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2K BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera, active m43, $995
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  • Selling ours for cost, don't want to be treated this way. I will return the BM ATEM We ordered. Done with such treatment. Have already sold our BMCC cams

  • I know why it is happening second year in a row.

    They need to order proper service.

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  • it's the other way round. Now we now where white orbs are coming from. The name of the company is BlackMagic

  • Evidently, there are quality issues with some of the arriving new BMPCC

  • @lmackreath

    All sensors, be it CCD or CMOS, will have a ‘blooming’ effect when during severe overexposure, the pixel is over >saturated and excessive charges overflow to neighbouring pixels. It just looks different depending on the >sensor type.

    I thought the whole point of buying the BM camera was to prevent blooming by having a greater dynamic range. Now its only strength appears to be the same weakness that every other camera has?

  • Cancelled my preorder too ... I don't see any footage that convince me about 13 stops DR.. seems to be 10-11 DR, like hacked GH2 ... and blooming effect is not acceptable.

  • @philiplipetz I will buy yours. Sending you a PM.

  • It looks like the end of BM cinema camera division may have come because of this...

  • @lolodigital hacked gh2 with 10-11 stops of DR? could you please tell me what kind of magic hack you are using?? :-)

    BMs customer treatment is inacceptable. bringing the camera in for calibration is a smack into every customers face. you dont have to live in botswana to have problems finding local support.

    For the price the camera is still appealing to me. Lets give this baby some time on the market, i can still recall all the screaming about the gh3s shortcomings in the beginning. Also i am surprised that some people really think they would get a super duper flawless camera without any shortcomings for that price. Which camera is free of that? Find the tool that works best for your needs and use it.

  • Here it is how is BM right now:

  • Evidently, there are quality issues with some of the arriving new BMPCC

    this whole Blackmagic Camera thing doesn't feel professional anymore. Overpromise, underdeliver big time.

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev Can we talk about that Pentax K-5 raw video hack again ;)

  • Essentially no audio, bad sensors, battery life less than advertised, questions about DR, blooms, highlight cutoff, poor customer support, arrogant reply that all sensors bloom, vertical lines, glow around objects, clipping chroma channels at different levels, peaking not visible at higher ISO

    What have I missed in this PR disaster?

  • @Mirrorkisser

    hacked gh2 with 10-11 stops of DR? could you please tell me what kind of magic hack you are using?? :-)

    The one that transforms 8 bit H.264 into lossless RAW. I thought everyone was using that one?

    Oops maybe I was supposed to keep that a secret?

  • If it was easy to put RAW video in an affordable camera someone would have done it already. I think BM bit off more than they can chew.

  • @mpgxsvcd: ahh you mean flowmotion 3.03? i thought that was not officially released? rumour is it even has 13 stops of DR, editable filmmodes and 16bit color space?

    i agree with you on your statement about BM. they wanted more than they can swallow. then this is the first generation of those cameras and i would be more than happy if they bring some movement into the market. for the next 10 years i dont want to have a new canon each year with no other development than adding one megapixel or a menu point. sometimes people have to strive for things that seem almost utopic, unless the name of their product contains something like "bolex".

  • I think this is why I didn't see a problem with the demo version on the floor of the BMD event. I pointed it at lights and didn't get blooming. Which if it's a sensor issue, then it's a production sensor issue. So may be a repeat of the last sensor problem with the BMCC. Or like they said... a calibration issue. Cuz it was definitely not there on the camera I played with. Which was a "test camera" so pump the brakes rather than slamming it in reverse.

    Keep in mind; you are all beta testers in BMD's release model, have been since day one... They should come out and tell you that... and I think them not doing that is what's causing the bad mojo.

  • Blackmagic is certainly not on my good side for the delays on this camera - pre-ordered on first day, here we are two months after "release" and still no camera.

    However, the whining about the camera itself has got to stop. The blooming and "black dot" issue are problems, but given the camera's price point, they really need to be looked at simply as limitations of the camera. You have to be careful about how you shoot and aren't going to be able to get all the kinds of shots you want. You just come off sounding like a child when you complain that a camera capable of images previously reserved for cameras many times more expensive has limitations. Hopefully, Blackmagic will work to and eventually will resolve these issues, but if the reliability of your DSLR despite it's imaging limitations are preferable, then just stick with your DSLR and quit griping.

    As for other issues: Short battery life, no in-camera formatting, etc... Life is full of trade-offs, and unfortunately, the more money you have, the less trade-offs you have to deal with. That's reality. To not expect LOADS more trade-offs in a camera offering the Pocket's specs at it's price amounts to wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

  • Yep, cancelled. Sorry to everyone that was in line to buy my BMPCC. I didn't want to deal with any hassles. Buying another BMCC mft for $1999. Selling the copy of Vegas for $200. Just sold my first copy for that, then I'll sell Resolve for at least $500 easily and then the handles for another $100 which I already have with my first pair.

  • @theconformist i agree to an extent that people should accept some trade off's that are inevitable and expected like short battery life, formatting and deleting clips etc... these are gripes and minor irritations, design choices some of them even. but the blooming sensor white orbs is a real issue. we shouldn't have to put up with issues like that which in my eyes make a camera pretty useless. i think BM need to be more transparent with us that the first batch is beta testing. or better still take the bloody time to conduct proper tests themselves! i still like BM and i think most people do to , their rocking the boat and people respect them for that and some really great achievements they have made like the BMCC . however i think this contributes and aggravates the issue further - we like them and don't want to think of them as greedy bad companies like the P , C and S words so when they disappoint its just that much more disappointing! transparency. some work on PR and a bit more care are needed to stop this downward spiral BMD seem to be on ..... do not fuck up the 4k!

  • @theconformist

    Normally during testing, defects are graded from critical to acceptable. At any price point, if a defect is critical, i.e. not fit for purpose then the defect needs fixing. Now I realise that defect grading is subjective, but it's plainly obvious that sensor blooming like this is critical.

    I would rather have limited DR and more noise than this defect.

  • I agree @itimjim . Hoping they can shift calibration slightly toward blacks to reign in that highlight clipping and smooth the roll off without losing much shadow detail. A little noise is not the end of the world.

  • 13 stops. Death in Venice.

  • The blooming and "black dot" issue are problems, but given the camera's price point, they really need to be looked at simply as limitations of the camera.

    Don't accept this. Limitation is a cheap display, missing audio meters, restriction nowadays to 25/30p - but not this bad image quality.

  • How many of you are willing to trade a noticeable defect in the footage for a claimed extra few stops of dynamic range?

    That just sounds so backwards to me. Even a novice user will ask “What are those white stars from?”. I guarantee no one will ever say “You have 13 stops of dynamic range instead of 14 stops. I can see it”.

    Some people complain about infinitesimal differences in bit rate and yet they seem to be perfectly willing to accept glaring artifacts in their footage.

    I can tell you this much. If you present your work with those white Orbs they are going to think that you used some built-in star filter and just dismiss your footage all-together. You can actually produce a similar affect with the GH3 and its built-in “Glistening Water” or “Glittering Illuminations” modes.

    Maybe this can fixed with a firmware change. If Panasonic can implement this with software maybe BM can take it out with a software change.

    Sometimes we get caught up on one specific thing and we totally forget what is really important. If no one else would ever notice that your footage needs more dynamic range why would you put in artifacts that everyone will notice?

    I can’t fathom why anyone would buy this camera after seeing these issues unless they were absolutely sure they had been fixed. The statement that BM issued is far from assuring that these issues have been resolved.

    I really hope that BM sorts this out. I think they are pushing the envelope and that is good for competition. However, in this case it appears that they pushed the pen knife right through the envelope and the check inside. This camera was still-born as far as I am concerned.