Scott_W

3 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

My Smallrig Cage arrived today. Looks and feels really solid.

The Pocket 4k, the Cage, the Viltrox, the Battery and a Nato-Rail on top result in a weight of 1280g. 

With the Sigma 18-35mm (810g) it is around 2090g, really managable with a gimbal or a compact rig.

When did you order? I ordered mine about a month ago and not heard a thing. 

I use a slider quite regularly - I bought a manual one at first, but have now replaced it with a 2 axis motorised one. Its great for corporate work and products shots etc.. I've tried to use my Ronin S to give slider like results, but it's not easy. I've not done much in the way of motion time-lapse yet - but it can work really nicely if not overused. 

2 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

1. Battery door is faulty, flops open

Not on mine it doesn't

1. Battery gets stuck

Nope. Not had that either.

1. Lens mount has a worrying amount of play.

Not with MFT lenses - any play I've had has been with my cheap Viltrox speed booster. 

1. Battery life is rubbish

I'll give you that. But I'm getting a solid 40 minutes with each battery. Predictable, and you can rig a more robust solution. 

1. Massive barrel distortion on native M43 lenses

I've been shooting at 12mm today, which is as wide as I usually go, and had no distortion. 

1. Screen unusable outside

I've been shooting all afternoon with it. In sunlight. It's no worse than any other camera screen

1. 1TB USB C drive "is a must" (add £600 because it needs to be Samsung T5 or equally fast / approved)

I've been shooting on the Sandisk Extreme Pro SD cards today. Perfectly find for UHD ProRes 422 which is perfectly fine for most of what I do. The T5 is useful to have in the bag, and is the cheapest option for the amount of bitrate it churns out. Maybe you're not used to so much data?

1. Add cage

I will - thanks. 

1. Add power base or v-lock battery

Already had one - like most people who will buy this. 

1. Add monitor

Already had one. like most people who will buy this. 

Not so Pocket now and not so £1000 camera now is it?

Solutions for Blackmagic when the do the next camera

• Use multiple batteries in a vertical grip style form factor and allow USB C power while camera is running
• Do better Q/A on the lens mount. No more reports of infinity focus being off. No more reports of play and wobble.
• Support digital correction of native M43 for ProRes recordings
• Put a built in EVF in it
• Put a screen on it that is bright enough or daylight use
• Put an articulated joint on said screen
• Raise price to £1500, to save us the hassle of having to double the camera price to make it usable and bulk it up.
• Keep the body as light as possible.

Seriously, you should pick one up. If only to test it - the interface is a joy to use and the image quality is excellent. It's a film makers tool, not a hybrid camera, an SLR that does good video. It's just a box with pretty decent sensor and a hole in the front. 

22 minutes ago, TurboRat said:

I hope Blackmagic addresses this via firmware update and not just one of the 'quirks' to be ignored like hardcore P4K posters want to happen. I also want to purchase a P4K in the future but so far some issues that are cropping up are:

• Soft edges in wide angle lenses

I tried the Samyang 8mm last night and found the whole thing quite soft, speed boosted or not. This lens has never been the sharpest wide open, but it was consistently soft rather than being softer towards the edges. I've also shot with a variety of ultra wide Nikons via dumb and speed booster adapters, and an m43 Samyang 12mm and not seen any sharpness problems. 

• Red light clipping

I haven't had an issue with this, but have noted the ability to fix it

• Battery getting stuck

Not had this at all - I've tried 3 different brands, from Canon to cheap(ish) brands and ran them all until depleted and hot. 

• Battery doors suddenly opening

Not had this at all - after watching the video posted on this thread, I tried to recreate it, but failed. My guess is that this is an isolated issue with a sticky catch. Either way, the battery won't fly out because there is another internal catch. 

• SSD like T3 not immediately recognized

I have had some issues with the T5 not being recognised. Not sure what causes this. However, on the occasions it has happened, a restart of the camera solved it. 

I'm not really sure about 'image quality is above everything' agenda but I'm hoping these things that are fixable

2 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Absolutely.

Though at least with those two, fabricating an external battery was only a readily available connector away.

I am now seriously contemplating doing what I was only joking about yesterday and cutting the power cable in half and putting a barrel connector on to attach to the SmallRig Sony F battery converter.

The battery is definitely the weakest link. It was the same with the original pocket camera. 

It's handy to keep it small on the Ronin S, but needs a more robust solution for general shooting. I'll be interested to see what you come up with. I'm probably going to pick up a dummy battery for the short term.

2 minutes ago, Matthew Campbell said:

That's the weird part. I'm using the Glidecam as I normally would, one hand lightly steering, the other taking the weight. I'm fairly light on my feet, so there's no jarring movement like the video shows there is, it should at least be a "floaty" matching my footsteps. This makes me think the bit of play on the adapter and the weight of the metabones is shifting as the camera weight shifts ever so slightly, making it seem like a "hard step". 

I also put my camera on the ground yesterday and gently pushed down on the Rokinon Lens while mounted, there is a bit of flex there too, as I could see my focus points shift. I wonder if the lens mount isn't as secure as thought.

 

I've got my 8Sinn Metabones support coming in this week, fingers crossed that solves the issue. I was thinking maybe this is a common problem for people with a metabones+heavy lens without support. 

I mounted a 300mm prime on the front of my P4k the other night - it was rock solid. I did use the collar sleeve to mount it on the tripod though. Not sure I'd have fancied that much weight on the adapter and camera. 

27 minutes ago, Matthew Campbell said:

I've got some weird JITTER in my video. I shot this on Sunday, using the Rokinon Cine DS with Viltrox .71x Speedbooster on a Glidecam HD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltwGuwZGWJw

I'm going to assume this is because I don't have a Speedbooster support yet, and there's a tiny bit of rotation on the lens mount for it because it's not screwed in to a supprt. The lenses are also a fair amount of weight and I think it might also just be a bit of flex on the camera+mount. 

Has anyone seen this before? I'm going to assume it's a common problem when you don't have your speedbooster/lens supported and screwed in? Or is it potentially something else?

I'm going to try it with the 25mm Panasonic lens (super light) I have and see if there's a similar situation, but thought I'd check in here as well.

Thanks in advance! You are a fantastic community and I'm glad to be here!

It looks like the jitter is from your footsteps, which suggests something is loose in your set up. How are you mounting the camera to the Glidecam? do you have a cage, or is it directly on the bottom of the camera. They do recommend using the mount point on the bottom of the speedbooster, but I'm not sure how this will help. Try a small wedge below the speed booster?

19 minutes ago, MattH said:

Would you mind posting a jpeg.  I cant view that.    Is that the 10-18 f4.5- 5.6 ?    I doubt there will be any field curvature visable at that narrow an aperture anyway.   I dont know if speed boosters reduce field curvature or maintain it.  Perhaps the do maintain it.     I have the 7.5mm which is why im very interested in the issue.   It does have field curvature, but it that guys pocket4k was massively exaggerating the issue.  The 20mm 1.7 has field curvature wide open too when focused to infinity so im worried that will look shit on the pocket4k also.  It would be pointless getting one if all my mft lenses dont work properly.

I have a Samyang 8mm and the Viltrox booster. Happy to try that if it helps?

I shelved the 8mm a few months ago after putting a tiny scratch on the front element. So I’ll need to dig it out later. 

16 minutes ago, Anaconda_ said:

Well, strangely, I just put all my batteries in (not at the same time) and now none of them get stuck, even the one that's scratched up from when I tried to get it out last time.

That one is Digibuddy though, for anyone wondering.

So far, I'm really liking the footage, but it's just random shots around the house. Will do more extensive testing tomorrow.

Did it get stuck after prolonged use? I suspect the heat makes them swell slightly. As mentioned before, I’ve not had this issue with the ones I bought. They weren’t ultra cheap ones though. 

40 minutes ago, JordanWright said:

My T5 Is working great. Make sure to use the included USBC cable with the T5 because other cables have issues. I previously stated I can record 4k lossless 50p on the T5... well after more testing, it drops frames after 24 seconds. so not great for longer recordings.

Pretty sure I’m using the original cable - but I’ll double check. Thanks.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the ability to use my old Sandisk extreme cards for 4K ProRes. I think these will get a new lease of life when BRAW recording comes. 

The only issue I’ve been having is an occasional failure to see the T5. Anybody else had this? 

I’ve been shooting with the camera for a few days now,  and not had any issues with the battery door. I’ve also tried to recreate the door opening from pressing on the side, but have been unable to make it flick open like the video suggests. Must be just a slightly duff mechanism in that camera? 

The battery indicator is not the best, but I’ve been getting pretty consistent results with the 5 unbranded batteries. I’ve just been switching them out every 30 minutes or so. 

EDIT: I’ve not had any issues with stuck batteries either. I have noticed that they get pretty warm, so I suppose an older battery may swell after lots of use. 

On 10/20/2018 at 8:43 AM, Inazuma said:

There seems to be a lot of speculation in here about how the original looked more cinematic than the p4k, which I believe. But has anyone shot any side by side videos to prove it? And to ascertain whether it is simply due to the higher resolution or is it something more?

I've only had the P4k for a day, but the first shots I made have a very similar feel to the original pocket. I could do a side by side comparison shooting at 1080 24fps, same lens ISO, ungraded if anybody is interested?

49 minutes ago, AaronChicago said:

I loved the OG pocket. It had it’s own look. It was a pain in the ass to use for more than 20 min though, without rigging. The P4K is definitely a next gen in every way. Once they add B- Raw ???

Once you get used to the weaknesses of the original BMPCC it's a great camera to use. My P4K arrives tomorrow, I can't wait to get buy hands on it.