Hands on with the Black Magic Pyxis 6K, a really interesting camera

[Benjamin Hilton]

So I rented the Pyxis 6K this week to run some tests. We're building a new studio and I wanted to see if these would work for us in our workflow. 

My criterion for these studio cameras is the following:

- Somewhere in the $2000-3500 range

- SDI output

- Solid 4k image

- Clean image for fast workflow (no denoising in post)

- Good autofocus

- Simple workflow

 

Honestly after spending a few days with the Pyxis, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It's a really simple camera body, and everything is laid out really well. It's smaller than I thought it would be, but built from a heavy duty metal, and kind of heavy overall, which I didn't mind. The 5" monitor is amazing. It's also built out of some kind of metal, but still thin and light. It powers and does video from a single locking USB-C cable. It's touch enabled, so the menus and autofocus can be controlled from there, and the image is really bright and easy to see in the sun. 

 

It's honestly just really nice to be able to put the camera on a tripod, plug in the locking and included AC adapter, plug in the monitor, and you're good to go. No janky adapters, dummy batteries etc. The image is really really good. It's very sharp, clean, and as much dynamic range as you could want. I was able to underexpose shots by a solid two stops to hold highlights out a window and the image looked really good after recovery in post. 

 

The autofocus kind of surprised me as well. It's DPAF, added somewhat recently in a firmware update from BM, so I wasn't expecting a lot. But it was really solid. Not a lot of control options, but when a head comes into frame it locks on and tracks really well. I feel like I can totally use this for talking heads with no worry about it losing focus. 

 

Overall the biggest downsides were the lack of internal ND filters, which is a real killer. For our studio workflow, this is totally fine. But it would be amazing if ND was included for if we want to use them for other projects. Also rolling shutter was pretty noticeable in 6K. Not a problem again for studio work, but could be an issue if used for other things. The other two downsides for me would be the lack of codecs and resolution options. There is no downsampling in camera. If you want to record in 4k or 1080P, the camera crops the sensor. Also you are limited to b-raw, there is no h.265 or h.264. Again, this isn't really an issue for us since the camera can still output a full sensor downsampled 4k signal from the SDI output, while being set to 6k internal. But for other workflows, I could picture this being an issue. 

 

I think there is a love hate relationship with this camera's simplicity. All the basic, core functions are there, and really easy to access, like resolution, frame rate, audio, LUT control, proxy recording, etc. But when it comes to anything more complex, this camera is kind of lacking. On one hand I really like this because it keeps things simple and uncluttered. It's really nice to pop in the menu for something and not have 10 million options to sort through. On the other hand if you're missing something important, this can be devastating. 

 

Overall This camera nailed what we're looking for in a studio camera, but I'd be hesitant to buy it for run and gun use. I think for run and gun the one and only reason I would buy a heavier cinema camera is for the internal NDs, so with the Pyxis lacking them, it wouldn't really make sense over something like an A7IV or an FX2 which would both be in the same price range. 

[eatstoomuchjam]

4 hours ago, Benjamin Hilton said:

I think for run and gun the one and only reason I would buy a heavier cinema camera is for the internal NDs, so with the Pyxis lacking them, it wouldn't really make sense over something like an A7IV or an FX2 which would both be in the same price range.

I would even say that the A7 IV and FX2 are, on paper, much better as run and gun cameras than the Pyxis.  On paper because I haven't touched any of the three options.  If I'm not mistaken and the Pyxis is IMX410, that's a very old sensor.  I had one in a Z Cam E2-F6 that I bought in 2018.  As you said, rolling shutter is really mediocre and dynamic range is also pretty middle-of-the-road.  Even if autofocus is good, the only vendor I've seen who comes even close to Sony is Canon.  It's a really good sensor which has been in a bunch of great cameras in the last 8 years, but as I mentioned elsewhere, I suspect this price drop was a signal from BMD that they're ready to move on from it - Kinefinity, on the other hand, are primed to release another camera built around it.

Dropping the price was really smart - at $3,000, the competition was a lot stiffer.  At $2,000, it's a potentially-compelling option against the A7 IV depending on the use case - like you said that your studio use case requires SDI and that's just not an option on the A7 IV or the ZR.  Used Komodos are also in your price range and they do a pretty nice 4K ProRes from the full oversized S35 sensor (with a 0.71x focal reducer, you end up with something like 1.05x FF coverage).   If you want raw, you'll be cropping in to a Micro 4/3ish window.  Autofocus is a little worse than Fuji, though, and it wants a CFast card (and if you use a CFast to SSD adapter, it'll complain every time you turn it on).

Otherwise, there really aren't a lot of cameras in that price range that have SDI output.  I'd give it a week or so to see if anybody announces anything interesting at IBC.