Ilgar Öztürk's Lounge Discussions

Regardless of the camera, you need a lens that has a perspective that matches your mental image when you think of things. Many pictures have been made with one lens shooting all or almost all of the picture. What that lens is, is up to you and your imagination and your bank account. A more generalized approach will be to have a normal lens, a wide angle lens and a telephoto lens or a zoom that covers all of those options and doesn’t give up too much in quality. While different lenses have different characteristics, there is no one lens that is the “best” one to buy. The Blackmagic Cinema Camera is a rather odd product, with an odd sensor size. At this point the BlackMagic 4K would seem to make more sense in almost every consideration, particularly longevity as a viable camera at just a little more cost. If you have not used one of these, then do so before you buy. The DSLR inspired layout and ergonomics are annoying and there may still be unaddressed image issues to work around. Make sure that the additional equipment you will have to buy is broadly interchangeable with other cameras. Not just lenses, where PL mount is the industry standard, but EVF’s recorders, monitors, support gear etc. BlackMagic cameras are quite inexpensive and they show it in some areas. Absolutely buy it if you have projects to use it on and the rate you will get or assign as rental for the duration of the projects plus a LOW resale value when you are done is greater than the cost of the camera. If you cannot make the numbers work in your favor then you and only you can decide whether owning a camera is a good choice for you. Too often the current crop of “film-makers” seem to be looking for a camera they read about on the web and a warm body who can turn it on. If you own that camera then you are in a good position to make some money from their combination of lack of knowledge + ego . If you are buying the camera only as an investment and not to use yourself, without a few guaranteed projects, you will be hard pressed to make the investment pay off.

Thanks to all for your comments. I've gotten in touch with someone who's talked to me about this. If not for Stage 32, I wouldn't have known about him. So, this social forum is awesome! :)

If your after budget solutions I can highly recommend the rokinon lenses. As for the cameras. Well the pocket is a 16mm frame so think of old super 16 film stock ( Films like Black Swan, The hurt locker etc). Getting shallow depths of field will be very hard to achieve though. It is possible., Theres also the speed booster which will make the frame act like s35 with a nikon mount that will give you the larger frame and shalloweer DOF possibilities. The 2.5k camera is brilliant. I love it. If you want to see some examples of whats possible look at Frank Glencairns work. People go on about crop factors and the like yet the sensor is the same size as the Panasonic AF100 which was used to shoot The Raid and the BMCC is a far better camera in terms of image and rolling shutter. I am now using a 4K with the global shutter. I think the image out of the 2.5k is better but I have to do some live event run and gun reporting and having the global shutter is brilliant. Don't just think of them as a raw camera only the pro res codecs are incredible and having used an Alexa in Pro Res I was blown away by the quality of the lower cost cameras. There is some FPN in the 4K when recording at 800 iso and it starts heating up. I've also seen FPN in RED mysteriums and Alexas as well. The one thing to remember though is, these are not low light monsters like the dslrs. You will have a camera that is better in lowlight then many Digital cameras that were used in the past but it is one that Cinematography craft should really be invested in. The dynamic range allows you to pull so much detail out and matched with a good color grading software (which comes free with it) the results are stunning.

Thanks! I appreciate your thoughts.

I'm interested in all types of filmmaking, but I meant "indie" as in non-studio films.