This year I was not able to make it to NAB 2013 in Las Vegas to check out the new toys but have been keeping myself occupied with all the latest announcements from the vendors from my office in Los Angeles. Yesterday the show was kind of silenced behind the big Blackmagic Design camera announcement and, while I must say that at first I was very excited, I have my skepticism’s on its viability as an efficient camera for the price range it seems to be targeting. Then I was reminded of our friends at Digital Bolex and just can’t seem to be able to disregard their attempts at bring their camera to the masses.
There is something to say of the magic of the Blackmagic Production Camera and Pocket Cinema Camera, but when really looking at it the specs don’t seem to be all that impressive considering some technology that is currently out there. Let’s start by looking at the BMPCC, the price is fantastic at $995 while sporting a 1080p RAW recording format with 13 stops of dynamic range, but some of the questions that arise is why doesn’t black magic attempt to have at least a 60p recording option? I don’t always think that slow-motion is a must but on the last few projects that I have done, I always seem to be switching my camera to 720/60p do achieve a slow motion shot…maybe it is just my story telling style, so in that case I can guarantee I will have my DSLR on stand by to use as my high speed camera or I will be pulling out my GoPro for the extreme slow motion shots. The camera is still rather impressive and definitely has me intrigued. But I’m not going to be dropping down my hard earned dollars just yet for this camera.
Then there is the BMPC that is their 4K solution or as they are coining it Ultra HD which is probably because it is 4K based off of the 1080p HD resolution. This camera rocked the announcement world on April 8, 2013, but what actually does this mean? My first thought was the affordability of future proofing your work. I read an article a few weeks ago on nofilmschool.com that had Netflix stating they were going to try setting up their streaming infrastructure to support 4K streaming and that it could possible be a chance for independent filmmakers to get their foot in the door by providing 4K content before the studios. According to their research there are more indie films shot at 4K than there are studios. So as you can tell my creative wheels started turning and the possibilities this camera might provide for distribution of my content. But then the file storage requirements, the fact I could only switch between 4K and 1080p, no significant slow motion in 4K and then an interlaced HFR signal for 1080 probably more intended for broadcast than performing speed ramping, but the $3995 price tag makes me continue to question my doubts.
But let us not forget the Digital Bolex team. I have worked with Joe, a founder of the Digital Bolex D16 camera, and can say that he just might be the right guy to be able to pull this camera feat off. They were interviewed on the live stream on NAB opening day and a lot of their reasoning for their 2.5K and not 4K camera makes a lot of sense. When it comes down to it, they are marketing a camera to people who probably can’t go out and buy 4+ TB of hard drives to store their media on so have a smaller resolution compared to 4K might have more people actually using the camera as opposed to the BMPC. That is the whole purpose of creating a camera isn’t it…to have people actually use it. I could see the Blackmagic team having a little more success with their product if they allow for more scaleability, plus their marketing person that was interviewed on the day of the announcement seemed to be hiding the things they knew were problems with the camera as opposed to the Digital Bolex teams knowing exactly what their reasoning was for every feature they had…You’d think there would have been more confidence from a larger company but instead it was the little guy who was confident that his product was gonna be a game changer…probably because that is the camera that Joe and Elle will end up using for everything, and they are probably designing it that way.
I’m sure I’ll have more to share, but for now, enjoy the Teradek UStream feed to keep you involved from afar.