Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

[Andrew Reid 8,002]

1 hour ago, JordanWright said:

'The Camera Cage for Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K features a completely customizable, modular design. Fill out your camera cage as you see fit. An optional right side handle features a small finger wheel that can allow you to control the upcoming Nucleus Nano motor and also features an SSD card holder as well as a battery compartment for Sony F970 batteries to allow you to extend the battery life of your camera. More info and pre-order available soon.'

I agree! Here are those pictures AGAIN! Maybe we can reach page 400 sooner than we think!

[Emanuel 1,768]

 

[Andrew Reid 8,002]

Just now, Emanuel said:

 

Nice video!

[Emanuel 1,768]

And an interesting match... : -)

 

[BTM_Pix 4,355]

1 hour ago, Shirozina said:

DR advantages are only useful if you can expose the footage accurately enough to exploit it and exp controls on the P4k are pretty basic (Even the GH5 has a waveform). I'd like to see an RGB parade display on the P4k.....

I agree that it would be nice to have additional tools but I have to say that I think that with Pocket 4K having false colour available (especially on a hardware switch) it will get a lot of people, myself included, closer to where they want the exposure to be a lot quicker.

The very quick contextual overview it gives you works better - for me at least - than a waveform so I'm going to say that from a purely selfish point of view, BM chose the right option for the initial release

 

[Turboguard 183]

That Tilta pack looks awesome! I hope it will be affordable. Kinda sucks I just spent 400 bucks on a setup! Would love the nucleus N handle! 

[JordanWright 249]

I saw somewhere that the base kit is 69usd but I assume that's only the half cage

[BenEricson 269]

1 hour ago, Emanuel said:

And an interesting match... : -)

 

Looks amazing until you clip the highlights.

[Emanuel 1,768]

1 hour ago, BenEricson said:

Looks amazing until you clip the highlights.

So, don't clip the highlights then... ; )

In a serious note though. ETTR... Expose to the right with this device. You won't get so much noise there from the shadows. Trust me ; -)

Other than that, no camera in the world will offer you such Grail : -)

[Alex Uzan 33]

From Cinema5D

Quote

Actually, we got a lot better DR results on ProRes with this camera as opposed to RAW. We reached out to Blackmagic Design for an explanation and received a satisfying answer, and Gunther even had a few calls with them about this to explain.

QUESTION by Gunther to Blackmagic Design:

We have recently tested the BMPCC4K dynamic range using a Xyla DSC labs 21 transmissive chart, and we stumbled across a strange behaviour of the camera:

- we tested in ProRes 4K DCI 25p and got 11.6 stops for a signal to noise ratio of 2, and 12.7 stops for a signal to noise ratio of 1 at ISO 400 (10.5 and 11.8 stops for ISO3200)

- when we tested the same DCI 4K 25p RAW (1:1) we found that the dynamic range reading was lower (by about a half stop). Only when we selected the "highlight recovery" option in DaVinci Resolve and then exported frame grabs into IMATEST we got similar results to ProRes.

This is a bit strange, because we tested also the old Pocket Cinema Camera and it had the same dynamic range reading in ProRes and RAW - and when we enabled the "highlight recovery" option in Resolve, we actually got about 0.6 stops higher DR in RAW that with ProRes.

How come that the DR of the new Pocket 4K is lower in RAW, and only matched ProRes when "highlight recovery" is selected in Resolve? Is ProRes doing this HL recovery automatically?

ANSWER from Blackmagic Design, Andy Buckland:

The Pocket Cinema Camera 4K uses our new demosaic algorithm developed with Blackmagic RAW, before encoding to ProRes. This new algorithm helps to reduce noise and improve the dynamic range in ProRes capture. With Cinema DNG RAW, the demosaic is still performed in DaVinci Resolve. That enables full control and manipulation over debayer settings, noise reduction, and highlight recovery to increase the dynamic range measurement beyond that of ProRes.

By applying minimal temporal noise reduction to the Cinema DNG RAW files in DaVinci Resolve - the lower steps on the waveform can be cleaned up nicely, bringing the available dynamic range of RAW in line with those seen in your ProRes tests. Then by enabling highlight recovery, the available dynamic range in Cinema DNG RAW increases beyond that of ProRes. ProRes users benefit from the new debayer algorithm in terms of dynamic range and reduced noise at capture, resulting in a faster turnaround. RAW users benefit from the full control and manipulation of the image, to decide which parameters they would like to tweak and finesse.

 

[TurboRat 65]

2 hours ago, Emanuel said:

And an interesting match... : -)

 

I think the kids aged by 50 years on the P4K 😁

[thebrothersthre3 860]

33 minutes ago, TurboRat said:

I think the kids aged by 50 years on the P4K 😁

what do you mean?

Pretty cool to hear ProRes Dynamic range is improved. I would buy this camera for the prores so its good to hear.

[Emanuel 1,768]

1 hour ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

what do you mean?

The Eisensteinian weirdness effect coexists on the simple fact the focus is not over the couple of kids, but behind the boy. Take a look on the puppet on his back. The girl is closer, obviously more focused than the male counterpart.

His post is only reflecting all that; poster's reaction.

 

Operator's mistake, not the camera for Christ's sake! : -) 

[MattH 203]

1 hour ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

what do you mean?

 

I think he just means the boys face looks more goofy in the right image.

[A_Urquhart 153]

Today, I managed the impossible! 

Used the Pocket4K as a B Camera to the F5. Shot seven, five minute interviews, all run n gun style,  all handheld with no additional accessories (using Canon 24-105 and Speedbooster XL) plus some B-Roll footage over the coarse of 8 hrs. Went through one and a half Canon LP-E6n batteries, they didn't get stuck, the battery door never flung open, the shots were steady (despite no IBIS!), they were in focus (Despite no AF or Focus Puller!)....and the Director was impressed with the footage despite shooting ProRes422 to SD cards. Must have been a fluke cos I'm constantly hearing that this type of shooting is impossible. 😋

Seriously though, Tilta look to be doing great things with accessories for the P4K and I love the integrated NP-F battery and SSD Slot in the grip. The only issue is that it makes the camera too wide. There really isn't any need for a handle on the left side of the camera so I would rather see a solution that has a battery or two in a battery grip that attaches to the bottom of the camera in a similar fashion to a Canon DSLR grip that would allow hot swapping batteries. Can't be too hard right?

[Emanuel 1,768]

15 minutes ago, A_Urquhart said:

(...) using Canon 24-105 and Speedbooster XL (...) 

(...) despite no IBIS! (...)

(...) Despite no AF or Focus Puller! (...)

 

LOL Despite all those "despites" ; )

...what about glass to only cover the S35 format aka APS-C? Any experience with that coupled to SB on P4K?

Any vignetting?

Is tap-to-focus working with the adapter?

[A_Urquhart 153]

1 hour ago, Emanuel said:

LOL Despite all those "despites" ; )

...what about glass to only cover the S35 format aka APS-C? Any experience with that coupled to SB on P4K?

Any vignetting?

Is tap-to-focus working with the adapter?

I know, crazy right? 

Tap to focus doesn't currently work with the Speedbooster XL. I haven't heard of anyone using any speed booster getting the tap to focus working.

The Speedbooster XL is best for for full frame lenses on the Pocket. The Sigma 18-35 vignettes with the XL so a .71 Speedbooster would be best for APS-C lenses. 

 

[Emanuel 1,768]

19 minutes ago, A_Urquhart said:

I know, crazy right? 

Tap to focus doesn't currently work with the Speedbooster XL. I haven't heard of anyone using any speed booster getting the tap to focus working.

The Speedbooster XL is best for for full frame lenses on the Pocket. The Sigma 18-35 vignettes with the XL so a .71 Speedbooster would be best for APS-C lenses. 

 

Crazy, why?

I only find something crazy when it is completely unexpected. Is it?

 

Well, tap-to-focus is a sort of autofocus or half AF as you wish. Manual focus, definitely, is not.

 

Indeed. SB XL is designed for FF while Ultra model for APS-C coverage, but there's also some glass which covers FF such as 18-35mm f/1.8 other than the wide end.

A Nikon mount adapter is dumb, some smart adapters give it when used with GH5 series as for instance. I am wondering what about P4K?

[seanzzxx 70]

26 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

Indeed. SB XL is designed for FF while Ultra model for APS-C coverage, but there's also some glass which covers FF such as 18-35mm f/1.8 other than the wide end.

For people getting their hopes up, this is slightly misleading. My experience has been the following:

The 18-35 will vignette even on a .71x ('ultra') speedbooster until about 20mm in DCI 4K (only barely and not worth mentioning in Ultra HD). It's sort of usable but the vignette is definitely there across the whole left and right side and it's relatively severe.

It will basically be unusable on full frame on my A7RII until 35mm, at which point you might as well use the lighter, better, brighter 35mm 1.4 ART.

[Shirozina 434]

3 hours ago, seanzzxx said:

For people getting their hopes up, this is slightly misleading. My experience has been the following:

The 18-35 will vignette even on a .71x ('ultra') speedbooster until about 20mm in DCI 4K (only barely and not worth mentioning in Ultra HD). It's sort of usable but the vignette is definitely there across the whole left and right side and it's relatively severe.

It will basically be unusable on full frame on my A7RII until 35mm, at which point you might as well use the lighter, better, brighter 35mm 1.4 ART.

Not seen any problem with my Viltrox .71 and yes it will be unusable on full frame as it's an APS-C lens.