Blackmagic Design Production Camera 4K with EF Mount

2015-10-18T10:30:47

I am a published filmmaker Artist. The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is an excellent camera for creative work. It is not a low light camera. However like most Film cameras, a good set up is necessary to get the most out of this unit. For whatever reason there are some people who continue to compare this unit with Dslr still photography cameras.. ?!? My assumption is that some people who are not experienced in motion film work will approach the Blackmagic from a 'Camcorder' background and expect out of the box a run and gun experience. Much like the Arri, Red and other production Film cameras. Such units need to be set up and properly dialed in in order to produce high-end results. I am very happy with my Blackmagic and have found very few to zero issues with the camera. The FPN issues was addressed some time ago. Great professional device that I would certainly recommend to independent and industry film makers. However if your work includes photographing weddings and your dog skippy. Then perhaps the bmpc4k is not for you and a camcorder or dslr solution may be in order.

DARCY S.

2015-09-18T06:44:13

Pros: - cheap - Good image quality (once they fixed the FPN problem) - cheap - pretty good firmware update commitment to improve features. Cons: - terrible (I do mean terrible) ergonomics. - Terrible (I do mean terrible) screen. - Terrible (I do mean terrible) delivery/un-kept promises for dates. - un-definable minor issues (strange flickering behavior after firmware updates, different sensor qualities after firmware updates). - Support: Always in defensive mode. - My sensor died (vertical black line in center screen) after 1.5 years. No offer of warranty fix. The company innovates, that's for certain. The execution (engineering/deadlines, manufacturing quality, company lack of backing/remedy for obvious defects/issues) leaves customers in the lurch. This product is NOT for a serious pro or semi-pro user.

JOHN O.

2014-11-04T19:00:00

The recent update for this camera provides in camera formatting, audio meters and a few other things. The FPN was not a problem with my camera. I think they have updated the current products they've been shipping. But I do believe if you were to receive a faulty camera they would send you a new one. BM seems to be working to resolve any issues with their frequent firmware updates. If they could just work on the LCD display to make it less like a mirror in the outdoors. Overall I have been happy with my camera. Hoping someday they will add 6o fps to their next firmware update, but who knows. Good camera for the price!

Brad

2014-05-29T21:00:00

I believe this camera should not be out in the market. Its strongest value is its 4K image and many of the units sold are reported to have issues with it. If you know how to light your shots or make proper use of ND filters you should be good with the image, but not 100%. It is however sold clearly as "not a low light camera". What does anybody expect for $3000? Seriously. I would expect what the manufacturer markets it to be, which it is not unfortunately. Buy a Sony, pay what it costs and expect to get exactly what Sony markets it to be. Or be brave and make this BM production camera work whichever way you can while the manufacturer figures out how to fix the issues… oh well. Battery power readings are not good, but one is expected to use an external battery with this camera. Audio, which is marketed to be of professional quality, it is not. Audio monitoring is bad. It has no audio meters and I would not rely on internal audio recordings for any serious shoot, but who does? You can still make it work with a field mixer such as a Mixpre - D from Sound Devices… and it may just sound great. Recording to SSDs is pretty cool. I own two docks and it seems quite simple to move the media in the SSD directly into my scratch. Who doesn't have a dock of sorts today? There are so many options. Example: Seagate External Thunderbolt Adapter for Portable Drives. Cheap and fast. If your mac has two thunderbolt ports you're good to go on set, but you can also have as many SSDs as you need for the shoot without needing to copy footage on set. I prefer to back up everything as soon as an SSD is full. All in all, you pay 3K and get to play with 4K and cine lenses. If you are lucky, your camera will have a good image all the way through for just $3000!!!

ALEJANDRO V.

2014-05-21T21:00:00

These cameras suffer from a problem called Fixed Pattern Noise or FPN. There are vertical lines throughout the image. The cameras are faulty and Blackmagic Design has yet to acknowledge the problem nor fix it. If you go to the forums on blackmagicdesign.com you can see the numerous posts from customers who all suffer from the same problem. DO NOT BUY until the problem is fixed or you will be stuck with a $3,000 paperweight. DO NOT BUY!!!!!

BRYAN D.

2014-05-20T21:00:00

Unfortunately, these cameras' sensors are riddled with FPN (fixed pattern noise). The problem creates vertical lines of noise in the footage. It shows even in well lit scenarios, and even at the native iso! The problem varies slightly from camera to camera, but in most cases the issue is very noticeable. I would absolutely NOT recommend this product to anyone, especially not professionals. BMD's support has has been completely unhelpful in addressing the issue. They will only admit it is a known problem on private tech-support calls. In fact, I have never in my professional career seen a company produce a "production camera" this dysfunctional. The FPN issue is so widespread, I believe this camera should be recalled entirely. Just visit the Black Magic cinematography forum to read up on the problems. This product had great potential, but was released in a beta state and backed up with horrible support. The price is not worth the hassle, trust me.

Patrick

2014-05-14T21:00:00

Pratical because it shoots PRO RESS 4k but unpractical because you need a card reader in order to unload the footage. The camera also doesn't mount on the desktop and the battery charger does not display the power accurately. Lastly, There is no 60 fps option which for some reason I thought came standard. And you can't format the SSD card on the camera... you have to do it through a disk utility (wack!).

Victor L.