Blackmagic Forum

From Grant Perry

Blackmagic Cinema Camera Price Reduction

We have worked very hard over the last year to be able to build the Blackmagic Cinema Camera at a lower cost so we can reduce the price and allow access to digital filming to a wide range of cinematographers and photographers.

We have done it and from today the Blackmagic Cinema Camera EF and MFT models will be reduced in price to US$1,995. This is very exciting and is one of the proudest moments of my life to be able to do this!

I think people will be able to use the savings to invest in some exciting lenses and rigs to really boost the creative possibilities. The Blackmagic Cinema Camera is a fantastic design that's now well proven. The advantage of the 2.5K sensor is it has enough resolution to eliminate the bayer resolution loss of a HD sensor, but when shooting RAW it produces files that are too not to big to store and work with easily. It's a fantastic solution.

All orders placed that have not yet been filled, can be reduced to the new lower price.

Grant, this is not cool. After over a year of waiting for the camera, and then when it finally arrives you knock off 30% of the price for everyone else. So basically we were XXX upon twice.

Thanks!

Just read this too. Not too happy about the price change, I recently received my camera just to find out it's been slashed by 1000 bucks?

Great great great! How about you knock the 4k down to 3k before it comes out, Grant!

John, Please post an Internet meme image that summarizes your concerns as per usual.

I just bought the mft a couple of days ago. Any chance to get reduction for this?? Or anyone who bought this just a couple of weeks ago?

Yeah, not that i'd sell mine anytime soon, but knowing that it's suddenly worth a third less than when I bought it 2 months ago is kind of a bummer.

Yup, 1k more towards a lens or rig upgrade would have been REAL nice. I knew I shouldn't have jumped on the pre order. Well played, BMD.

He just pointed nicely that additional gear is expensive an one that gets cam now can focus their
savings there.

There is always a risk that later day products are cheaper.

If BM would give me shirt with "early adopter" i would be happy.

I'm not to sad about it to be honest. All the other gear is so much more expensive compared to
cam and Resolve combo that 1k does not change much for me at least.

When i was reading this email i was thinking that a lot of users here will yell and scream.
That is just money

I'm really angry with this too.

I got mine some weeks ago, but had it to send to the RMA twice so I wasn't even able to use it. And now it's dropped in price. Hurray.

Im an early adopter. I dont mind the price decrease. I got the cam last jan.

However, i just bought an MFT a week ago. This is really unfair if we (people who bought it few weeks ago) are exempted from this $1000 price drop

This is technology. I remember getting myself Atomos Ninja soon after it came out, when they finally fixed the problems with the firmware they announced Ninja 2 to replace it. I felt betrayed. On other occasion I got myself Tilta shoulder rig which got new version just month or two after I got mine. The old design had some problems and even they themselves admitted that it pointless for me to send it in for repairs cause the problem is in design. Yet they didn't offer to change to new one, but said they can give me 10% discount on the normal trade-in/upgrade price.

I didn't order BMCC because only now there starts to be enough information available about it to make a wise buying decision and I still think the BMCC as a product is not finished. The firmware still needs upgrading and features and if possible then compressed RAW should be implemented to it too. But again, this is technology, these years cameras are becoming obsolete faster and faster. You buy it early, you take the risk of getting unfinished product or something that gets upgraded soon. Prices of cameras always come down after introduction since newer models do more and also in relation with a cheaper price.

Blackmagic's move is good for all those who didn't buy their camera yet, but sucks for those who did. If you had received your cameras year ago this price drop would be normal development in your camera's life. Still with these delivery problems, if Blackmagic wants to be cool, they should offer refunds for those who received (and had ordered the camera long long time ago) their cameras just few months before the price drop. Maybe smaller refunds or some credit on towards buying their other products for others who spent year waiting for the cameras (of course tricky question here is that if you changed your pre-order from EF to MFT then you also yourself contributed to the long waiting time). Or Blackmagic could offer some sort of upgrade path to 4K model for people not happy with the price drop and then sell their cameras as refurbished or something. Anyways, this suck for pre-orderers but generally for filmmaking community this price drop is good, as great tools become cheaper and cheaper.

Lesson here is: Don't buy (God forbid pre-order) first generation products . You really won't know what you get and most likely the product gets upgraded soon after the first generation customers serving as beta users report in the problems.

Wow, we were beta-testersforalong time, don't getbasic things fixed via firmware for a year and as a reward for that had to pay 1.000,- more.

Great move, Grant, you lost a customer here.

My cameras have just depreciated by 33% of their value. I lost the same amount of money (not %) over a three year period on an EX3!

BMD
- doesn't tell us anything
- doesn't provide fixes for issues that should have been fixed before the camera was released
- keeps everyone waiting almost a year between ordering and delivery
- releases two cameras which make the pricing of the BMCC questionable
- releases two cameras while not even shipping the MFT model and/or fixing issues with the BMCC
and then, overnight, decreases the value of the cameras by 33% .

Thanks for being an early adopter, thanks for waiting for months for your camera... now here's your reward.

How about a rebate on new BMD hardware if you're a BMCC owner ? Many of us are/were intending on purchasing 4K cameras.

I am so angry. I've cancelled my 4k orders and I will strongly push for non-BMD hardware in future. I will also tell everyone who asks me about my cameras that I was effectively screwed and that they should stay away from BMD. I am a fool.

I can understand some frustrations with the price drop, but it is inevitable that it was going to happen at some point, it seems to me that this now creates an opportunity for an active M43 BMCC at a slightly higher price!

A price drop of this magnitude is not "inevitable".

Hi kiddos! I love the camera and the new price, will now buy my second BMCC.

Good point!

Now it is much cheaper to get your B cam.

It also makes canon dslr buying pointless if you want to film something.

I just bought EF model... this is intolerable.

Yeah it sucks if you just bought this camera in the last month or so, it'd be cool if black magic had a treat for folks in that boat (a free pocket cam maybe I actually just bought mine yesterday so I can return it or hopefully just get a $1000 refunded.
Also, atleast you didn't buy a red one for $25,000 dollars June 2011 only to have them go on sale in may 2012 for $4,000. (which happened to a friend of mine.)
But Grant if you're listening I like this move. And to anyone pissed about this remember that Canon and Red and Sony and every other camera company in the world is pretending h.264 is as good as video gets for less than $15,000. (except for those battle tested red ones of course

The unit was a great bargain at 3k, but my chief concern is that will it still ship with SCOPES and RESOLVE?

Which is the deal breaker for me.

This is absolutely amazing that BlackMagic is able to do this. I totally love my camera as is and ill get even more features soon. Price-image quality ratio for this product is ridiculous at 3k too. I got around 5k worth add ons for it. PITA to shoot with comparing to C300/100, but this picture! makes me just watch even some silly footage
Extra 5 month that i had camera is definitely worth 1000$ for me. Its been big step from DSLRs. Also experience and paid gigs been huge value!
Thanks BlackMagic!

People complaining that they just bought a camera and now are losing out to this deal! welcome to the real world. This happens every day! Even if BM waited 5 years and then reduced the price people would still complain as some would have still bought a camera not long before the price drop.

Fantastic news! Sucks for those that recently bought one, but that's what happens in this world of fast changing technology. Prices drop randomly and quickly.

Now I am thinking about canceling the 4K BMCC pre-order.

With this recent RAW hack in Canon only proves that Canon (and any other company) could have given us cameras able to record RAW video many years ago but they didn't. Probably because they have long term plan for future earning so they may squeeze money out of consumers little by little. They first had to make money on technologies that they had developed earlier. I'm sure many of the big companies like Sony and Canon, could give us cameras now that will blow our minds away even few years later when they actually announce them. Canon Cxx series was outdated and pricey when it was released (and now it is even more pricey compared to what else is out there) but I'm sure only way they can release new models this "soon" is if other companies force them to do so by announcing better products for cheaper price. Otherwise they just gonna sell them until R&D, manufacturing costs have been met with proper profit margin.

Yes there's been problems with the BM cameras delivery.. but at least they are trying to give us the best possible tools the technology allows for best possible price (and since few minutes ago even cheaper price) unlike many other companies. This is step to right direction and will get us even better tools with even lesser price in future. Of course we have to hope that BM will keep doing that in future too and they will not start protecting their current money flows by holding back technology. That's why price drop this soon and introducing 4K camera this soon after BMCC has been a good sign.

But still I really hope BM takes care of those who only recently received their cameras after long wait.

Prices do not drop "randomly" and "quickly"... except if you're a BMD customer... When was the last time Canon or Sony "randomly" and "quickly" dropped the price on one of their products by 30%!!! 30% a third! Yes... Canon should reduce the price of their flagship camera by 30%... but they're not going to.

It's great that BMD have reduced the price on their cameras, but they've screwed their existing client base - the people who stuck by them when they couldn't deliver; whether you accept it or not your camera is now worth $ 1000 less, you have lost $1000... in my case $3000. Extend on that... Joe across the road can charge his clients less for hires of his BMCCs because he paid less for them, so my profit margin on hires shrinks considerably.

At least give some sort of hardware rebate on future purchases... but no, it's easier to just screw your customers.

A friend of mine bought one of my BMCCs (I imported an additional camera for him) - he just called - he's not impressed... he purchased the camera based on my suggestion.

@sebasti : Canon's cameras are more complex than BMD's cameras. RAW is actually an easy "codec" to shoot because it doesn't require compression. The only difficulty with RAW is speed of storage and I suspect SATA controllers are cheaper to implement than CF controllers. The only reason Canon hasn't given their customers raw is probably because most of their customers don't want raw... those that do are probably less than 0.08% of their customer base, if that.

And of course - as we've seen - firmware updates/functionality are VERY difficult to implement... BMCCs still have an unusable audio system... over a year later. Unusable Zebra system for anything other than raw too. They just don't care... it's all about pushing out the next money-maker with sloppy firmware.

So much trolls in this forum.

I dont care about the priced rop since i got mine last january.
I do care about the mft i just got 2days ago! Theres a difference if its a month or so... But 1-2 weeks?

The day you buy a camera it loses 10% of it's value. So if you bought a Scarlet kit for $15,000 the next day it'd be worth $13,500 used. So if black magic didn't exist you'd lose $1,500 dollars the day you bought the most affordable raw camera. Also a camera makes money, I imagine if anyone has had it for more than a month and been using it on jobs that $1,000 has been made back.

Aaron Scheiner wrote: Joe across the road can charge his clients less for hires of his BMCCs because he paid less for them, so my profit margin on hires shrinks considerably.

And Joe accross the road didn't have his camera when you were already making money with yours. When Joe gets his camera he is going to need learn how to use it and the workflow, when you are already expert. This is the real world. The camera was a steal at 3000$ even before compared to many other products and I'm sure you bought it because you thought that way. You were happy to pay this amount of money for this kind of product. But like I said before, if BM is cool, they will listen each dissatisfied customer and work out some sort of compensation plan according to the when the camera was bought, when it was received. But I'm sure this will still leave many dissatisfied because i'm sure some people think 1 month grace period is enough and others will demand a year (because they probably didn't make any money with their cameras)

sebasti :

But like I said before, if BM is cool, they will listen each dissatisfied customer and work out some sort of compensation plan according to the when the camera was bought, when it was received.

Sebasti... that would be great... as I've said, a hardware rebate on future purchases would be wonderful... but absolutely NO suggestion that that will happen has occurred. No one bothered to think before sending out that mailer. Using something that BMD could do in the future is no defense for what has been done.

You get your camera, you make some money with it and then I take that money away from you. That's what BMD has done.

@woodybrando:
The real world :
A man buys a camera, new, for $3000. He resells it a year later for $2500.
A man buys a camera, new, for $2000. He resells it a year later for $1500.
The BMD world :
A man buys a camera, new, for $3000. He resells it a year later for $1500.

Did you see what happened ? The resale price decreased. Yes, the camera loses value as soon as you open the box, but the initial value that that depreciation is calculated against has been decreased by BMD. Apart from that, there are also other factors which influence the price of a camera, in BMD's case, the introduction of the pocket and 4k cameras. More choice translates into more supply, which, assuming a constant demand, decreases price.

I bet BMD has a stockpile of BMCC they couldnt shift because the 4k and pocket camera is killing sales. I also heard the smart money is in the pocket camera, is better and problem free than the BMCC

Aaron Scheiner wrote: Canon's cameras are more complex than BMD's cameras. RAW is actually an easy "codec" to shoot because it doesn't require compression. The only difficulty with RAW is speed of storage and I suspect SATA controllers are cheaper to implement than CF controllers. The only reason Canon hasn't given their customers raw is probably because most of their customers don't want raw...

BM does ProRes too and with Canon/Sony u can't get that even with external recorder cause they crippled the output signal. Big manufacturer cameras are only fraction of what they could be because they had to make them worse to protect future earnings or current higher end products that are of older design. For example: Some of the cheaper Intel processors actually come from the same line with the top end models. The only difference is they crippled the cheaper one with firmware but the hardware is exactly same. They just locked something out and ask 500 extra for those who want the fully enabled version.

lol Samjack .

@Sebasti : ProRes is not that complex a codec either... there is far more complexity involved in coding x264 than ProRes or DNXHd. AND, how do you know that Canon did "cripple" the HDMI output on their cameras ? Given that Magic Lantern has been hacking away and brute forcing those cameras for ages now... isn't it more likely that the HDMI output controllers just simply aren't capable of what you want ?

@Intel chips; yes and no... Intel does cripple some of it's chips, but often those chips come from a bin of components which have failed tests. For instance the cheaper Celerons often disable cache... but the cache is one of the more likely to be damaged components in the manufacturing process.

Consider also that Intel is fighting a fierce battle with ARM at the moment in that the market is now flooded with tablet computers and Intel has to reduce their pricing to keep their desktop market safe. If they could have reduced their prices further, they would have... because they are seeing less sales as a result of a larger trend away from desktop machines.

Hi, I have bought a lot of cameras, but its the first time I feel that it wasn't a good investment. I waited for 9 month for my camera , it arrived last june, and now I just lost 1000$ on it, without even having had time to make my money back. I am quite upset. I do love the camera but after 9 month of waiting loosing that amount of money just after receiving it is not cool. with that money I could have bought a pocket bmcc also. really not cool. bmd should rethink their business model for the cameras as they cannot keep upsetting your clients constantly.

I don't get this Obviously Black magic has met many of its costs and can now either drop the price or make lots of money and he has given it back to us. He sold it at an extraordinary price point anyway and could easily have sold it for twice as much. Other manufacturers have made money by holding back technology Incremental upgrades etc. I think Grant should be applauded for this quite benevolent move.

Well done Grant!

Mark

i want the rebate, i just got my camera 9 days ago and this is really wrong.

Obviously Black magic has met many of its costs and can now either drop the price or make lots of money

I'm fairly sure the BMCC is just a Hyperdeck Shuttle with a sensor, display and cooling system attached. The question now is, why didn't they introduce the camera at a lower price in the first place.

Just another example of blackmagic having a complete lack of respect for its current customer base. Grant out there chasing headlines again, and meanwhile people who got their bmcc within the past month may as well have shoved that $1000 up their ----. Anyone who thinks that this is normal or 'the real world' is out of their mind. Six to twelve months down the line - fine, but within a month from when most people have received their camera is not (*edit* for the mft orders). If there is no period of grace on this price reduction I will no longer purchase bm products. Say what you like about Sony/Canon/RED etc - at least they have a strategy, bm is just winging it and its the people who supported them first who lose out.

Aaron Scheiner wrote:Prices do not drop "randomly" and "quickly"... except if you're a BMD customer... When was the last time Canon or Sony "randomly" and "quickly" dropped the price on one of their products by 30%!!! 30% a third! Yes... Canon should reduce the price of their flagship camera by 30%... but they're not going to.

Sorry, my choice of words may have come across a bit strong. In the broader world of technology it is a very common occurrence, especially when something newer is released. I've been burnt various times by this. For cameras, Canon etc by choice hold the prices/value of their flagship devices high and work on slow, progressive reductions, but on their lower models they often drop quickly after a new release (i.e. 60D dropped 25% after the 70D came out).

I really hope BMD do give some credit or rebate to those that have recently purchased a new camera only to be brought with this news.

It is great news for someone like me though, as I am in the market to buy a BMCC, so the reduction in price is very welcome news.

Here's the real question, when do the $1,995 2.5k cameras ship?

woodybrando wrote:Here's the real question, when do the $1,995 2.5k cameras ship?

as soon as of today.

Aaron Scheiner wrote:ProRes is not that complex a codec either... there is far more complexity involved in coding x264 than ProRes or DNXHd.

With the datarates for Prores 422 or 422LT we could have had ProRes recording in camera for really long time if the manufacturers wanted to give it to us. Maybe it could have also solved the heating problems with less intensive encoding process. I wonder if the hacking boys could add prores to DSLR.. that would be far more usable than some raw gimmick without sound or playback. But this is so off-topic i'm going to stop jabbering now

That won't happen. Encoding on DSLRs is achieved using an ASIC - or Application Specific Integrated Circuit - effectively a chip designed for a specific purpose (which makes it more efficient but highly inflexible). BMD emulates this kind of system on the FPGA in their cameras. DSLRs don't have a fast enough processor (CPU) to handle ProRes encoding unfortunately (or any other codec).

And... most Canon customers don't want/need ProRes video recording (my mom is happy with x264). ProRes costs money to licence and Canon would have to build additional hardware encoders for the cameras to handle it... so why would Canon increase the costs of their entire line for such a small % of their customer base ?

It's a cool idea though.

What would be even cooler would be an FPGA design (like what BMD uses) and then give the customer the ability to swap-in different codec modules.

That´s absolutely great! Will get a MFT and my EF will be my new B Cam

Maybe for some people who haven't bought the camera is a very good news. But not for those who already bought at the first price. losing 1000$ for only 3 month is a real pain. Thanks for that Mr. Grant!

Great so my resale and rental values just took a massive hit. Hard to be excited about that. Way to reward the early adopters!

The fact my camera has already paid for itself many times over is not relevant.

Why don't they keep the price up and spend the profits on a bloody firmware update fixing bugs like the black sun and adding basic features like audio levels and histogram. Hopefully these will come quietly in this new promised update.

joke, and whats worse is they will do nothing about keeping current/early supporters happy.

jamesedge wrote:Just another example of blackmagic having a complete lack of respect for its current customer base. Grant out there chasing headlines again, and meanwhile people who got their bmcc within the past month may as well have shoved that $1000 up their ----. Anyone who thinks that this is normal or 'the real world' is out of their mind. Six to twelve months down the line - fine, but within a month from when most people have received their camera is not (*edit* for the mft orders). If there is no period of grace on this price reduction I will no longer purchase bm products. Say what you like about Sony/Canon/RED etc - at least they have a strategy, bm is just winging it and its the people who supported them first who lose out.

A respect for current customer base = dishonest pricing - sure they could keep it at 3k... but who is that HELPING? you? no... Themselves, yes. You don't lose from some one else buying it cheaper... not unless you expect to sell it/rent it, and lets face it, the used market for these camera's would have been close to nil at 3k...(or 2k for that matter)

reducing the price DOES HELP those who have yet to buy the camera... (and speculation on buying the camera from this point on, is just that. it sucks, I really really get it... but it is NOT that big a deal, considering you have an awesome camera and software now)

Reducing the price = HONEST(er) manufacturing price representation...

Seriously: is anyone arguing that it is unfair for BMD to lower their prices? I mean... how selfish do you have to be to say: "I theoretically could have spent less if I waiting until now to buy it... a pox on those not fortunate enough to have 3k on hand (but fortunate enough to have 2k on hand), it's so unfair that it's now cheaper"


Red scarlet dropped in price, sony camera's at around the same price had a large price drop.

Red's mx one... originally 18k. then 12k, then it was reduced to... $4k... that drop to 4k was sudden...

BUT (i hear you say) that was after a number of years. the price stayed up for the majority of it's run...
TO WHICH I SAY: that's even worse... red one was too expensive for far too long. I don't have special insight, but I suspect RED was making that camera for cheaper and cheaper, and not lowering the pricing accordingly...
you call that fair, but lowering the price accordingly unfair? and pissing on customers...? Seriously, that's mentality I can't even being to fathom.

It sucks for people who bought it yesterday. and the week before...

But it is not unfair, or pissing on those customers to change prices according to manufacturing costs.

Stop being sour about someone else's fortune and create something awesome!

metaljesus wrote:Great so my resale and rental values just took a massive hit.

Yeah well...

Same thing happened to C100/RED owners. You shouldn't see a camera as an investment. If you want a good resale value, buy gold.

On the other hand, anyone with a $3000 BMC, should be able to make it pay for itself within the first 3 jobs, or you do something totally wrong, since the BMC was a bargain at 3k in the first place..

Regarding rental value - it was never good on any $3000 camera - no mater what brand - anyway. Dollies and cranes rent for more and keep their value over a long period - if you planned to make money by renting a cheap camera in a world of fast changing technology, you just made an uniformed business decision.

Give early adopters a rebate on future hardware purchases.

Come on Grant, You should make a very serious consideration for those who has bought the camera at least from early 2013. at least GIVE THEM 70% DISCOUNT FOR BMPCC would be fair enough