Matthew Sonnenfeld
Forum Replies Created
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The fact is that whether or not the SDI out is real 10 bit is almost irrelevant when you’re trying to just best the internal AVCHD codec. Even standard uncompressed 8bit being recorded at a high bit rate will yield much better results than any sub 30mbit compression. Take for example the bit rate hacks of the GH2. All it does is increase the bit rate, not the bit depth, but the difference that it makes is night and day.
While the “10 bit” of the AF100A may not be real 10 bit, the fact is that the results will just plain out be better when recorded out of the SDI. I agree that real 10 bit out would have been amazing, but that does not mean that you can’t make some fantastic images with
As for the lenses, I think that Erik’s videos show that both lenses could be really great performers. Honestly though, I’m pretty excited to see what will happen with the MFT Speedbooster when it hits.
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 -
Blackmagic will probably be what you are looking for. For budgetary concerns however I would definitely recommend that you shoot in ProRes over the raw recording unless you have a beast of a computer and a ton of hard drive space.
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 -
The Panasonic Leica Summilux is a fantastic lens. All around it is a brilliant performer. But you will not have the manual control unfortunately that you would with a ZF or even a MFT Voigtlander. For my primary work I have been using a set of Leica R primes that I was able to collect around the tri-state area pretty inexpensively for great quality glass. Could not recommend them enough.
Specifically though, when it comes to MFT, the cream of the crop are the Panasonic/Leica 25 Summilux, the Panasonic/Leica 45 f2.8 (Macro), Panasonic 7-14, Panasonic 20 f1.7, the Olympus 12 f2, Olympus 17 f1.8, Olympus 45 f1.8, Olympus 75 f1.8, Voigtlander 17.5 f.95, Voigtlander 25 f.95, Voigtlander 42.5 f.95. The Voigtlanders are all manual focus while the Panasonic and Olympus are all electronic. Just some food for thought.
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 -
May sound silly but try repairing disk permissions for your boot drive in Disk Utility. When permissions get thrown out of whack often everything suffers. That’s usually my first go to when it comes to diagnostics. Just an easy, general, thing to get out of the way.
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 -
Honestly I don’t think you should buy anything now. Are you on the waitlist for a MFT BMCC? If not, then yes, you would be waiting for them to be readily in stock at retailers which will be a long wait. If you need something sooner then the BMCC may not be the camera for you.
Honestly though, an FS700 is a good camera, but why not wait until after NAB? We are mere weeks away from NAB now and all of the manufacturers will have new cameras out and you can take your pick with cameras that have new technology. Honestly, most of the FS700 is the FS100, i.e. two years old. And also, keep in mind that when the BMCC came out it was completely unexpected and manufactures had nothing to compete, and on the whole, still don’t. That may change after NAB. Wait and see what competition for the BMCC comes out because I bet there will be some attractive offerings.
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 -
It’s hard to say when the MFT version will be out. Unfortunately the kinks in the EF version really held everything up and now I’m sure that the backfocus repairs aren’t speeding anything up either. On the flip side though, though the MFT will have all of the advantages that come with the mistakes of the EF version. Just by shear volume of delays though, I wouldn’t expect any sort of volume shipping of the MFT for at least two months. I could be completely wrong and anyone can jump in here and correct me, but that would be my best estimate.
As per lens coverage, any use of super16 lenses on the BMCC is really your own gamble. They are not designed to cover the sensor though some of them do. It really is a trial and error thing and maybe somewhere someone will generate a database of some sort but at this time I don’t think one exists. I would recommend to not spend any money on super16 lenses without testing them first to make sure that they do what you need. That being said, the general consensus seems to be that zooms may work when zoomed in though are not guaranteed at the wide end.
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 -
Jonathan, if the 2.5″ hot swappable bays that you mention are just internal extra bays and are not for your boot drive, but rather for just adding extra storage sort of like keeping an external drive, then in theory it should work. The SSDs are just bare SATA. If you want to try it I see no harm in giving it a go. Worst case is you have to buy a SATA dock, but if it works, you’ll save yourself $50!
Just curious though, what kind of computer are you using that you have these spare bays? Sounds very cool indeed.
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 -
Paul,
Could you please direct me to where you are finding this information? I don’t think I have ever seen anything that says that it captures “uncompressed” over thunderbolt as opposed to raw. My understanding was that the SDI is uncompressed while the Thunderbolt is raw.
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 -
From Blackmagic’s tech specs,
“Computer Interface Thunderbolt port for capture of RAW video and audio. USB 2.0 mini B port for software updates and configuration. Thunderbolt port for capture of RAW video and audio. USB 2.0 mini B port for software updates and configuration.”
I’m unsure why this would be happening for you though. I have not tried it myself but I do know that the Crucial SSDs have cause various problems. This may be yet another.
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 -
Are you trying to record raw over Thunderbolt or is this an issue with just trying to monitor over Ultrascope? If trying to record, my guess is that your computer may not be fast enough to handle the raw recording. It is huge bandwidth. But as per the SSD question, my understanding is that many people have had issues with the Crucial M4 SSD’s. Marco has been using the SanDisk 480 successfully and while it is not on the approved list, I have been successfully using the SanDisk 240 SSD’s. My experience really is that the SanDisks are the best around for this camera.
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