Matthew Sonnenfeld
Forum Replies Created
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I use the Switronix BMC Jetpack. It’s expensive but it gives full power distribution to everything on your rig. It really is a life saver. It also has helped breath new life into my HPX170 which I now use on small shoots or sizzle reels with a hyperdeck shuttle. The Jetpack’s power cable for the camera powers the hyperdeck and Switronix makes a 7.2V LEMO to Panasonic CGR battery adapter. When both the BMCC or the Panasonic rigs are built up, it’s excellent.
Of course, this makes sense if you have V-Mount or 3 stud batteries already or if you want to get into them. But you go all day on two bricks.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
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The College of William and Mary -
That would be the idea. Get the adapter in your mount of choice and get the lens you want. But keep in mind that you will have 35mm depth of field but you will also lose typically half a stop of light. Not a huge deal most of the time but on the HVX in a low light situation, it may be. It will also mean extra weight and more pieces which means more that can go wrong. The AF100a or the Sony FS700 are both options that at the cost and drawbacks of the adapters might be worth looking into. But if you want an adapter, the Letus35 Ultimate is pretty much the best there is and costs on it have come WAY down from where they were.
https://www.letus35.com/store/Letus-Ultimate-Depth-of-Field-Adapter.html
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
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The College of William and Mary -
The HVX200 has a fixed lens that is built as part of the camera as a whole. It cannot be replaced. Your only option for this would be a 35mm adapter such as the Letus35 or the Redrock Micro M3.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
Adobe Production Premium CS6, Avid Symphony 6, Final Cut Pro Studio 3
The College of William and Mary -
Do you have a capture card? If you have an AJA capture card you can capture through AJA VTR Exchange or Blackmagic Media Express if you have a BM card and uprez the footage in hardware upon capture. Realistically that will give you the best results.
If you do not have a capture card, it gets a little bit trickier. Exporting out an HD file from an SD file will probably have significant artifacts almost no matter what you do. You may be better delivering a high quality SD file. Almost as a digital tape master. As for your original process, I don’t know what I would have done differently. I wouldn’t export as widescreen because the letterbox means that the footage is still actually 4:3, just with black bars, so you are stretching when you do that. I would export using QT conversion a DVCPRO50 file. This will give you great SD footage. Base settings off of source. Then use your master file to uprez in compressor to DVCPROHD 720, again, basing frame controls etc on source.
I wouldn’t go too format crazy. Stick to something easy that your client can take anywhere.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
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The College of William and Mary -
While Blackmagic has a wonderful shpiel about why it’s better that the Thunderbolt port cannot offload media, I would call it a design flaw.
You do need some kind of SATA dock or even the Seagate SATA to Thunderbolt adapter for their GoFlex series.
Sorry I can’t bring any better news.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
Adobe Production Premium CS6, Avid Symphony 6, Final Cut Pro Studio 3
The College of William and Mary -
Yeah I understand the issues when it comes to wanting to rent lenses. But the camera is primarily designed to be owned and to be part of a collection of lenses that you own as well. It will of course be rented out along with lenses but it’s primarily aimed at the DSLR market. That’s why the EF mount has always been priority for them, even over the MFT mount. I have confidence that you would not have much trouble with the Cooke 18-100 as many PL zooms seem to fit into the EF mount. The problem again is the primes.
As per crop factor. This is a much discussed issues and there is a recent thread about it on this forum. Basically, crop factor is relative. There is no crop factor if you consider it in Super35 terms, only if you think in 35mm still photography terms. Furthermore, a 50, is a 50, is a 50. I.E., any 50mm lens, regardless of what sensor the lens is designed for, is a 50mm lens. The sensor dictates the field of view, not the focal length. So a 50mm designed for full frame put on a Super35 sensor, will have the EXACT SAME field of view, as a 50mm PL mount prime designed for a Super35 sensor. The only difference is that the PL is designed for the smaller imager and has a smaller image circle so it would vignette were it put on a full frame camera. But if you took a 50mm Zeiss Master Prime and put it on the Production Camera, and then swapped the lens for the 50mm Canon 1.2L, the field of view would be identical even though they are designed for different sized imagers.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
Adobe Production Premium CS6, Avid Symphony 6, Final Cut Pro Studio 3
The College of William and Mary -
I have not had experience with PL adapters however I do know that even with a mount adapter, typically only zoom lenses will fit not due to the flange distance, but due to the actual physical width of the EF mount on the inside not being wide enough to accomodate the rear of prime PL mount lenses. The KCW Technica I understand though to be pretty much the best out there,
As per your original question, John Brawley has hinted that they are investigating doing a PL mount version of the Production Camera. However it is always a trade off. A PL mount version will be a longer wait while you could have an EF sooner. Do you already own PL mount glass? If not but you intend on buying, there are now a lot of really excellent options out there that come in EF mount such as the Schneider Cine-Xenar III. And of course the Zeiss ZF mounts are interchangeable. But there is no guarantee that your wait for a PL mount will ever amount to anything. It may. They may come out with it. But at the same time, they may not.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
Adobe Production Premium CS6, Avid Symphony 6, Final Cut Pro Studio 3
The College of William and Mary -
I don’t know if it was mentioned. It was not released.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
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The College of William and Mary -
What application are you trying to capture to? Might this be an issue with capture settings?
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
Adobe Production Premium CS6, Avid Symphony 6, Final Cut Pro Studio 3
The College of William and Mary -
Which box do you have? There are many baseplates for the BMCC. Just get a BMCC baseplate that will adhere to your rails standard. Be it 15mm LW, 15mm Studio, or 19mm Studio, Wooden camera makes proper risers and any of their specified baseplates will work.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
Adobe Production Premium CS6, Avid Symphony 6, Final Cut Pro Studio 3
The College of William and Mary