Wed Aug 21, 2013 12:45 am
There's a lot of criticism about the Cinema Camera and Blackmagic Design in this forum. I can only assume through the power of deduction that if there was a very high demand for the Cinema Camera of any variation, then by now many, many of those orders have been fulfilled and those same users are now blissfully shooting away, too busy to opine positively about their wonderful new camera. Also, through deduction, considering the number of ill-mannered complaints and uniformed rants that frequent this, Blackmagic Design's own forum, that most of the negativity stem from unrealistic consumerism (amateurs) and general incompetence (operator error), so the amount of defective units is, I'd venture to say, miniscule.
However, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and if this forum is filled with the minority of users having either legitimate problems with a legitimately defective product, or amateur users who have silly complaints, make unreasonable demands, are incapable of searching Google and ask silly questions like "does the camera need a lens?" then a new user looking for information on a possible camera purchase, will only ever see that tiny side of things, and move on. This not only harms Blackmagic Design, but spoils everything for the rest of us whom, to date, have had zero problems with their camera, understand and embrace its limitations, who then take advantage of the camera's strengths while keeping ourselves educated and in practice and whom are looking forward to future firmware upgrades and support. Those of us who have probably already been able to recoup the cost of the camera (or cameras) with only a few jobs.
From my own personal experience the BMCC is a perfectly fine production camera with a little bit of personality. Epic has personality, and so does Alexa. The Canon, Nikon and Panasonic DSLR's I've used each had personality, and so has most every lens, light and head. It's not unreasonable to assume that the BMCC's personality is any more or less quirky, so the only reason it's being damned by some people is because it's price puts it in the "consumer" class where the complaints are usually about televisions, laser printers and cell phones. And it's only ever the complaints you hear. That's why personal research is so important.
Therefore, on top of all the silly, uninformed, outrageous, unreasonable, amateur rants on this very forum, I'd like to personally say "have no fear, prospective buyer!" I certainly was concerned before ordering my Cinema Camera that there would be dead pixels, unusable field of view, dodgy audio, poor low light performance, strange horizontal bars, black dots in hotspots, disruptive fan noise, lost or unplayable clips, damaged or unreadable SSD's, etc, etc, etc. Because lots of people have been using the cameras for months and months, all the actually defective units seem to be in the vast minority of users, and even then, I'd probably attribute most of the complaints I've personally read to Operator Error.
So far, my only complaints are that I'd like to see a media counter, more accurate battery readings and frame guides for television and several cinema aspect ratios; and that's all firmware fixable! And I've been making due without them just fine so far. Workarounds? Pen and paper, external batteries, masking tape or an external monitor that provides various frame guides. Remember, the camera's just the camera, if you're doing what I'm doing you need a ton of other stuff to make the camera function in a proper narrative environment. Same goes for Red, remember? Red One wasn't just a $4k battle-tested camera, you still needed $10k worth of additional gear just to turn it on! Similarly, the BMCC is the Red Brain and an internal battery meant for quick run and gun, or as backup during an external battery switch. The rear polaroid is only good for the menus when you're at weird angles, you then are required to have a proper EVF or camera-mounted monitor. The BMCC is only one piece in a large, expensive puzzle. Sure, it does fine on it's own for a little bit of quick video work, but if you're making a movie without the right gear, you'll find yourself in a terrible situation; and anyone who thinks that ONLY buying the camera will save them, is completely missing the point. What's the point? Less expensive camera equals more money for better accessories! Not, I only have a few thousand quid, so I'm going to use all of it to only buy a camera and I'll be fine! That's short-sighted, unprofessional and precisely unrealistic consumerism.
In conclusion, the Blackmagic Cinema Camera is a good camera and if you can bring yourself to understand it, it'll serve you just fine. If you come into it wanting to be a few thousand dollar Sony FS700, or Scarlett, or whatever, then you're being silly. Somebody once tried to label me a Blackmagic Apologist. I'm not an apologist; Blackmagic has nothing to apologize for. I'm a supporter and an informed, loyal customer. And if Blackmagic continues doing the great work they've been doing over the past decade, I shall continue to be so. It's been almost two months since I opened the box of my BMCC EF and I've yet to experience any major problems outside of the limitations of what the camera was designed to be: a simple, elegant camera that, within reasonable cinematic parameters, will capture gorgeous imagery at 2.5K raw. That's the camera I bought and that's the camera I'm happy with.
Anyone else NOT having any major problems with their Cinema Camera? It's about time Blackmagic started hearing something positive and public about their wonderful little cameras.
BTW: I was inspired to write this after reading this article at Polygon about game developer harassment by gamers.
However, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and if this forum is filled with the minority of users having either legitimate problems with a legitimately defective product, or amateur users who have silly complaints, make unreasonable demands, are incapable of searching Google and ask silly questions like "does the camera need a lens?" then a new user looking for information on a possible camera purchase, will only ever see that tiny side of things, and move on. This not only harms Blackmagic Design, but spoils everything for the rest of us whom, to date, have had zero problems with their camera, understand and embrace its limitations, who then take advantage of the camera's strengths while keeping ourselves educated and in practice and whom are looking forward to future firmware upgrades and support. Those of us who have probably already been able to recoup the cost of the camera (or cameras) with only a few jobs.
From my own personal experience the BMCC is a perfectly fine production camera with a little bit of personality. Epic has personality, and so does Alexa. The Canon, Nikon and Panasonic DSLR's I've used each had personality, and so has most every lens, light and head. It's not unreasonable to assume that the BMCC's personality is any more or less quirky, so the only reason it's being damned by some people is because it's price puts it in the "consumer" class where the complaints are usually about televisions, laser printers and cell phones. And it's only ever the complaints you hear. That's why personal research is so important.
Therefore, on top of all the silly, uninformed, outrageous, unreasonable, amateur rants on this very forum, I'd like to personally say "have no fear, prospective buyer!" I certainly was concerned before ordering my Cinema Camera that there would be dead pixels, unusable field of view, dodgy audio, poor low light performance, strange horizontal bars, black dots in hotspots, disruptive fan noise, lost or unplayable clips, damaged or unreadable SSD's, etc, etc, etc. Because lots of people have been using the cameras for months and months, all the actually defective units seem to be in the vast minority of users, and even then, I'd probably attribute most of the complaints I've personally read to Operator Error.
So far, my only complaints are that I'd like to see a media counter, more accurate battery readings and frame guides for television and several cinema aspect ratios; and that's all firmware fixable! And I've been making due without them just fine so far. Workarounds? Pen and paper, external batteries, masking tape or an external monitor that provides various frame guides. Remember, the camera's just the camera, if you're doing what I'm doing you need a ton of other stuff to make the camera function in a proper narrative environment. Same goes for Red, remember? Red One wasn't just a $4k battle-tested camera, you still needed $10k worth of additional gear just to turn it on! Similarly, the BMCC is the Red Brain and an internal battery meant for quick run and gun, or as backup during an external battery switch. The rear polaroid is only good for the menus when you're at weird angles, you then are required to have a proper EVF or camera-mounted monitor. The BMCC is only one piece in a large, expensive puzzle. Sure, it does fine on it's own for a little bit of quick video work, but if you're making a movie without the right gear, you'll find yourself in a terrible situation; and anyone who thinks that ONLY buying the camera will save them, is completely missing the point. What's the point? Less expensive camera equals more money for better accessories! Not, I only have a few thousand quid, so I'm going to use all of it to only buy a camera and I'll be fine! That's short-sighted, unprofessional and precisely unrealistic consumerism.
In conclusion, the Blackmagic Cinema Camera is a good camera and if you can bring yourself to understand it, it'll serve you just fine. If you come into it wanting to be a few thousand dollar Sony FS700, or Scarlett, or whatever, then you're being silly. Somebody once tried to label me a Blackmagic Apologist. I'm not an apologist; Blackmagic has nothing to apologize for. I'm a supporter and an informed, loyal customer. And if Blackmagic continues doing the great work they've been doing over the past decade, I shall continue to be so. It's been almost two months since I opened the box of my BMCC EF and I've yet to experience any major problems outside of the limitations of what the camera was designed to be: a simple, elegant camera that, within reasonable cinematic parameters, will capture gorgeous imagery at 2.5K raw. That's the camera I bought and that's the camera I'm happy with.
Anyone else NOT having any major problems with their Cinema Camera? It's about time Blackmagic started hearing something positive and public about their wonderful little cameras.
BTW: I was inspired to write this after reading this article at Polygon about game developer harassment by gamers.
Last edited by Jason R. Johnston on Wed Aug 21, 2013 12:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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RED Komodo | DaVinci Resolve Studio 18.5 | 2023 MacBook M2 Pro 14
RED Komodo | DaVinci Resolve Studio 18.5 | 2023 MacBook M2 Pro 14
By the way, here's to hoping a future BMCC 2.0 will somehow take advantage of the sensor's (or a similar sensor's) "extremely fast frame rates" 
