kye

The other major changes that I noted with the BMMSC4KG2 were: B-RAW only No internal recording - SSD or external recorder required (and appropriate rigging) There's some strange things about the monitor setup IIRC - something like the menu options only appear on the 1080p HDMI output and the 4K SDI output can only output 10-bit and not RAW so depending on how you use it you might need two monitors, or to swap between the inputs on the one monitor but only be able to see a clean feed If you want to control it via USB (like if you have the handle accessory) and also want to record to SSD then I think it works but you might need a USB hub, and if so not sure if it needs power Compared to the BMMCC it's actually very different and has a bunch of strange quirks. It really is a studio camera designed to work while streaming and being remote-controlled. The fact it can record to a USB SSD and has the minimum number of buttons a camera could possibly have make it possible to use as a cinema camera, but it's sure a hell of a long way short of being nice to use as a cinema camera. The way I think of it is that the BMMCC is fiddly and annoying in many ways, and in those ways this one is worse!

Yeah, cheaper, but not that much cheaper! I guess my challenge with these is that they're both around a third of the price of the BM Micro Studio camera, which apart from coming with an OLPF installed, also provides: 4K sensor that is larger (MFT vs S16) Will have greater DR than the 1080p one on a 1080p timeline (because new one will be downsampled to 1080p from 4K) Dual ISO More bitrate options - from 3:1 to 12:1 Plus, it's a brand-new camera not one that's potentially almost a decade old. The OG BMMCC seems pretty well made, but electronics don't have an infinite shelf life.

Thanks, this is interesting info. I haven't looked into them yet, except to see the price and have my eyes go really wide! I didn't know they're also an IR/UV cut filter, which is useful although not much of a deal for me as mine is just joined at the hip with my vND filter. Also interesting to note with minimal loss of resolution, this is perhaps the greatest weakness of the BMMCC I think - imagine the image if it was a 2.5K sensor. @PannySVHS do you know what version you have? I did get moire on my trip, but it was only on a handful of shots IIRC, so although a problem, a pretty minor one, and for the kind of stuff I'm shooting which is atmospheric shots and nothing in-particular, if I miss a shot it isn't critical.

Great stuff! Lots of little interesting stuff to notice in there, like you making sure people are clapping in time to your soundtrack, etc. Some fun characters too - there's nothing like a grumpy person staring down the barrel of the camera lens! Those Sony 6000 series cameras can make some great images. I was considering the A6300 at one point, but an IBIS bug put me off at the time. I think the major issue for those cameras was that getting good colour out of them required more skill than people had at the time. Now there's more support for folks in terms of tools like colour management, the film emulation plugins, and more knowledge of colour grading techniques, so it's much easier to make the most of the files. Amusing about your son - kids are funny sometimes. Just as I thought I'd figured mine out (even just partially) they'd change and go through a new stage and I'd go back to being completely confused again!

I can verify I bought my BMMCC + rig from @mercer and would definitely recommend buying from him 🙂 I'm contemplating getting an OLPF for my BMMCC but you have mentioned this before and it stuck in my mind as a reason to avoid it. Did you try compensating with a bit of post-sharpening? It's a Smallrig one. I can't see it on their website now, so I assume it's superseded, but it just tilts forwards/backwards and attaches with 1/4-20 bolts to the camera and monitor. Shouldn't be too hard to find a reasonable one that fits what you want. If I take the BMMCC with me on my next trip in April next year then I'm contemplating a new monitor that's a lot brighter. I did a side-by-side with the BMMCC and GX85 on the beach a few weeks ago and literally couldn't see the Ikan at all, but the GX85 screen was totally usable.

Another thought, I really think it's down to the IBIS implementation. The GH5 has two IBIS modes, one that smoothes motion, and the other eliminates it creating a stationary frame. The normal smoothing one is how you describe, but it's the other one that's of interest. If you put it in that tripod mode, but then pan the camera, it keeps a stationary frame until you've moved it too far and it realises it has to 'follow' you, and if you keep panning you get the smoothest pans I've ever seen without sticks. The level of stabilisation is incredible. When you're doing it the feeling is a cross between pulling the frame through treacle and one of those time-warp things where reality is delayed (because it moves a second or two after you start, and then it keeps moving a bit after you stop again). I really miss that mode on the GX85, as it only has a normal smoothing mode, and if you hold it steady the frame sort of floats around randomly because it didn't completely eliminate all the motion. Interestingly, the OIS from the 12-35mm F2.8 on the OG BMPCC and BMMCC (which don't have IBIS) tries to keep a much more stable frame - if you hold it steady then it will have a much more 'locked off' shot with far less drift than the 'normal' modes from the Panny cameras. I haven't compared it between cameras, so it might be the lens, or might be the camera doing this. I think there could be a lot of benefit if they included several levels of smoothing on the IBIS mechanisms. Light, Medium, Heavy, and Tripod modes would be very useful I think.

I was the opposite - it was the hand-held shots in the car etc where I saw the jumping the most. That's why, to me at least, using a tripod for the buildings etc will fix those but still leave a gap for the in-transit hand-held moments. Thus my earlier reply about addressing that gap. This style of video is something I've been thinking about a lot for myself, and the way I see it is that to create some movement and contrast in the edit, I'd mix up pacing and subject matter such that there are in-transit shots, abstract shots, wides, teles, people, architecture, looking up, low-angles, high angles, shots with diagonals and leading lines, shots with lines horizontal and vertical lines (e.g. from looking at a building straight on), etc. I've also been contemplating an enhanced way to do the sound design too, so that it fits better with the edit.

Depending on your preferences, there might be benefit to testing some options for stabilising hand-held shooting as well as taking a tripod. For example you had lots of shots inside vehicles and while on the move, where a tripod isn't really practical. What I mean is that for things like IBIS, if you can reduce the shake from being just-too-much for the IBIS to instead where it is operating within its travel, you can cut out all that jumping/lurching that the IBIS does when movement is beyond its limitations. This might only require a reduction of (say) 30% of camera shake but could reduce the vast majority of shake-related issues in the resulting footage. Things to consider to stabilise hand-held shooting could include: Different ways you hold the camera (where your hands are gripping the camera) Different positions of your arms (e.g. shooting at belly height and pushing your elbows into your sides) Use of extras like wearing a camera strap and pulling the camera tight against it as a third point-of-contact Adding something small/foldable to the camera (table tripod sort-of thing) that can act as a stabiliser like an Edelkrone FlexTILT which can obviously act as a table tripod but can also act as a handle when hand-holding, or can even be extended backwards to form a shoulder-rig or pressed against the chest as a third point-of-contact You could even get a very compact/light travel tripod and hand-hold the camera with it attached, essentially using it as mass to make the rig heavier and larger. Alternatively, you could shoot much wider for such shots and then stabilise aggressively in post with a large crop. This risks having shake-related motion-blur in the shot that doesn't align to the post-stabilised motion of the final frames, but it can work in many situations. My approach is to use as much stabilisation as possible (ideally technique+rig+OIS+IBIS with post-stabe if required), so that all the mechanisms are operating comfortably within their ranges and will therefore create less artefacts and also allow more usable shots. For b-roll where no specific shots are critical, there's also merit in just shooting a lot and being pickier in the edit 🙂

Nice! I think the FLC is a bit of a game changer for trying to get higher-end looks with non-cine-cameras. You could get most of the same results doing things manually, but it makes it so much easier and faster to do that it really unlocks it. What lens(es) did you use?

Yeah, it's definitely geared towards remote control. For a run-n-gun setup, by the time you add the zoom demand, it's now larger than the P4K, which is truly saying something. I genuinely don't know what I'll do for my next trip, although the likely option is to keep the same setup as there's nothing out there that is better without also having massive downsides or a massive cost associated with it.

"I don't shoot coverage, I know what I am doing" 🤣🤣🤣

If you start with the desired aesthetic and then ask yourself what the equipment and settings are that creates that aesthetic, then you quickly realise that anything above 24/25/30p is a specialist tool. For me, 60p conformed to 24/25/30p creates an aesthetic that is surreal. If the subject motion is significant then it can pass for reality but through a highly intense emotional lens. I've seen shots that were 60p but didn't look unnatural in situations of extreme grief, shock, and euphoria due to love, drugs, or adrenaline. The aesthetic of 120p conformed to 24/25/30p is absolutely into the territory of a special effect. I filmed dozens of hours of footage from my kids sports games in 120p and am very familiar with the look, and it screams at the viewer that they're watching special effects footage. This is appropriate for heavily stylised content such as fight scenes or extreme action shots that take place outside reality, for example movies that are set in someone's mind or in virtual reality etc. 120p doesn't align with our senses observing our reality, except perhaps if there was an incredible amount of drugs involved. The other potential uses for 120p or slower is to see things that aren't noticeable to the naked eye. Documentaries showing animals doing thing very quickly like frogs shooting their tongues at bugs, birds diving into water to catch fish etc. This is a special effect but a useful one to extend our perception in time. The Slowmo Guys on YT make great use of this. The upgrade of a smartphone from 1080p120 to 4k120 is of almost zero practical use in film-making. Discussion of it at length outside of a very narrow niche can only be academic or fetishistic.

BM support replied, and yeah, no camera control from Video Assist units. "Unfortunately you cannot control any settings from the Video Assist units. The only controls a Video Assist supports is trigger recording. For the control functions you require, the options available are either through the ATEM control protocol, if you have one of our ATEM vision switchers, or you can use the REST API over USB Ethernet for external control via HTTP." Seems like if it can trigger start/stop then a protocol is there, so it should be possible for them to do it, but with the PYXIS monitor being over USB and therefore a completely different implementation it seems unlikely they'll convert the VA units to control their Studio series. I guess all hope for a tiny BM cine camera now lies in them releasing a new Micro model that uses the Pyxis monitor. This would be an incredible option actually, as the monitor has full camera control, it's nice and bright, is compact and light-weight, and draws power from the camera so no more duplicate battery situation. However, if you live in the real world then don't wait on a fantasy to come true.

It very much seems like segmentation in their product lines and development departments. The studio team created a range of cameras designed to be remote controlled and mixed etc, and they setup (what looks like) a comprehensive control system through the ATEM products. The "cameras that leave the building" team created the cinema camera range with screens and buttons, and the Video Assist range, and probably don't care their monitor doesn't have a way to control the hermit cameras from the other department. Definitely seems like a lost opportunity to have one camera be useful in both scenarios though.

Just read that thread, and yeah, it's a mixed bag. It seems like a great studio camera, but in an attempt to cost-cut or simplify or <insert some reason or other here> they hamstrung its ability to replace the BMMCC and be used outside the studio. Once again I'm reminded of the "industry blind spot" of camera size. If it's small then it's unnecessarily crippled, and if it's not crippled then it's physically large, and if it's neither then it's old and people are sitting around saying "they don't make them like they used to".

This looks like a great solution - you'd know by touch which button you're on. Awesome stuff! Pity it wasn't made more ergonomic from the factory.

Perhaps even more strangely, you can only have gyro enabled when OIS is disabled on the lens.

Interesting work-around but realistically for me, anything that makes me move from MFT glass will have to compete with me moving to any other camera system available, so it's a much larger investment for me and there's much stiffer competition involved. If I got the Video Assist can that control the camera? BM say "External Control: LANC, SDI and HDMI start/stop and timecode run." on the tech specs page for the Video Assist, which doesn't seem like "full camera control for all BM cameras". The camera page says: " External Control Blackmagic Zoom Demand and Blackmagic Focus Demand for controlling your camera and lens from tripod handles. Blackmagic Control Protocol over SDI and HDMI for external control when used with a compatible ATEM switcher with ATEM Software Control or ATEM Camera Control Panel. Includes control of some camera settings, focus, iris and zoom with compatible lenses, color corrector, tally and record start and stop to external media via USB expansion port. Camera Control REST API over USB Ethernet for external control via HTTP when used with REST client applications such as Postman. " If you search for "Blackmagic Control Protocol" then you get no hits that also mention the Video Assist units, so it seems like the answer is no. I've just emailed support asking so we'll see what they say. The more I look at this, the more that I think the options for replacing the BMMCC are either: 1) don't 2) wait for BGH1 to get updated with a GH7 sensor in it 3) GH7 4) some other camera system entirely, likely with significantly larger lenses

I have the BMMCC, and completely agree about the buttons being irritating beyond words. I set it up to be native ISO, 5600K WB, 23.976p, 180 shutter, and set the 12-35mm F2.8 lens to be at F2.8, and then there's no need to interact with the camera during use at all. Everything is done via the vND or lens focus or zoom rings. Occasionally I would run out of ND in very bright situations and so would stop down to F5.6, but that's a moment of fumbling every few hours of use, so not completely intolerable. If you can check I'd appreciate it. If there's no way to trigger an AF from the body then it makes it a non-AF camera or requires a pretty significant change to the rig. If it does allow it, I think I'd probably put a small dot of superglue on the button so it's easy to feel which is the right one.

Does anyone have one of these? If so, what do the buttons do in record mode? I'd assume that the Up and Down buttons adjust aperture, like the BMMCC does, but what does the SET button do? Hopefully it triggers the AF? I've read the manual and it doesn't mention it in there. If the SET button doesn't trigger the AF, can it be configured to do so?

Unfortunately, as someone who has exactly zero market segments catering even remotely to what I want to do, I have to go to the mountain rather than waiting for it to come to me. Pairing it with a VA seems a sensible move for a Resolve native like me. Obviously lots of details are still unknown and you'd want to look over the details before the rig was really optimised, but such a thing would make sense. I guess we'll have to wait to really get any solid info in order to evaluate it. Having the GH7 sensor in such a form-factor would make a lot of sense, and with some interface changes these two might be the BS1H and BG1H - the chassis look identical. I know a guy here in AU who does corporate stuff that just picked up a second BS1H to go multi-cam and he got it new for AUD1900 / USD1282. He'd been watching them like a hawk and kept seeing more and more deals and he held out pretty long and pounced at that price. I think that might have been from Amazon AU but can't be sure. My comment about the size comparison wasn't necessarily a criticism. If Panny built a camera that could handle the heat and data rates from a FF sensor and the physical stress of a professional standard FF lens mount and then just changed the sensor board over for the MFT one it's likely to mean that there's more engineering headroom than a purpose-built MFT camera might have. Anyway, this is all armchair daydreaming. My likely path is that I won't know what I want or have a clear idea of my priorities for a long time and when combined with my personal rule to not buy anything unless I have clarity, I won't be buying anything for a long time. Plus, the BMMCC is hardly a slouch, so the motivation to upgrade would be pretty low intensity anyway.

Let's say that someone wanted to use one of these in a minimalist rig. How would they do that? It appears to record internally to SD card, has a battery port on the back, and has many buttons and a wheel on top, so really it just needs a monitor? If so, it appears to have HDMI and SDI out ports, so a monitor that supported either of those looks like it should work? It's interesting that the MFT one is barely lighter than the FF one, although they're both quite light in the grand scheme of things.

Found this video the other day... turns out that Japanese camera company made a camera that catered to the Japanese, and (and this is the kicker...) the Japanese people liked it. Who knew? He talks about the S9 specifically at 1:25. The whole thing would be equivalent to GoPro making a camera for the US market, the US market really liking it, the US people buying it, and the Japanese people all talking in Japanese about how GoPro made a useless camera because no-one in Japan liked it. lol.

It just seems odd to me that people judge cameras or lenses by the resolution / sharpness. If you're interested in making quality finished edits, looking at 100% crops from a 6K sensor is about as relevant as an article discussing the shape and size and edge profile of the ridges in the rubber of the hand-grip. It's just disconnected from reality.

None of them are sharp enough to make inane subject matter into thrilling content. I guess the engineers just need to work harder... maybe next year?