My initial impression of BRAW was negative because it came at the cost of CinemaDNG and coupled with a “raw” codec that is softer/less detail/less sharp resulted in my reaction as an epic fail. I know many people want to argue a softer image is more cinematic and blah blah blah but the point is the image quality HAS changed and whether it can be improved in post is a whole other can of worms. Some are swearing they will not update their firmware which demonstrates the real concern for users who want the best performance from their equipment. It’s equivalent to having a car with 200 hp and you take it to the shop and it now has 195 hp would that really make you happy? Oh but there is now more room in the back seat?! HAHA, same difference.
Many others on forums and groups spouted the same frustration that was directed to another camera company for pressuring through litigation or the threat of litigation to remove CinemaDNG from our beloved BMPCC4k. What a strange reason to finally receive BRAW.
Did BMD really create a camera that was so damn good that one of the “big boys” who sell their camera box alone for $30k was threatened? Did BMD blink and quickly release BRAW and remove CinemaDNG to avoid or stop litigation?
Needless to say, I was frustrated that CinemaDNG was gone with firmware update 6.2 and all I had left was Prores and BRAW (I never use Prores!).
So on a rainy day in Southern California and a canceled shoot I decided to do further testing and here are the results. Please let me know your thoughts on the new codec. Keep in mind the focus was on the center of the chart.
I may upload the files for download…
MT
editor/founder