Max Normandin wrote:Now that they're practically giving the BMCC at 1995$ with Davinc Resolve, I'm sure a lot of people like me who were waiting for the pocket cam are now confused as to which one to purchase.
This question is addressed to those of you who own a BMCC and shoot 2.5k RAW.
What is the actual cost of owning that camera and shooting Raw??
From what I've read, here is what I know you need to purchase on the side to make the camera functional:
Battery Pack - roughly 300$
External Monitor - roughly 150$
2x SanDisk 480gb - roughly 700$
external hard drive - roughly 200$ or more
I'm sure I'm missing a lot here... so please, share your personal experience shooting with the bmcc and the ACTUAL COST owning one.
The cost of shooting raw is a relative question which heavily depends on what kind of shooting you see yourself doing. If you going to be hired by a client to shoot a commercial, web series, short film, PSA, music video or whatever it may be, you're going to have to put plenty of gas in the tank, per say. If it's going to be a hobby camera, your costs will be far less. I'll be providing the perspective of a working cinematographer in Los Angeles.
I've recently very meticulously priced out a 4k production package that settles right around $12,000. I'll try to summarize my thought process. Remember, you can always rent camera accessories too!
Batteries - Aside from the internal battery you're going to want at least 2 additional batteries. Unless you're planning on shooting only half days or being able to always run AC to your camera, you're going to want more power. 3 of the power base batteries should do the trick no matter what shoot you tackle, that way when one is draining, you have one on stand by, swap, and charge the dead battery, repeat. If you have only one battery, and you've exhausted that and your internal battery, what are you going to do, wait a couple hours to charge and start shooting again, not on a real shoot! You'll have your AD pulling hairs out. Expect to spend $600-$900 for batteries.
Monitor - You CAN go the cheap route here, but how important is focus to you? If your AC going to want to use some 800 x 400 rez monitor when shooting 4k? Maybe even more important than that is having an internal wave form monitor to see exposure levels, which only the $600+ monitors provide. If you want something just for a large visual reference go cheap, if you want something your ac will be able to legitimately pull focus on, and something you can expose to, you're going to want a Marshall, TV logic etc....Expect to spend $800+ for a pro monitor.
External hard drives - In my package I included (3) 2tb G-drives. If you plan to shoot a lot, and save your footage for a reel or what have you, that space will be eaten up fast! What's the point of shooting raw if you can't retain all your footage? Also, if you're smart you're making back-ups! In a meta-data world, BACK UP BACK UP BACK UP BACK UP. We aren't physically possessing film stock, only binary numbers on a spinning disk external hard drive, which have been known to fail. I'm not sure about how the numbers equate for the Cinema Camera, but, 2 hours of raw footage equates to 500gb with the 4k production camera. Expect to spend $700+ for storage. I own over 10 G drives, they're the best, and used by every DIT on set out here in HOLLYWOOD.
Computer - Maybe the most over looked item when trying to shoot raw. Look at the system requirements for the version of resolve that comes with a black magic cinema camera. I think you're going to need the latest version of mountain lion osx, not mention considerable CPU power to mess around with raw footage in resolve. Expect to spend $1300 minimum on a new computer, unless you already have one capable of pushing raw around. You can just shoot pro res, and color elsewhere, on a lesser computer.
Lenses - My my my, to do the camera justice you're going to need to spend at-least $1000 on glass, and that's going the cheap route. The cinema camera especially needs a very wide angle option to make up for the 2.5 crop factor. In general I like to have 20mm-100mm focal range / field of view for a standard 35mm sensor. That range can take care of most all shots on a shoot. You can always go used on ebay, or find a zoom that covers the field of view you need.
Other things to consider are a tripod, matte box, nd filters etc...It's always smart to build in a contingent of at-least a couple hundred extra bucks to account for things you won't think of.
To summarize, buying a blackmagic camera body is like buying a car without seats, doors, a stereo, windows etc....You'll need to outfit your camera to make it run like a car. I may have forgot a few items, but just wanted to share my thoughts on legitimately pricing out a camera package and shooting raw without feeling hand cuffed. I truly hope this helps!
Mon Aug 05, 2013 2:21 pm
what the....
