Over the years we’ve owned lots of cameras, spanning numerous generations of technology over the past decade. We started on a Sony Handycam in 2006, then a Canon Vixia in 2008, then a Canon 7D in 2010, countless other DSLRs, and eventually coming to own a RED Scarlet-W in 2017. But in between owning the DSLRs and the RED, sits the venerable, and sometimes controversial, Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera (BMCC).

Announced in fall 2012, and after endless shipping delays and sensor quality issues, we finally got our hands on one a year later, and immediately put it to work. So, after all the delays, problems, and gripes, why would we buy one? Well, we bought two, and we did it because they were better than anything else at the time.

But, everything comes at a compromise. Besides the fact that this is quite possibly the worst ergonomically designed camera ever sold, and a RAW workflow that would make your laptop melt, it was basically a collection of parts Blackmagic already had lying around. They took their Hyperdeck Shuttle 2, added an off the shelf sensor, their yet-to-be 5” video assist monitor, and a battery; now you have a camera. And what a camera it was.

For all of the initial delays, the complaints, the quirks, the binocular-like crop factor, the images off this camera are still better than what you get with brand new, more expensive prosumer cameras; and 5 years later, we’re still using them. Across all of the films, music videos, corporate interviews, and custom 3D rigs, they’ve never once given us a problem; no failures, no overheating, no corrupted files. One even took a direct hit from a trunk lid whilst filming out of the back of a sedan, so needless to say, they’re also built like tanks.

Here’s to you, Blackmagic Cinema Camera, for proving all the critics wrong.