with Josh Apter at the Manhattan Edit Workshop and Peter Olsen, DP, who were working on a project. The camera’s internal battery is rated for 90 minutes of use between charges and there’s a connector for AC power or external batteries.įar too often I end up testing cameras by shooting sleeping cats, skittish squirrels and the like. I/O ports include BNC SDI out, Thunderbolt, headphones and two audio channels, with the audio input jacks being RCA phono plug-type, rather than XLR. Blackmagic has a list of qualifying drives, but more about that later. These have limited insertion/removal cycles and a more permanent caddy mount would prolong media life.
The camera writes to solid-state drives inserted into a slot. Tap once and you get a slate with mini keyboard with anything entered being written to clip metadata. If you tap the viewscreen twice, it zooms for expanded focus. 709 look-up table to the image for more accurate viewing. What this means is that when recording in film (log) mode and viewing in video, you are applying a Rec. (Exposure control is the weakest part of the camera.) However, there is an amazing feature hidden in non-standard terminology.Īs noted above, dynamic range presents “film” and “video” as choices. Another note: the only camera metering consists of zebras, which do not go below 75 percent. Raw defaults to film mode.ĭisplay settings control brightness, zebras, SDI overlays and dynamic range. These are available only for ProRes HQ or DNxHD formats. The recorder menu controls recording format, frame rate and time lapse, as well as what Blackmagic calls “dynamic range.” There are two options in dynamic range: film and video. Blackmagic advertises 13 stops of dynamic range and after some very loose tests in my favorite camera torture chamber (New York City’s Times Square), I have no reason to dispute that figure. The camera is based on a 15.81 x 8.88- mm sensor-larger than a Micro Four Thirds, but smaller than the APS-C or Super35 sensors used in many DSLRs and dedicated digital cinema cameras. Several months later Blackmagic revealed a second version, with a Micro Four Thirds mount, albeit without electronics. Initially Blackmagic announced the camera would ship with a Canon EF mount capable of electronic control of Canon EF lenses.
ULTRASCOPES VS SCOPEBOX FULL VERSION
This 2.5K camera shoots 12-bit raw, ProRes HQ and 10-bit DNxHD and is bundled with a full version of Blackmagic Da-Vinci Resolve and Blackmagic UltraScope. Blackmagic worked earnestly to solve the sensor manufacturing problems (it was supplied by a third party) and to be as transparent as possible with its customers during all this. After a year, shipments are beginning to catch up with backorders. However, sensor defects stalled those deliveries. Let’s get right down to the elephant in the room-Blackmagic Design has been having problems delivering their Cinema Camera which was announced at the 2012 NAB Show and slated for shipment 90 days thereafter.