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ARRI AMIRA in 2019 - Does it hold up?


Fernando Vilanova

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15 hours ago, Robin R Probyn said:

and 4K is requested alot..the Amira will simply be turned down..

I don't think any would-be producers know the Amira isn't 4k. When they hear "Alexa" their ears pop up. 

Also, I wouldn't recommend an Amira anymore anyway. 

15 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

We have 8 year old Alexa’s that are still working fine, and 4 year old Minis that go out all the time without a hitch, so it’s nothing to do with things starting to fail. 

You need to come stateside to work. Bad video I/O boards, imagers with dead pixels that won't remap, power board issues, the list goes on and on. Red's have it worse due to their software being super flakey and the imagers getting super hot. I will admit, I've actually seen a few F5/55's with some oddball power issues as well. Remember, I rent from different houses all the time, so I always talk to the rental house managers to catalog information AND of course the AC's who tell me about the issues they've encountered. Most of the time they ditch perfectly good cameras because they reach a certain hour count and they don't want to deal with them anymore. They buy NEW cameras of exactly the same spec in most cases. Yes, Arri did release the LF series cameras to semi-replace the S35mm imager ones, but most of the rental houses aren't investing in them to the level they are the Mini. Right now, state side, Arri owns the US theatrical market nearly entirely. You'll get a few shows in shot on Red or Film, but combined those shoots are only around 20 - 30%. 

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4 hours ago, Robin R Probyn said:

I shot with a Sony fs7II today..only 3rd time I think.. and really the electronic variable ND is just a genius invention.. thats only in Sony camera,s.. Venice has its own amazing ND system,...  but wow and double wow .. so good to work with.. 

I agree Sony has some great features, they are the "swiss army knife" of cameras. However, in doing that, you compromise in other areas. I recently did a shoot with the FS7II myself and pretty much nothing has changed with the camera. The menus and terminology are still completely bogus. The 4k 10 bit XAVC files the camera creates, are still system resource hogs. The color science (where it's getting better) still has a lot of issues and can be super difficult to grade. You're always having to run ND on the camera due to the base ISO being 2000, which I guess isn't a big deal, but it's kind of annoying. No Raw or Pro Res without huge expense. They still have that horrible flimsy handle and viewfinder bracket, both need to be thrown in the trash. 

To me, it feels like what the Blackmagic Ursa mini pro SHOULD feel like. However, I feel the UMP feels more like a substantial camera than the Sony. Even though the UMP's imager isn't up to par with the Sony, it's nearly half the price when accessoried out, records raw, pro res and has no issues with post production and color science. It's heavier than the FS7, but that's because it's an all-metal construction. 

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The other option is to not max out your budget and get something that works well for the day to day work and is cost effective and then hire for the high end jobs.

The lumix s1h looks very good at its price point. It would need a rig and it's got some limitations. But full frame 6k, super 35 and anamorphic with a good range of codecs. It would be a decent workhorse for a lot of mid range jobs. Alongside producing great images for the passion  projects on a budget.

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8 minutes ago, Phil Connolly said:

The other option is to not max out your budget and get something that works well for the day to day work and is cost effective and then hire for the high end jobs.

The lumix s1h looks very good at its price point. It would need a rig and it's got some limitations. But full frame 6k, super 35 and anamorphic with a good range of codecs. It would be a decent workhorse for a lot of mid range jobs. Alongside producing great images for the passion  projects on a budget.

I couldn't agree any more! The word is that the S1H is stellar and the codecs are pretty decent given the size of the camera.

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3 hours ago, AJ Young said:

I couldn't agree any more! The word is that the S1H is stellar and the codecs are pretty decent given the size of the camera.

Panasonic's 10 bit MPEG codec is unrecognizable by 90% of the professional software out there, including DaVinci and Avid. The only software that it works with properly is Premiere and it's the most buggy piece of shit "main stream" editing software around. So you spend $4k on a camera that makes files you can't even work with and need to be transcoded just to playback. You can't even use an external recorder to capture full-imager 6k, only 4k. So the only way to capture the full imager's output, is to shoot internally, with a codec that doesn't work. 

So no, the codec's are bogus. 

The imager is good, but I have been nothing but unimpressed with the images coming from the EVA1 and GH5S, two cameras I color with all the time. The log format they use, is just not very good and it's very hard to get what I want out of the image, unless it's shot perfectly on set. I have a client now who wants me to change the shirt colors of the entire cast in a production and it's usually not a problem with an Alexa or Red, but with the Panasonic cameras and the HEVC 10 bit 4:2:2 codec, it introduces a lot of noise that needs to be fixed before you can really grade the image the way you want. 

Sony, Panasonic and Canon are the worst at adapting. They refuse to put a decent RAW codec into their cameras OR simply a non-mpeg based, iframe, 10 bit 444 codec of some kind. They all want something proprietary while Red, Arri and Blackmagic stick to codec's that are compatible with the rest of the world. They could easily license Pro Res Raw or Blackmagic Raw, they could easily license JPEG on ALL Their cameras and make it a "standard" across the Japanese cameras. But no... they refuse to. They're still using shitty .h264 which is a delivery codec for web streaming services, as a CAMERA ORIGINAL because they can't afford to record to fast media or pay licensing. Give me a break, it's a total joke and until we move away from heavily compressed .h264/.h265 as a camera original, we will never see improvements in design. 

Edited by Tyler Purcell
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25 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Sony, Panasonic and Canon are the worst at adapting. They refuse to put a decent RAW codec into their cameras OR simply a non-mpeg based, iframe, 10 bit 444 codec of some kind. They all want something proprietary while Red, Arri and Blackmagic stick to codec's that are compatible with the rest of the world. They could easily license Pro Res Raw or Blackmagic Raw

XOCN is pretty great raw codec actually on F55. I have processed a little amount of canon raw lite from c200 as well and it worked OK though needed some experimenting.

 

I don't understand why anyone would want to use Prores RAW on their cameras unless they absolutely have to because it does not record anything else nearly decent codec. Especially if they are using Resolve based workflow. And transcoding proresraw is pretty time consuming if you need to do that. We use it only for drone shots because normal prores is not high enough quality and dng is a total nightmare to backup and post process, even more so than prores raw. The proresraw at least takes much less space than dng which is the whole point of using it on the Inspire drones.

Redcode raw, arriraw, blackmagic raw are proprietary as well.

Edited by aapo lettinen
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1 hour ago, aapo lettinen said:

XOCN is pretty great raw codec actually on F55. I have processed a little amount of canon raw lite from c200 as well and it worked OK though needed some experimenting.

XOCN requires a special recorder that docks onto the back of the camera, so it's no different then adding a 3rd party raw recorder. You MUST transcode before editing as well, which makes it worthless. 

Canon Raw lite is just JPEG2000 and it works fine, but it's only available on ONE camera! Why does the entire fleet not have it? I'd be totally fine with it. 

1 hour ago, aapo lettinen said:

I don't understand why anyone would want to use Prores RAW on their cameras unless they absolutely have to because it does not record anything else nearly decent codec.

It was just an example of an available codec. See, nobody can buy Red Code, but they CAN buy Pro Res Raw and I bet Blackmagic would license their codec as well. 

Red Code works great, it really does. It's my favorite to work with because it has so many compression ratio's and it decodes so nicely on a decent GPU. Red has (in my opinion) the best post workflow for Raw and if they licensed Red Code to other vendors, they'd be in trouble due to how good it is compared to the quality of their imagers. 

To me, what codec your camera records is high on the list of importance. I'd go for a "decent" imager with the best codec, over the best imager with a shitty codec. What's the point of a great imager, if you can't capture those images? 

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1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Panasonic's 10 bit MPEG codec is unrecognizable by 90% of the professional software out there, including DaVinci and Avid. The only software that it works with properly is Premiere and it's the most buggy piece of poop "main stream" editing software around. So you spend $4k on a camera that makes files you can't even work with and need to be transcoded just to playback. You can't even use an external recorder to capture full-imager 6k, only 4k. So the only way to capture the full imager's output, is to shoot internally, with a codec that doesn't work. 

So no, the codec's are bogus. 

DaVinci Resolve 15/16 Studio can work with H.265/HVEC just fine, I haven't run into any issues at all. I'm not sure about AVID, but in my experience AVID prefers MXF.

 

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7 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I agree Sony has some great features, they are the "swiss army knife" of cameras. However, in doing that, you compromise in other areas. I recently did a shoot with the FS7II myself and pretty much nothing has changed with the camera. The menus and terminology are still completely bogus. The 4k 10 bit XAVC files the camera creates, are still system resource hogs. The color science (where it's getting better) still has a lot of issues and can be super difficult to grade. You're always having to run ND on the camera due to the base ISO being 2000, which I guess isn't a big deal, but it's kind of annoying. No Raw or Pro Res without huge expense. They still have that horrible flimsy handle and viewfinder bracket, both need to be thrown in the trash. 

To me, it feels like what the Blackmagic Ursa mini pro SHOULD feel like. However, I feel the UMP feels more like a substantial camera than the Sony. Even though the UMP's imager isn't up to par with the Sony, it's nearly half the price when accessoried out, records raw, pro res and has no issues with post production and color science. It's heavier than the FS7, but that's because it's an all-metal construction. 

Yes the menu are the same but the lens mount is totally different and the front chassis is also totally new ..and it has the variable ND..the camera base ISO is not 2000.. thats only in Slog.. Rec 709 is 800... the EVF is not good.. but for its original price it was by far the best bang for the buck.. and can shoot in many modes.. and so, has I would say, at least 90% of the market it was designed for.. and by far the best selling video camera ever.. so they must be doing something right.. but I agree with some points you make..which is why I stuck with the f5.. but the Fx9 is  a move up.. the menu's have changed at last.. and the color science .. and the EVF.. its how HD Rez.. totally new sensor ..and many features taken from the Venice.. and the A7,s AF.. its going to be huge ..

Edited by Robin R Probyn
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6 hours ago, AJ Young said:

DaVinci Resolve 15/16 Studio can work with H.265/HVEC just fine, I haven't run into any issues at all. I'm not sure about AVID, but in my experience AVID prefers MXF.

 

I have 16.1 Studio with a full license and CAN NOT read 10 bit files recorded with my friends EVA-1 OR the GH5S I shoot with all the time. I have to dump everything into Media Compressor and convert them to ANYTHING else and they work fine. The only other codecs those cameras shoot are the same file format I use to deliver to youtube, not what I'd consider "camera original" quality. 

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Panasonic are working on sending Raw via HDMI for the lumix which might resolve a lot of issues. 

I'll ask the Panasonic rep about prores, maybe it's a cost thing. They did seem open to feedback and perhaps codecs can be improved via future firmware updates. Still looks like a lot of camera the price point regardless of the compromises that entails 

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3 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I have 16.1 Studio with a full license and CAN NOT read 10 bit files recorded with my friends EVA-1 OR the GH5S I shoot with all the time. I have to dump everything into Media Compressor and convert them to ANYTHING else and they work fine. The only other codecs those cameras shoot are the same file format I use to deliver to youtube, not what I'd consider "camera original" quality. 

I have the 16 and full license too and can read the GH5s 10bit files fine. Just processed about 400 clips yesterday. I have seen computers which don't read them despite having the latest software version so it may be some operating system related problem? Have not come by with the EVA1 internal files because the last time they used it, it was recording prores on Atomos and no internal codec was used.

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I do concur that some sony/panasonic codecs are more processor intensive then prores. 

Personally if I'm editing a 4K project, I'm going to make 720p proxies to edit with. Then I get a fast responsive time line when work on my lap top. So the Sony/Panasonic codecs are less of an issue for me because I'm always going to transcode at least once. 

In terms of the quality I would imagine 10bit 4K 4:2:2 at 400mbs is good enough for most purposes. 

Every choice represents a compromise, the OP's budget doesn't stretch to high end new gear. The Alexa mini is still expensive and by the time its affordable no one will want it

So if a camera purchase was needed its worth looking at other options. I'm no fan boy for any particular brand, but there seem to been some nice options outside of Arri/Red at the moment that are very solid if you don't mind their quirks. Its just a case of deciding what your priorities are.

Personally I'd be looking at the Lumix, the Ursa Mini, FX9 - Secondhand Arri and maybe the new RED Komono thingie - shooting tests and seeing how the workflow fits into my need's.

The OP's original Q' was about the lack of 4K on the Amira a problem. Personally I think right now maybe not. But in a couple of years it would be and its starting to become an issue as Robyn states. So its probably better to be looking at cam's that are native 4K, to aid longevity. In the budget thats Sony, Panasonic, BM and used RED - all very different cameras.

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7 hours ago, Phil Connolly said:

Panasonic are working on sending Raw via HDMI for the lumix which might resolve a lot of issues. 

I don't know if you can do that tho. 

7 hours ago, Phil Connolly said:

I'll ask the Panasonic rep about prores, maybe it's a cost thing. They did seem open to feedback and perhaps codecs can be improved via future firmware updates. Still looks like a lot of camera the price point regardless of the compromises that entails 

I mean there are a lot of reasons. You can't use SD cards to record 4k Pro Res, it's too much for them. So they'd have to put a CF card slot and that totally changes the design. The other reason on the GH5 in particular, is due to the ASIC they use and how it can't encode prores. The EVA-1's ASIC can do Pro Res, but they refuse to let it out in the wild, that MAY be for cost reasons. 

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7 hours ago, aapo lettinen said:

I have the 16 and full license too and can read the GH5s 10bit files fine. Just processed about 400 clips yesterday. I have seen computers which don't read them despite having the latest software version so it may be some operating system related problem? Have not come by with the EVA1 internal files because the last time they used it, it was recording prores on Atomos and no internal codec was used.

I've tried on High Sierra and Mojave, same problem on both. They do work fine in Premiere and Media Encoder. They also playback in Quicktime 10 fine as well. So I doubt it's an OS issue. 

I would triple check to see if you DID use the highest quality 10 bit mode. I think the lower bit rate one's may work because they're .h264 not HEVC. 

Edited by Tyler Purcell
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44 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I've tried on High Sierra and Mojave, same problem on both. They do work fine in Premiere and Media Encoder. They also playback in Quicktime 10 fine as well. So I doubt it's an OS issue. 

I would triple check to see if you DID use the highest quality 10 bit mode. I think the lower bit rate one's may work because they're .h264 not HEVC. 

I checked it.

the material was 150Mbps long-gop 10bit h264 and 400Mbps All-I 10bit h264 on .mov containers.  No HEVC... there was no camera settings on hevc which would suit the project so h264 modes were used instead.

I process Mavic2 h265 footage daily and it works fine on Resolve.

I have the gh5s here at the moment, no lens but tested the uhd HEVC mode 72Mbps on it and it works fine with my Resolve too.

 

I have High Sierra on this test computer as well. Can it be in any way related to having the FCPX and Compressor installed, I have both on this mac? it sounds weird that hevc would magically stop working without a reason. the hevc files play back fine even on Finder but the 10bit h264 does not. Both work on Resolve without any problems

Edited by aapo lettinen
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I know the problem.... I feel like an idiot. 

Turns out Blackmagic turns off the decoding on the free version and even though I have licenses, turns out the few machines I was testing it on here at work, didn't have the license activated. Just because you plugin the dongle, doesn't mean "studio" magically works! You gotta download studio! Sometimes I wonder why people have jobs lol ?

Anyway, yea it works in the paid version. 

Still doesn't work in Avid tho and yes, I pay for that lol 

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On 10/24/2019 at 2:23 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

You need to come stateside to work. Bad video I/O boards, imagers with dead pixels that won't remap, power board issues, the list goes on and on. Red's have it worse due to their software being super flakey and the imagers getting super hot. I will admit, I've actually seen a few F5/55's with some oddball power issues as well. Remember, I rent from different houses all the time, so I always talk to the rental house managers to catalog information AND of course the AC's who tell me about the issues they've encountered. Most of the time they ditch perfectly good cameras because they reach a certain hour count and they don't want to deal with them anymore. They buy NEW cameras of exactly the same spec in most cases.  

Sorry, can’t leave misinformation like this to go unchallenged.

I don’t need to go stateside -  I work for Panavision as a service tech, I have access to worldwide service logs and I need to know about reliability issues. You rent from a few rental houses and talk to ACs..? 

We were talking about Alexas here, in their various models. No rental house I know of sells off “perfectly good” Alexa models to buy the exact same model just to avoid potential issues. Sure, occasionally an Alexa needs to go to Arri for a sensor recalibration (usually costs under $1000), even rarer a camera may need a board or sensor replacement, but it’s certainly not common, and not worth spending tens of thousands on a brand new camera to avoid. If a camera happens to go down, you ship a replacement and fix it, you don’t buy a new camera. If your rental house contacts are selling cameras it’s because they’re not renting out enough.

The most common repair issues with Arris are user damage - over-long accessory screws punched into the chassis, scratched OLPFs, dropped cameras, salt-water damage etc. Board failure is way down the list.

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On 10/26/2019 at 4:58 PM, Dom Jaeger said:

You rent from a few rental houses and talk to ACs..? 

Yea from the entire country, not from a single shop. It's really hard to quantify something if your view is one place. I'm out in the field making product, sometimes all over the country. So I have experience talking to people and we discuss their issues, mainly at rental houses where I tend to get along with the small shops a lot because I run my own renal house and know the issues that go along with it. I haven't met a single person renting cameras, 1 - 20 bodies that hasn't said an Arri Alexa they own has gone down for a myriad of reasons. I've been asking around about the mini's recently because a few shops have told me the Mini's SDI board is a failure point and it's a camera I may have wanted to own someday. But I'm not going to by one when everyone I talk to says they have had issues. I haven't had a single manufacturer issue with my junky blackmagic cameras... and I used them A LOT for a few years. 

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10 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea from the entire country, not from a single shop. It's really hard to quantify something if your view is one place. I'm out in the field making product, sometimes all over the country. So I have experience talking to people and we discuss their issues, mainly at rental houses where I tend to get along with the small shops a lot because I run my own renal house and know the issues that go along with it.

All over the country eh?  In the field, making product!

You may have missed that I said I worked for Panavision and have access to worldwide service logs. We ship gear between branches all over the world so we're never just one shop. I've looked at service records for Minis across the entire fleet of over three hundred bodies, and looked for recurring issues that may need addressing. In the last year less than 1% needed power boards replaced for reasons other than obvious user damage like salt water exposure. Same with SDI boards. The most common issue outside of user damage is stuck or lit pixels, which is usually easily fixed with a sensor calibration - something that should be done anyway after a certain hour count, a bit like how your car needs a service.

Your assertions are what's called anecdotal - you've talked to a handful of people who told you something that someone else said that may or may not be accurate. None of them actually analysed the problem or did the repair. A board failure could be caused by salt water damage from a previous job that went unnoticed. An SDI issue could be due to a damaged socket. A sensor replacement could be needed because the camera was dropped, or debris had gotten under the cover glass and damaged the sensor surface. You might have heard that a camera was replaced because of x when actually it was nothing to do with x, but here you are telling everyone about it.

14 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

 I've been asking around about the mini's recently because a few shops have told me the Mini's SDI board is a failure point and it's a camera I may have wanted to own someday. But I'm not going to by one when everyone I talk to says they have had issues.

Minis have been out for over three years and I've never heard anyone say they have reliability issues, no-one in Panavision, no-one in Arri, no-one in any of the other rental houses I deal with, nothing on any internet forum. But apparently "everyone" you talk to says they do. You say "a few shops" have told you the SDI board is a failure point but our records show only two SDI boards were replaced in the last year out of well over three hundred bodies (and I suspect it was an external cause, because they were both on the same production.) 

14 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

 I haven't had a single manufacturer issue with my junky blackmagic cameras... and I used them A LOT for a few years. 

How is that even relevant? Are you trying to suggest Blackmagic cameras are somehow more reliable than Alexas? 

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12 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

How is that even relevant? Are you trying to suggest Blackmagic cameras are somehow more reliable than Alexas? 

It is relevant in that Tyler can consider himself extremely lucky for never having had any problem with Blackmagic products. 

Personally I have had reliability and manufacturing quality problems with ALL of their products I have ever used so I don't trust their stuff more that any other cheap Chinese product :P 

I have once seen the Alexa Mini to corrupt a card badly and was very difficult to restore the contents. On all the other productions the Minis have worked without issues so they seem to be pretty OK cameras

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14 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

 In the last year less than 1% needed power boards replaced for reasons other than obvious user damage like salt water exposure

That's not going to happen with a standard Alexa. That is a "mini" issue (Red's have the same issue) due to the open ports on the side of camera. It's just an inevitable issue, doesn't matter what production you're on. The one place ya never want to put holes that lead directly into your boards, is of course, on the top of your camera. 

Blame the users all you want, but it's akin to having an imager that's so overly sensitive, to run a base ISO outside in broad daylight, requires 7 1.2 ND filters. (Sony A7S) 

Nobody on either design team was thinking about the use of a camera. 

Quote

How is that even relevant? Are you trying to suggest Blackmagic cameras are somehow more reliable than Alexas? 

I'm just suggesting that my little shitty blackmagic cameras have been splashed with salt and chlorinated water, covered in sand, ripped off tripods, run for hours in 115 degree sand storms in the Arizona desert and sub zero temp's in the mountains of Yosemite. They've been dropped by several people, (not in my hands) and have survived 3 international shoots with various crews. They're nearing their 7th anniversary and they both work great. I stopped using them for productions a few years ago as I switched all of my efforts into shooting on film. However, every time I pick them up and shoot little things with them, they still deliver the same image they did from day one.

It's a shame the new camera has a big fan and hole on top. I understand their reasoning, but with the package size of the Alexa mini, they could have made the design slightly larger and thus, more robust in this manner. 

Edited by Tyler Purcell
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1 hour ago, aapo lettinen said:

Personally I have had reliability and manufacturing quality problems with ALL of their products I have ever used so I don't trust their stuff more that any other cheap Chinese product ?

The only camera that they made which was any good is the Pocket. I think the other cameras have all fallen short of what the pocket delivered for the time and price bracket outside of the new 6k camera. I have tuns of blackmagic equipment at home and at work, everything works flawlessly. I use Resolve and an Extreme Pro 4k video card as my livelihood. I also work on a weekly basis with the Cintel II scanner, which also functions great. Where the imager isn't great, blackmagic has been steadfast in offering upgrades for free and a new imager is coming soon.

I think of blackmagic as a small startup and you've just gotta be patient with them. I'd much rather buy from them, then a Japanese company OR even Arri/Red. The money I spend on a Blackmagic product, makes them a better company and they're actually innovating product that is affordable. 

Edited by Tyler Purcell
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14 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

That is a "mini" issue (Red's have the same issue) due to the open ports on the top of the camera. It's just an inevitable issue, doesn't matter what production you're on. The one place ya never want to put holes that lead directly into your boards, is of course, on the top of your camera.

What open ports? From what I remember, the camera is sealed on top.

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