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Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K


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3 minutes ago, mercer said:

This topic intrigues me. One of the reasons I switched to Raw was due to the texture of skin, tree bark, etc...

With that being said, have you tested an external recorder with the X-T3? I realize that theoretically it shouldn’t matter but  better bitrate and less compression of ProRes could help... especially since I didn’t notice the waxy skin with the professional short films that Fuji released. Have you tried using Midtone Detail to combat it? The X-T3 is on my short list as a hybrid but this waxy skin issue is a cause for concern. 

In the end though, if you’re shooting narratives, you’re better off shooting Raw at this level anyway and shooting with a dedicated cinema camera. I love that Hollywood are starting to use hybrid cameras like the a7sii to shoot The Possession of Hannah Grace but they have the budget to counteract the pitfalls that is non existent in no budget features. 

I liked what you did with your GH5 feature, how was the skin texture with that camera in post? I know Zak Forsman is shooting BTS footage for Hollywood films with a GH5s, so I assume that camera is pretty clean.

I saw a video on YouTube about external recording ProRes on the X-T3. The external recording source files showed even more of the temporal filtering issues, here's a download-link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sb0MH4soxt-Kqtf0jiYXc4dN0u5U-iFD/view?usp=sharing

The GH5 (after firmware 2.0 and lots of complaints) and the A7sII don't suffer from these issues. The GH5(s) only has to deal with oversharpening still. The Z cam E2 will offer a switch to disable temporal noise reduction soon. Fuji and Sony on the other hand don't bother fixing these problems.

I honestly don't understand why many cameras show the exact same artifacts my old Grundig CRT TV showed in the late 90s... ?

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4 hours ago, deezid said:

Fuji and Sony on the other hand don't bother fixing these problems.

I honestly don't understand why many cameras show the exact same artifacts my old Grundig CRT TV showed in the late 90s... ?

It's a pity they don't allow more flexibility.

I'd suggest that they just include a menu called Don't Go In Here that allows the user to turn everything on and off etc, but there are people that just can't keep their hands to themselves.  My dad used to work for a large company managing all the PCs and there was a staff member who would call the Helpdesk about every week or so with some strange problem.  At first they tried fixing it but couldn't work out what had happened so they erased it completely and reinstalled everything.  Some other problem a week later, same answer.  A third problem and they noticed the pattern and replaced his whole computer, another problem a week later.  Dad got involved and did some digging on his machine and worked out he spent about an hour a day screwing with random settings in the registry, which is a database deep inside Windows that has probably millions of variables that control all sorts of strange things.  The point is that he was changing things that weren't labelled, there was no mention of on the internet, or anything.  They tried everything, talking to him about it, his manager got involved, it went for months and they couldn't work out how to stop it happening.  It got worse and was taking up hours of IT time every week, he was going around the company badmouthing IT and causing big problems.  In the end they had to change the IT policies for the whole business to enable them to lock him out of the program and not be able to screw with things anymore.  There were a few other people who worked there that needed that access and they ended up having to change a bunch of things to allow them to continue to do their jobs.  

He obviously had some kind of mental issue that meant he couldn't stop doing it, and couldn't accept that he was causing his own problems.  Imagine if you're Canon or Fuji or Nikon and you give the entire world access to settings where people like this will screw with all of them and then when they don't like how things have turned out will go online and post criticisms relentlessly forever.  You might be thinking "it's only sharpening or NR" but think about how much photographers or YouTubers talk about cameras being "sharp" or about ISO performance.

It's unfortunate, but I think the only reason that some manufacturers can put real settings on everything is that either that these people can't afford these cameras, or when these people play with them the image will still look good, or that when they screw with things and they look bad and complain the other users are educated enough that either they can see it's user-error or no-one else cares about it.

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New Pocket 4k Update

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/readme/878cd30c9aea48b1924f99c741e9af09

  • Added support for pixel remapping in camera.
  • Added 2:1 monitoring frame guide.
  • Improved media formatting user interface.
  • Improved audio monitoring latency performance.
  • Improved auto focus performance.
  • Improved signal to noise ratio performance of camera internal microphone.
  • Improved power efficiency for improved battery life.
  • Improved 3.5mm audio input selection interface.
  • Improved AV sync performance.
  • Fixed an issue where time and date is not updated on camera when connected to the Blackmagic Camera Setup utility.
  • Fixed an issue where the 3.5mm audio input level is 6dB lower than expected.
  • Fixed an auto focusing issue with Lumix 20mm f/1.7 lens.
  • Fixed an issue where some USB-C external SSDs were not detected when connected before camera is powered up.
  • Fixed an issue where some batteries might shut off earlier than expected.
  • Fixed an issue where low battery indicator is not displayed appropriately.
  • Fixed an issue with camera not being detected by host computer when connected to certain USB ports.
  • Updated dynamic range and ISO chart in user manual.

 

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On 1/31/2019 at 9:10 PM, Kisaha said:

Guys and girls, how is your order status so far?

I asked the official BM importer here and they couldn't give me a timetable for delivery. They still haven't service pre-orders from months ago, so I didn't pre order yet.

Has anyone NOT received his pre-ordered P4K yet? And when do you people pre-ordered.

i got around to ringing lemac in melbourne here in australia 2 days ago i was told they haven't received any cameras since xmas they received cameras before xmas but nothing since. they have 30 odd pre orders, im somewhere in there. so  still the waiting game i pre ordered in october

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11 minutes ago, leslie said:

i got around to ringing lemac in melbourne here in australia 2 days ago i was told they haven't received any cameras since xmas they received cameras before xmas but nothing since. they have 30 odd pre orders, im somewhere in there. so  still the waiting game i pre ordered in october

stay strong and buy batteries

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1 hour ago, AlexTrinder96 said:

 

New Pocket 4k Update

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/readme/878cd30c9aea48b1924f99c741e9af09

  • Added support for pixel remapping in camera.
  • Added 2:1 monitoring frame guide.
  • Improved media formatting user interface.
  • Improved audio monitoring latency performance.
  • Improved auto focus performance.
  • Improved signal to noise ratio performance of camera internal microphone.
  • Improved power efficiency for improved battery life.
  • Improved 3.5mm audio input selection interface.
  • Improved AV sync performance.
  • Fixed an issue where time and date is not updated on camera when connected to the Blackmagic Camera Setup utility.
  • Fixed an issue where the 3.5mm audio input level is 6dB lower than expected.
  • Fixed an auto focusing issue with Lumix 20mm f/1.7 lens.
  • Fixed an issue where some USB-C external SSDs were not detected when connected before camera is powered up.
  • Fixed an issue where some batteries might shut off earlier than expected.
  • Fixed an issue where low battery indicator is not displayed appropriately.
  • Fixed an issue with camera not being detected by host computer when connected to certain USB ports.
  • Updated dynamic range and ISO chart in user manual.

 

thats great,

now if only they can shift some of those workers  onto the production  line   :)

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3 hours ago, AlexTrinder96 said:

 

New Pocket 4k Update

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/readme/878cd30c9aea48b1924f99c741e9af09

  • Added support for pixel remapping in camera.
  • Added 2:1 monitoring frame guide.
  • Improved media formatting user interface.
  • Improved audio monitoring latency performance.
  • Improved auto focus performance.
  • Improved signal to noise ratio performance of camera internal microphone.
  • Improved power efficiency for improved battery life.
  • Improved 3.5mm audio input selection interface.
  • Improved AV sync performance.
  • Fixed an issue where time and date is not updated on camera when connected to the Blackmagic Camera Setup utility.
  • Fixed an issue where the 3.5mm audio input level is 6dB lower than expected.
  • Fixed an auto focusing issue with Lumix 20mm f/1.7 lens.
  • Fixed an issue where some USB-C external SSDs were not detected when connected before camera is powered up.
  • Fixed an issue where some batteries might shut off earlier than expected.
  • Fixed an issue where low battery indicator is not displayed appropriately.
  • Fixed an issue with camera not being detected by host computer when connected to certain USB ports.
  • Updated dynamic range and ISO chart in user manual.

 

GOOD NEWS! The update fixed my battery door! ? Kidding.

The update did , however, seem to make the autofocus a bit snappier (still not great, but usable). The battery % indicator also seems to fluctuate less while the camera is in use. Don't get me wrong, the indicator still drops faster than the gas gauge in my old 1971 454 Corvette, but at least it is stable now :) I am a bit bummed that the didn't include BRAW, but a welcome improvement regardless.

2 hours ago, AlexTrinder96 said:

Updated ISO/Dynamic Range Chart

iso 1.JPG

iso 2.JPG

Ok. So, they shifted middle grey down by 1.5 stops. The dynamic range is the same, but the grey point is lower, leaving more room for highlights at a given ISO.

Does anyone know why they made this change? Was this just a correction to the original chart or did they change the camera settings? 

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2 hours ago, leslie said:

i got around to ringing lemac in melbourne here in australia 2 days ago i was told they haven't received any cameras since xmas they received cameras before xmas but nothing since. they have 30 odd pre orders, im somewhere in there. so  still the waiting game i pre ordered in october

Wondering why Aus didn't get that much supply considering BM is based in Australia. Also went to Melbourne during the holidays and asked around, they also haven't received P4K stock

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So this update, assume its good with all the fixes. Still wondering why they couldn’t add the SD card as a 3rd input. I will prob not buy a Cfast card anytime soon and was shooting a gig that went on longer than expected and filled up my SSD. I didn’t know if it would automatically switch to the SD or not so turned it off and pulled out the SSD so a I could see the SD card. Also, obviously this is QOL as well but I had to flip around all codecs to see what I had on the card before formatting it and it all just took so much time (I was shooting a live event) so for the future, maybe a media player that could see all files, RAW and Prores in ALL flavors. 

 

Sure I’m bummed about no BRAW announcement yet either but I’m willing to wait until it’s perfected. 

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On 2/3/2019 at 5:09 PM, thebrothersthre3 said:

Which you'd expect. Would be interesting to compare it with an Xt3 and A73 maybe

the color/lights gradients are so bad compared to the highest dynamic range camera that even a child would point the finger on that, it's so evident. imho as consumers we can ask to the market to upgrade, evolve faster, to a higher dynamic range sensors on prosumer devices, it's too bad really that only very expansive cameras can solve it. I hope (cross fingers) next poket cinema camera will solve it #blackmagicdropthebombplease

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17 minutes ago, Dan Wake said:

the color/lights gradients are so bad compared to the highest dynamic range camera that even a child would point the finger on that, it's so evident. imho as consumers we can ask to the market to upgrade, evolve faster, to a higher dynamic range sensors on prosumer devices, it's too bad really that only very expansive cameras can solve it. I hope (cross fingers) next poket cinema camera will solve it #blackmagicdropthebombplease

Have you experienced bad color gradients in your own footage on your own P4k?

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