Black Magic Releases RAW Files Of Cinema Camera For You To Color Grade

Black Magic, the creators of the BM Cinema Camera, have released a series of DNG image sequences in conjunction with opening a new forum to share and discuss working with their products. Here is a sample edit of the footage by John Brawley, who shot the footage. Download the 2.5K resolution image sequences in the full post and show us your looks!

Working with DNG files is a real treat, as you get amazing latitude with the images when it comes to adjusting RAW data after it’s been shot. Unless you’re shooting with a RED or ARRI Alexa, you just don’t get this kind of versatility! Crafting looks with ease is an utter joy with these kinds of files.

Shot 1 (141 frames)
ISO 800, 85mm Zeiss Compact Prime @ T2.1. Schneider sapphire ND 6.

Shot 2 (109 frames)
ISO 800, 35mm Zeiss Compact Prime @ T2.1 Schneider Sapphire ND 6

Shot 3 (69 frames)
ISO 800, 50mm Zeiss Compact Prime @ T5.6 2/3

Shot 4 (131 frames)
ISO 1600, 50mm EF Canon “L” @ F1.4

Shot 5 (101 frames)
ISO 1600, 50mm EF Canon “L” @ F1.4

For processing these, you have some options, so it really depends on what software you’re comfortable with to find the best workflow. For me, I like working in Lightroom, so I imported the DNG files and crafted my look there, (Black Magic provides a FREE copy of DaVinci Resolve with a purchase of their camera, so I’d use that if I had it) saving presets and snapshots of interesting looks. Once finished, I exported the sequence as high quality TIFFs (you could use JPGs) and then brought them into Adobe Premiere to edit.

Since the original DNGs open in Adobe RAW, you could process them there when opening in Photoshop if you wanted, and save look preset and apply them to batches for different clips. After Effects would work like this too.

I’m not sure a typical video production workflow would work well with this, as it’s a pretty lengthy process; this is where Resolve would shine. However, I cannot argue with the results on a short form project. Feel free to do some grades and post them here, along with your thoughts on how the files handled, as well as your workflow. Very cool stuff!

Many thanks to Black Magic for hosting the files and to John Brawley for providing doing the work for you to enjoy. All still images shot by John Brawley. For more information, check out his blog post about it.