Blackmagic Design’s chief executive has revealed why shipments of the firm’s Cinema Camera have been delayed.

The camera, which was unveiled at this year’s NAB show, was meant to ship in July.

Founder and chief executive Grant Petty said contaminated packing materials had caused blemishes to the glass which covers the camera’s sensor.

In a post on Blackmagic’s user forum, Petty said the problem was compounded by a bug in the supplier’s test software.

“That’s why [the supplier] shipped us bad sensors and did not notice,” he said.

“They fixed that and could then see the problems we saw, and so stopped production as about 95% of sensors were suffering this problem with the glass.

Petty said that after more tests it found the blemishes were caused by contaminated packing materials used to ship the glass to the sensor supplier.

Blackmagic hopes to re-start production of the camera as soon as it receives a fresh batch of glass, which it expects by the end of the week.

Petty added: “I deeply apologise for the delay in shipping and it has been very frustrating for us as well to be sitting on a completed and tested product for a month that we cannot sell.”

Blackmagic Cinema Camera 1

The camera was due to ship in July