$495 is a more realistic asking price. Team it up with a C mount adaptor and some old Angenieux 16mm lens and there's some nice images to be had.

For something really out there one of our clients has a Kineoptiks 5.7mm lens, just needs a different adaptor. Certainly with that lens on it's no longer pocketable :)

Bob.

as an aside;

i'd really have hated to buy the bmpcc a few weeks ago only to find such a drop in price now.

i know $1k in the scheme of things isn't a big deal, but it does highlight our consumer society and relatively short life (value retention) of modern technology...

Here are some comments from a DP (cml site):

I have just used the BM pocket as second camera with Alexa for tight spots, it is fantastic, no need to post sharpening and i did see it on a 30 foot screen.
I have also used it for the opening scene of a feature I just finished, night shoot, main filming with Epic, hard to tell the difference, although the lens was an old Wollensack raptar, aperture 1.3 and super sharp.
BTW it is a micro not a mini HDMI. If you get a 90degrees adapter and tape it you'll be fine.
That camera is fab.

day or night I rated it at 800 that is the native ISO. i shot both RAW and PRORES, found PRORES perfect most of the time.
No vertical banding but in low light there is noise at settings lower than 800, 1600 was actually fine.
Personally I think the lens (isn't that always the case?) makes the difference.
Franz

It is tempting but I do not like the crop factor. It needs a $400 metabones to make it interesting.

No crop factor with 16mm lenses on it.
The DOF is shallow enough to require talent who can hit the mark.

I've seen indifferent footage from this little camera but today I saw some shot with it with good glass and a competent crew and it looked fantastic.

Bob.

Indeed. "Crop Factor" is a ridiculous factor. This is a super-16 camera (sensor size) so think 16mm lenses, not lenses made for a full frame 35mm still camera. So a 25mm focal length is nice standard focal length and 7-10mm good wide angle.

That doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't matter whether you have a lens made for a full frame camera or a m43 mount (or a 16mm), the "crop factor" or the field of view, or the depth of field remains the same for a given focal length/sensor size. The only advantage of smaller sensor sizes is you can make smaller glass because the target circle is smaller. Ergo something like Serena's comment; although at 2.88 crop factor a BMPCC is "standard" at 17-18 mm. To go wide you have to drop down to 7-10mm and there are distortion issues at that end. I increasingly find myself a bit limited with the crop factor on m43 lenses at the wide end and going to a heavier crop only exacerbates the problem. Call this phenomena whatever you want but the physics of the problem are real.

[I]" The only advantage of smaller sensor sizes is you can make smaller glass because the target circle is smaller. Ergo something like Serena's comment; although at 2.88 crop factor a BMPCC is "standard" at 17-18 mm. To go wide you have to drop down to 7-10mm and there are distortion issues at that end."[/I]

You're right of course, a 10mm lens on the BMPC isn't terribly wide, 5.7mm is wide.
Putting a full frame 10mm lens on the BMPC though you're not going to see much if any distortion. As I mentioned previously one can buy vintage C mount 10mm etc. lenses that are tiny and work well on the BMPC.

The footage I spoke of previously was shot with our Arri 11-110 T2 zoom on the front of the BMPC and it looked fantastic. Our quick tests of some vintage mint condition Angénieux C mount primes (10mm to ~ 20mm) suggests equally very pleasing results are to be had.

At the same time the BMPC with vintage lenses although very pleasing doesn't hold a candle to say a FS700 or C300 with modern cine primes but we're talking orders of magnitude differences in cost plus one doesn't depreciate the other, the decision to go either way should be based on what's being shot and how well does the look help tell the story.

Bob.

Does anyone happen to know if there's an adapter suitable to fix a Fujinon T14x5.5BRM4 lens (from a 1/3" Panasonic AJD200) on to the BMPCC?

Doubt that it would be worth trying. A 1/3 inch is a lot smaller than S16 sensor and the lens is designed for a 3 chip CCD, so won't perform well on a single sensor camera.

The 1/3" sensor has a diagonal of 6mm, compared to the BMPCC of 14.32mm --- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_formatsensor sizes and other related tech issues[/link]

>>>>a BMPCC is "standard" at 17-18 mm<<<<

Obviously crop factor is a commonly used parameter and I daresay useful to people trying to get their head around different video sensor sizes and somehow find that a full frame 35mm still camera is a useful reference point. Other people are used to thinking about FoV as a function of focal length for various standard formats, such as 16mm, S16, 35mm Academy, S35, and so on, so it's a matter of familiarity (and as you find tabulated in the American Cinematographers Manual). The standard focal length for 16mm was 25mm and 50mm for 35mm cine, but obviously others were used. If you bought a 16mm Bolex the 3 lens turret was normally equipped with 16mm, 25mm and 75mm lenses, although I preferred 10mm, 25, and a 50. So your suggested 17mm is much wider than the standard, and more so for S16.

There is a big disconnect between what a movie camera and a photographers camera considers a normal lens. The photographers world picks "normal" based on a human's percieved field of view. The old movie camera "normal" is based on the old size of a televesion and how far you sit away from it (on average). Based on these criteria a photography "normal" is focal length = diagonal of the sensor. (crop factor is determined from the ratio of the diagonal of the sensor to the 35 mm reference). The old movie camera reference "normal" is focal length = 2 x diagonal of the sensor. Two completely different angles of view. The 25mm "normal" for a 16mm (not super 16) camera is based of the older 2x criteria.

Which is better? I guess you can choose your preference. I personally feel the photographers criteria is better with todays large screen TVs and widescreen cinema.

The physics still are the same though and it gets increasingly harder to get a shallow DOF for the same field of view with small sensor imagers. I struggle with m43 sensors and to me the 1.4 factor (compared to m43) on the viewing field for the BMPCC is a killer.

>>>> The old movie camera "normal" is based on the old size of a televesion<<<<

Television? Wasn't invented when standards were set for film cameras. A parameter far more useful than crop factor is field of view, and that should be the factor used. The uselessness of crop factor becomes particularly obvious when you start talking about formats larger than 35mm full frame, since your reference lens won't cover the frame. The formulas for DoF are easily employed, so again reference to crop factor is an unnecessary diversion.

You are correct on that: It is based on movie theater viewing distance not TV as you point out. Needless to say there are two standards 2x and 1x. I was trying to point out why your Bolex used 25mm as "normal" when a 12-13mm would be the standard commonly used among photographers for that film size.

So in the spirit of not using the term crop factor: as I said in my last post, it becomes increasingly difficult to find fast lenses to get Shallow DOF when there is a small sensor. The DOF on my zuiko 50mm 1.4 lens is the same on any sensor but the "field of view changes in proportion to the sensor diagonal. It is a "normal" lens on a 35mm sensor, medium telephoto on a m43 and a full telephoto on a S16.

IMO, the BMPCC is too small of sensor. a 25mm is nice for close ups, but I have difficulty finding a lens for an wide establishing shot. I can use a 7 or 10mm but control of DOF is pretty much lost. The metabones adapters work remarkable well at getting more out of full frame lenses using the large glass to get a wider FOV, but they are expensive and add some bit of distortion.

Don't get me wrong the BMPCC is a great deal at $495. I just find it limiting because of sensor size. Use any term to describe the physics that you want...

Some of us ignore the physics and simply concentrate on getting brilliant images out of the camera. It was excellent value at the original price, even better now.