Blackmagic Design Production Camera 4K Camcorder

Product Information

Capturing Ultra HD (3840 X 2160) resolution on a Super 35 sensor in the high-quality ProRes 422 (HQ) format, the Production Camera 4K breaks new ground when it comes to the relationship between quality and price. Soon Sony will drop AVCHD for video in their cameras like a bag of fermenting potato and replace it with cameras shooting in the XAVC S codec, and the better model shooting in undiluted XAVC.

TTL35: Agree with most what you said, but perhaps yabokkie was thinking about the new and by all accounts, truly great dedicated 4K and HD Sony codec cameras that are just now starting to come out. Using XAVC and XAVC S video codecs. The fact that this camera is most frequently being tested against models from other manufacturers that retail — on the low side — at three or four times the price of the Production Camera 4K speaks volumes. While the ergonomics of this camera (which is clearly made to sit on a tripod, though not impossible to work with hand-held) might be off-putting to some DSLR filmmakers looking to shoot in 4K for the first time, the quality of the footage and the accessibility of the design/interfaces (coupled with the price, of course) will make it hard to resist.Whooo hoooo....we finally somehow manage to receive an update from an actual employee of BMD....keep em coming as I am sure there are customers that have either spent money or are thinking of spending money and really appreciate it. So yes, use the GH4 for HD video, but don't expect it to deliver much when you are switching it over to 4K mode. The next day, we headed out to Brooklyn Bridge Park to capture some 4K footage of NYC’s Financial District, just across the East River, and the Statue of Liberty, out in the New York Bay.

We tested color reproduction and separation by shooting some highly saturated and textured clothing on bright green grass. There is no auto white balance function. White balance settings are limited to six presets from 3200 to 7500. If you need to fine tune your white balance more than this you'll need to do it in post. Even after increasing the color saturation in post by 25-percent and viewing at 400 percent, we could not detect any bleeding between colors or reduction in the sharpness of the clothing detail. With ProRes 422 and (later) CinemaDNG RAW, there is plenty of color information to play with without sacrificing image quality. Ethernet supports 10/100/1000 BaseT. Allows direct connection between panel and chassis, or vianetwork. Tally Output When shooting 4K, focusing becomes more critical than ever, whether your output is to the Internet or to the big screen. The focus button on the upper right of the rear panel does a good job at giving you peaking information. It toggles the feature on or off but does not give the user any other control over intensity, color or range. We found that it worked very well to keep all of our shots in focus. New Sensor

Multi View Monitoring

That said, if you opt for the Production Camera 4K you should expect two things. The first is that you'll get some wonderful 4K footage in bright light, with tons of resolution, minimal rolling shutter, and a flat profile that's easy to grade. The other thing you should expect is a series of headaches, as the poor battery life and abysmal low-light shooting preclude pretty much any kind of run-and-gun work.