This means that our future films will have the look and feel of a major motion picture. Since 2006, we have provided films that have incredibly beautiful images. But in 2008, many wedding filmmakers chose to go with DSLR photography cameras to film weddings. And while the images looked good, those camera have some flaws that made switching a risky task. To completely understand the benefits of the BlackMagic Cinema Camera (BMCC) it helps to discuss the shortcomings in the DSLR cameras.
1. RECORDING TIME LIMITS - When DSLR' first came out they had a 12 minute record limit. Now it's 30 minutes, but still - who wants to have to stop and start recording every 30 minutes? The BMCC records to solid state hard drives and can record and store hours of footage.
2. LOST FOOTAGE - I still hear horror stories of DSLR cameras that don't record to the CF or SD card properly and the filmmaker loses huge segments of footage. This is especially true if th camera battery dies. The cameras aren't programmed to stop recording and save the files before the battery is completely drained. And losing footage is not something I was prepared to do. The BMCC has a dedicated internal battery and software that prevents this from happening.
3. STYLIZED IMAGE - If you've looked at wedding films recently you will notice that many of them have the same kind of image. The images are good, but have very saturated colors and very dark shadow areas. This is because these cameras are using compression software in order to fit the data onto the CF or SD cards, which have slower writing speeds than a solid state drive. This is where I need to get a little technical, so stay with me.
This compression software is called a "codec", and that is short for compression/decompression software. DSLR"s us either a format called h.264 or AVCHD. In order to write the data files onto the slow media the codec must capture the image and immediately throw away some of the data. So the software examines the pixels in the image. If there is a black pixel and the pixels immediately surrounding it are a very dark grey, the software will make those pixels black as well to make the image size smaller.
The BMCC uses a recording format called Apple ProRes HQ, which has a recording data rate 10 times the size of h.264 or AVCHD. So DSLR cameras are throwing away 90 percent of the data that the BMCC captures. Which is why the BMCC can record the same image, yet display a much more detailed image.
Here is a video by One River Media that shows just how much more detail and more cinematic the BackMagic Cinema Camera is over a DSLR.
Comparing the Cinema Camera & 5D Mk III from OneRiver Media on Vimeo.
You can watch this directly on the Vimeo site and really see the difference in HD by clicking here.
Susanne and I are so excited to be be able to bring this new improved image quality to our future clients. We are sill the only wedding filmmakers in Philadelphia who offer the same day edit as our primary product, but are now the only filmmakers in Philadelphia to offer this superior cinematic experience.
