I have the Blackmagic Cinema Camera (BMCC) and love it so far. Beautiful image and the raw image is just so smooth. So much latitude.

Bob's right. Moving a lot of data around. I'm working on a documentary and thought about not shooting raw. But, then I thought I'd bite the bullet and get a few extra 3TB drives. About 7 hours of footage on each 3TB drive. Compare that about 150+ hours of DSLR footage per 3TB drive. But, raw is worth it to me.

I pre-ordered both the 4k and the pocket camera within an hour of them being available on B&H's site. I'll probably cancel the 4k camera, but with all my EF glass, I'll probably end up with one in a couple of years. I'll keep the pocket camera, as the BMCC isn't a "walking around" video camera in the same way as DSLRs are. If its image is close to the BMCC, it will be worth it to buy a couple of MFT lenses (or some good adapters).

Now, if we can just convince SCS to support Raw (.dng) files in Vegas Pro. It is an open format, after all.

This is one of those products that I'm so glad is there, even though I am not going to use it personally. For now I am incredibly happy with my GH3 and growing to love my little GoPro 3 Black as well. I am happy any time a product comes along that raises the bar quality-wise, and there is no question that the BlackMagic cameras do this for an amazingly affordable cost. Why don't I want it? Heck, the 70 and 50Mbps modes of the GH3 are too much data for me. I would rather just work on my shooting skill and get it a little closer when I shoot it. On the other hand, even with the best settings, I can't shoot a backlit scene like someone shooting RAW on a BlackMagic can. 4k and RAW in a theater setting make oh so much sense, and I am happy to see the bar raised, even if I'm not going to jump it just yet.

I agree, Laurence. I happened to have been looking for a new camera and was convinced I was going to get a 5D Mark III (which my wife already has) for video. But, I waited not-so-patiently for the BMCC and I'm glad I did.

But, I share your sentiments. I hope the ante keeps getting upped so when we upgrade in a few years, the upgrade will be worth it.

Now, do you have any MFT lens recommendations? Preferably something with image stabilization, as the Pocket Camera will be my walking-around video camera.

Probably the Panasonic 12-35 f2.8 zoom through is your best bet. I have two of those: one for my GH3, and one for my GF3 (which I expect to replace with a GF6 soon). With the smaller sensor, it will be more zoomed in (something like 18-50 on a Micro 4/3 I believe): not a bad range at all. It will be too big to put in your pocket though ;-)

There is also a 35 - 100mm (equiv. around 70 - 200mm) which is supposed to be a very fine lens.

marks

That lens is probably my next purchase.

One thing to keep in mind with this camera, it has an extreme crop factor. About half (twice) that of an APS-C camera. You're going to need extremely wide lenses for wide-angle shots.

Laurence: "...and one for my GF3 (which I expect to replace with a GF6 soon)"

Do you think the GF6 will cut it as a video camera, like the GH2/GH3? I saw a GF6 sample on YouTube. Some shots looked good but, in general, there were a lot of artifacts...although that may have been user error.

I know GF6 has manual video controls and a similar, if not the same, sensor as the GH2. Although I haven't seen it mentioned in the specs, the GF6 is probably max bit rate 17mbps.

I would use this to replace my GF3 as a B and stealth camera. My GF3 has the GH2 hack which ups the bitrate. The only thing missing as compared to the GH2 hack is that it doesn't do 24p. I use the faster 12-35 f2.8 zoom lens on it most of the time instead of the pretty horrid kit lens it came with. It works quite well, but it isn't as sensitive in low light and stills are nowhere near as nice. Video looks quite close between it and the GH3 though if the light is good. Other things that drive me a little nuts on the GF3 are that the screen is not articulable, that it's not very bright, and the touch screen is pressure sensitive rather than a capacitance sensing one. The GF6 seems like it would fix most of these complaints. The only thing would be that I would lose a little bitrate until the hack was updated.

As compared to the BlackMagic pocket camera, what the GF6 would have would be:

1/ 16 megapixel stills with RAW.
2/ Autofocus with touch, facial recogition and motion following modes.
3/ Articulating touch screen.
4/ Regular Micro 4/3 crop factor and depth of field.
5/ Intelligent auto modes that make quick shots quite painless.
6/ Intelligent auto plus modes that add adjusting white balance and exposure tweaking.
7/ Eventual upping of the bitrate to whatever the SD card will handle once the camera gets hacked.

Those are good points about the GF6. Also consider the need to buy fast, large capacity SDXC cards and the extra HDD storage space of the BM pocket cam. (Although that cam certainly looks cool for the money.)

Do you think the 20mm/1.7 pancake would be workable with the GF6 for hand-held video or the shakiness and rolling shutter would be horrible?

Seems the low-light Panasonic lenses with stabilization are a lot more expensive than that one.

Wondering the Vegas supports of the files...?

I guess Prores codec can be read easily without any trouble, but how about CinemaDNG format?

Vegas does not support raw (CinemaDNG) files. I put in a request about 6-9 months ago that Vegas provide for them, but it still does not.

Can ProRes be read by Vegas?

Prores can be read by vegas, just need a fairly current version of quicktime.

One (apparently) disappointing thing I read on a review of info announced about the "pocket cinema cam' is the reported 1 hr battery life, seems a bit limiting?

Prores can be read by vegas, just need a fairly current version of quicktime.

Or just the decoder if, like me, you don't want to update your Quicktime.

>>> 1 hour battery life<<<
Just have more than one battery. One hour seems pretty reasonable to me.

I'm pretty sure the battery isn't replaceable... kind of like an iPhone. To go more than an hour you need an external battery and cable ... and of course another pocket...

"The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera includes a removable and rechargeable lithium ion battery, which provides up to an hour of continuous recording time. The Nikon EL-EN20 battery type is commonly available, so you can purchase multiple batteries if you need to shoot for longer periods. The battery charge time is approximately 1 hour 15 minutes with the camera off. With a wide 12-20V power input range the camera can easily be powered and charged from larger professional camera batteries and other power sources."

I don't think the battery is going to be the limiting factor. How much raw video will fit on large SD cards? 5-10 minutes per card?

I see that the fastest Sandisk memory available on Amazon is 95Mb/s Extreme Pro.
64 GB costs $144 and by my calculation that would give approx 12 minutes.

Hopefully the camera will work with slower memory - else that would get expensive.

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 zoom

Laurence, there are good reports of this lens but also some negatives. The negatives are the inability to switch off the OIS (shakiness when locked down) and zoom not smooth. There doesn't seem to be any physical focus or aperture ring, which may or may not be an issue for use on this camera.
You don't have problems with any of these?

Serena