It's almost a shame to think that you can now order a camera on Amazon, which allows effortless shooting with Aperture that Kubrick used for candlelight scenes in Barry Lyndon.
That's the exciting part, but the BMPCC is actually a very thin camera that requires significant investment, so it is a practical tool for filmmaking. Above all, one must be very likely in an external power solution, invest in expensive, high-speed SD cards and in many terabytes of disk space to the enormous files that manufactures the camera accommodate. Not to mention things like lenses and lens adapters or various accessories that you may need to mount a fully functioning video rig.
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*** Sensor and lens options ***
For people with a background in still photography the BMPCC may not sound very impressive. The sensor has a form factor of 2.88x compared to 35mm and a resolution of 2 MP. But the BMPCC does not stand photographs, should not therefore be measured against these standards.
People with a background in film or television will recognize the sensor size as that of the known Super 16mm, and there are no shortage of cinema lenses, which can be used with it.
With regard to the resolution of the sensor, it has only so many light-sensitive elements as required for Full HD video, each image frame of this size of 1920x1080, which is the 2 MP Image Frame size of Blu-ray video , For a camera that has been developed for this to take with video resolutions, the light sensitive elements need not be so tightly packed as in a photo camera. This is an advantage. When the sensor had more light-sensitive elements, the camera Lineskipping or other 'quick and dirty' method for downsampling should be used to reduce the resolution, which is a major cause of moiré and aliasing when shooting video with DSLRs.
The small sensor faced a well with a number of challenges. A smaller sensor is an effective a deeper depth of field, which is great, if that's what you need, but making it more difficult to make the background out of focus to isolate an object.
Another problem with a small sensor relates to the availability of wide-angle lenses. Provide objective for full-frame or APS-C sensors because of 2.88x format factor a much more pronounced telephoto field of view, when used with the BMPCC. Thus, a 50mm lens would provide a field of view as a 144mm lens with a full frame camera. This means that if you have a whole collection lens for full-frame or APS-C format DSLRs, one has few opportunities for even moderate wide-angle shooting with the BMPCC. It takes, for example, a 12mm lens to get the full-frame equivalent of a 35mm field of view. The best solution to this problem is to invest in a Speed Booster (see below).
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*** METABONES SpeedBooster ***
A SpeedBooster is an adapter that reduces the effective focal length of a lens. It does this by reducing the projected through the lens image circle to a smaller area on the sensor plane. A concentrated on a smaller area image becomes brighter. A side effect of such a lens is thus expanded, it is brighter. The shrinking of the image circle also minimizes any imperfections in the glass of the lens. In addition to the increase of length and speed makes a SpeedBooster a lens so sharply! A Speed Booster is a wonderful piece of technology that increases the value of your entire lens collection BMPCC and if you use it with her. Speed Boosters however are not cheap, so this leads to additional costs that must be factored into the price of the camera. A SpeedBooster is one of the many additional costs, which I will write later.
Note that there are different types of speed boosters, which are sold by Metabones, including those that are specifically designed for BMPCC. I have a Nikon G lenses that changes the form factor to a lot more manageable 1.75x, while the aperture is increased by 1 and 2/3 stop increments. For example, convert this SpeedBooster my Nikon 50mm f / 1.2 lens in a phenomenal 87.5 mm f / 0.7 lens!
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*** The DAS IST DAS PROBLEM DER OTHER APPROACH WITH RESPECT TO THE DESIGNS ***
The BMPCC captures great images with beautiful earthy colors, but it is really basal in terms of what can be a video camera, so you need a lot of extras in order to turn them into a practical tool for film productions.
*** *** Batteries
The BMPCC used an ordinary battery of Nikon EN-EL20 type, but emptied the 800mAh version that comes with the BMPCC, in about an hour. This is a readily available battery type, so you can easily buy spare batteries, but if you prefer not to interrupt the shoot to replace the battery, there is also the option of the camera via an external 12 V source to supply energy. The BMPCC comes for this purpose with a power cord, but you can also use a Power Pack for a contractor. I have to come up with a single PowerPack charge for overnight shootings to supply a Power Pack of the company Oxa, which with 30,000 mAh has enough capacity to BMPCC with energy. This Power Pack is however quite large and heavy, so I'd recommend something more compact. (The PowerPack 'EasyAcc 15000mAh Power Bank', which I had linked in the past here seems to no longer be available. My Link suddenly resulted in a product that unfortunately has no 12V output.)
Updated on 14.12.2014: I can now recommend the following PowerPack: RAVPower 15000mAh External Battery Pack Multi-volt 9 V / 12 V for smartphones, tablets, netbooks. This is a very compact and reliable power pack with 12V output, which I use for a while. This should give you about 20 hours, you can record on a single battery charge. To plug it into the 0.7mm socket of BMPCC, you need a "2.1mm to 0.7mm adapter * 2.5", you can get on eBay for a few euros.
*** Data Storage ***
The BMPCC is very sensitive when it comes to SD card. Even with the cards that have sufficient write speeds for the data rates required by the camera, people have reported problems with dropped frames. Instead of taking a risk, I recommend buying those SD cards that are recommended by Blackmagic, the SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB 95MB / s cards: SanDisk SDSDXPA-064G-X46 Extreme Pro SDXC 64GB memory card. One of these cards gives you just a little more than 45 minutes of recording time in ProRes format and about 20 minutes in the raw data format. I had no problems so far with these cards, but currently they are very expensive. This may be at the time, if you read my review, but have already changed.
You should also take into account the cost of all the disk space you need to store the files and secure backups of them.
*** LCD ***
The LCD is not particularly clearly visible in bright sunlight. If you have solved the battery problem, you can set the screen brightness to the maximum without having to worry about the battery power. This helps a bit, but if that's not enough, several manufacturers offer Loupes that fit for BMPCC (eg Zacuto). I have a little glare protection of a piece of black cardboard crafted to avoid these additional costs.
*** Sound ***
The built-in sound processing is of fairly poor quality, therefore you want a microphone not likely to plug directly into the BMPCC. The best solution is to use an external recording device. This generates additional costs that you can expect if you do not already have such a device.
*** *** Image stabilization
The BMPCC has a Micro Four Thirds bayonet, so that the camera can use the image stabilizer in MFT lenses, but if you use other lenses via adapter, is probably no image stabilization, these lenses work. This makes handheld shooting much harder. Dealing with camera stabilization is the kind of thing that could lead to further costs.
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These additional bits and pieces the cost of the camera fall finally out much higher than the list price of BMPCC suggests. In addition, the camera is much bulkier through the accessories, is no longer so something that can be called reasonably a "pocket camera" ('pocket' = pocket or pants pocket).
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*** DESIGN and usability ***
*** *** Handling
Although BMPCC is a video camera, it has the form of a camera, and that's not necessarily the most convenient for handheld shooting for extended periods. But I would not recommend such and handheld shooting with the BMPCC unless you use a lens that has an image stabilization.
*** Battery ***
With this camera, often you have to access to the battery / card compartment gain, but this is at the bottom of the camera, which can be inconvenient if you have mounted the camera on a tripod or use a rig that is not specifically for BMPCC was prepared. Note that there are many cages that have been specially designed for the BMPCC (eg Varavon Armor Pocket, Tilta ES-T13, skis Black Cage Plus, Contineo, Shape, Movcam, Wooden Camera etc.) and the access to the battery permit / card.
*** Buttons, menu navigation, functions ***
Frequently used settings such as white balance, ISO and shutter angle can be found in the menu, but they do not have their own keys. They need, for example at least five keystrokes to achieve the ISO setting, which can be very frustrating.
One can in the camera, neither the SD card format or delete clips. And although the camera warns you when the space on the card runs out soon, are a current firmware no precise indication of how much space is left on the map. It's a bit as if you shoot on film. Blackmagic has promised that a way to format the card and information on the remaining space will be made available in future firmware updates. The company has also said that it will not introduce any function for deleting clips, as this caused file fragmentation, which the write speeds reduced, which in turn leads to dropped frames. Blackmagic has also promised to add an audio-level monitor and a histogram to assist in the exposure. All this is very welcome when it comes.
Updated on 14.12.2014: Since I wrote this review, the firmware has been updated to meet all these promises. You can now reformat cards in the camera, there are on the screen a histogram and exposure also indicators of the remaining recording time and audio level.
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Summary
With all its limitations, the BMPCC is nevertheless a very exciting camera, but potential buyers should be aware of these limitations in order to avoid disappointment. Most of the limitations can be overcome - but at considerable cost. I hope that this review could give you a clear idea.
