[David West]

Totally, but in particular 4K. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an awesome feature to have, but I’m personally MUCH more excited that a large-sensor camera with a global shutter and solid dynamic range is going to be available at this price point. As someone who does a lot of fast-motion action scenes and gunfire (with blanks, and even live ammo when safe, because doing it digital is lame) in my films, I think that the global shutter is by far the most important feature of this camera. I’d be super excited for the BMPC even if it was only pumping out 2.5k like it’s little brother. I’d love to work with raw or at least pro-res, though. I love my GH2, but I’ve definitely ran into the limitations of 8-bit compression on several occasions.

That said, why everyone is constantly nit-picking today’s affordable digital cameras is beyond me. I made my first short films almost 10 years ago in high school when all I had access to were cheap, borrowed Mini-DV camera. They were total crap, and I fantasized about being able to drop 5 grand on something like a Canon XL1, otherwise I would have had to spend $500 on a lame mini-DV camcorder that could never in a million years produce a cinematic looking result. Flash forward to today, and I’m shooting on a hacked GH2 that looks absolutely beautiful. I’ve got a pretty sweet kit with some great lenses (love my 25mm Voigtlander!), and yet my whole set-up costs way less than the high end stuff I was dreaming about back then and produces drastically better results. And hell, if I was a broke highschooler today (instead of a broke 20-something filmmaker…) the $500 bucks that would have got me a terrible mini-DV camera back in the day would easily get me a t2i and a kit lens nowadays. I would have killed to have that when I was 16…

[David West]

There’s only a crop factor if you’re comparing it to “full-frame” 135 film, which is a still picture format. But you really shouldn’t even be comparing it to that. You should be comparing it to Super 35 film, which is a cinema standard. The sensor is, for all intents And purposes, the size of S35 film (I think the actual dimensions are slightly different, buy that’s the case with several of the other big name S35 sized cameras). So when compared to traditional and high end digital CINEMA cameras there is NO crop factor. It’s only when you’re comparing it to the likes of a 5D or a traditional SLR that there seems to be a crop factor, but that same “problem” applies to Reds, Alexas, and traditional film-based cinema cameras.

The whole issue of crop factors is blown out of proportion by people. The 5D has given people a false perception of what they need. People complain about the Black magic Cinema Camera and Micro 4/3s cameras because of their crop factors of more than 2x When compared to a “full frame” 135-sized sensor, but what they don’t realize is that these cameras have sensors MUCH closer in size to S35 film than they realize, and that is a much better comparison. They also don’t realize that even smaller sensors like that are still VERY large and more capable of shallow DOF and low-light work than they realize. They’re also bigger than 16mm film, which has veen used to shoot Oscar-winning films. Hurt locker? 16mm film. Much smaller then even a micro 4/3 sensor.