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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

NAB 2018: Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

Wayne Morellini said:
The tonality on the skin is not quite there, the color is a bit funny, and not as nice as the old pocket, and where is the girl getting her green eyebrows from. I don't know what was done to these images, but how conformable do you guys think it should be to normal image expectations in grading.
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youre not going to have skin tones with log footage, that's what the "film" setting is on those camera, so that's ungraded log.
 
It jumps a lot, like earlier Red and MP camera. It's too contrasty there I suppose.
 
Super clean at 3200 ISO.

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Still catching some moire in the guy's jeans by his right knee, though.
 
Aaron Lochert said:
Super clean at 3200 ISO.

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Still catching some moire in the guy's jeans by his right knee, though.
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that's impressive, did you grade that?
looks more like some CA on his knee, most likely from a cheap lens.
iv'e seen worse on an alexa one some lenses wide open.
 
Raymond Zananiri said:
From what I saw yesterday at NAB:
The image and low light performance were outstanding. Image is quite clean at iso 3200 and very clean at 1600. Usable at 6400. The big back screen is a very, very nice feature.
This camera will be a game changer because of the price. It costs less than some accessories of other major brand cameras, has an amazing image quality and records raw internally. For $1300???
The only two concerns would be power and potential quality control problems. I don't think an lpe6 battery would last that long. So external power will most likely be needed, like the BMPCC. Better power connector this time though.
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Battery length is meant to be an hour, so long enough that you could run around with an external battery, but also short enough some would think it is beneficial to hook up an external battery as well.
 
Dynamic range is not too bad considering the shot is 1: slightly overexposed, 2: graded from a jpeg still, and 3: shot using the high ISO mode. Shoot it at 400 ISO and it will be a pretty respectable result. Reds seem to be looking pretty saturated in the poster and on the bottles.
 
Wayne Morellini said:
The tonality on the skin is not quite there, the color is a bit funny, and not as nice as the old pocket, and where is the girl getting her green eyebrows from. I don't know what was done to these images, but how conformable do you guys think it should be to normal image expectations in grading.
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Complaining about that in this period of time we all live in seems pretty funny to me, Wayne, coming from you even further ; ) Go there to comment V-Log L and you'll fulfill all that :-D
 
Savannah Miller said:
Yeah there becomes a certain point where datarate is just too much.
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That is the benefit of the H.265 in the Z Cam E2, you can do high frame rate / high resolution / 10bit yet still keep the file sizes small and manageable. More so than the BMPCC4K!
 
Emanuel A. said:
Complaining about that in this period of time we all live in seems pretty funny to me, Wayne, coming from you even further ; ) Go there to comment V-Log L and you'll fulfill all that :-D
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What's the point Emmanuel? We all lived through multiple generations of Red sensor raw feature grading, and as far as I know I was the first person to pick up on it here before it was finally fixed in dragon and helium. Maybe it is the low light iso mode making it stand out, but the grade above reduces it a lot. I can still see it, but low enough for certain levels of work. You many pickup I'm reosying yonpe9pkes belief that
tthe pockets are really only suitabkr for narrative related work (which I hope not). Seriously why do you think people prefer the Alexa over red for years, one reason is better picture not doing things like this. And being obscure in your comments at this stage doesn't help. I'm not psychic you know.
 
+1. But more better frames too, if possible. They tell a lot.
 
Wayne Morellini said:
What's the point Emmanuel? We all lived through multiple generations of Red sensor raw feature grading, and as far as I know I was the first person to pick up on it here before it was finally fixed in dragon and helium. Maybe it is the low light iso mode making it stand out, but the grade above reduces it a lot. I can still see it, but low enough for certain levels of work. You many pickup I'm reosying yonpe9pkes belief that
tthe pockets are really only suitabkr for narrative related work (which I hope not). Seriously why do you think people prefer the Alexa over red for years, one reason is better picture not doing things like this. And being obscure in your comments at this stage doesn't help. I'm not psychic you know.
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Wayne, the point is what you've just said. That's only a mere grade from a pre-production unit to not call it prototype. How can a photoshop grade from a grab tell so much about anything?! I don't even find anything wrong there anyways... : ) You, the guy of innovation himself to approach in a conservative manner on a revolutionary product coming from your own land, that puzzles me, Aussie boy (frankly, long live to Aussies and your Italian surname tells too little now for this matter, of course : )) Without mention people struggle to get decent V-Log L skin tones from 10-bit. Let alone when RAW 12-bit pops up at that price range, to come here and read that from you, the Ambarella supporter number one. Don't forget that I am just one of your loyal readers for more than... how long today? I guess for a decade and a half or so, now! (E :-)
 
The image from those two stills is more than enough to do what one wants with it. Certainly more robust than many images I have seen from BM over the years.
My only concern is a lack of nuance in the skin tones. You will see they look very even and uniform, but are slightly lacking in separation in the cheeks for instance, on the foreams etc. A tendancy towards "woodenness"` is always a concern of mine with BM. This shows up as a kind of greyness in the highiights of skintones. However, it is difficult to tell how much makeup they are wearing and the intention of whoever did the grade. Basically human beings have more blotchy skin than this (or delicate skin in the case of children). I also see too much contrast in the drink cart behind them by whoever did one of the later grades in the thread and a few other minor concerns. However, frankly I think on balance it looks damn good considering the size of the sensor, and as people who know me will confirm, I am generally a pretty fierce critic of BM (I am a colorist), but I definitely like where I see things going from this cam. Double ISO is going to open up new horizons for them. Further I think the acuity of the image is really quite excellent. I would have no problems accepting materiel from this camera.

I want to underline however, that it still is a camera for controlled environments. These images have been very carefully metered and lit. If you think that these are the results you will obtain as a walkaround cam, you may be in for a bit of a surprise.
 
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C. Burkhart said:
My only concern is a lack of nuance in the skin tones.
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You can't judge that based on this shot.

Light, make up, 3200ISO rating, wide shot, grade.

C. Burkhart said:
I also see too much contrast in the drink cart behind them by whoever did one of the later grades in the thread and a few other minor concerns.
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Drink cart has a different light source, harder and stronger, man and woman more subtle soft light.

C. Burkhart said:
I want to underline however, that it still is a camera for controlled environments. These images have been very carefully metered and lit. If you think that these are the results you will obtain as a walkaround cam, you may be in for a bit of a surprise.
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Exactly.
As with every other camera interior show presentation.



Btw those shots seem as if passed through noise reduction.
 
Hrvoje Simic said:
You can't judge that based on this shot.

Light, make up, grade.



Drink cart has a harder and stronger light on it, man and woman more subtle soft light.



Exactly.
As with every other camera interior/show presentation.



Btw those shots seem as if passed through noise reduction.
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I recognize that there is light makeup and a grade. However, what I am referring to is the greyness of the guys hand (supporting his head). This is typically where I have trouble finding a healthy skin tone. I'm not saying it's not there in the original files, it's just those are my areas of concern, because it means going in to do a secondary to a zone like this, which is of course time consuming. Also as you will notice the faces take on a kind of even orangey/brown tone, with little variation in the skin tones. But you know what, this is probably the makeup, so huge grain of salt as to what I am saying. I do very much like the acuity of the images though. It's a good texture and the contrast level seem very healthy as well.
 
Hrvoje Simic said:
Btw those shots seem as if passed through noise reduction.
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I think the 400 and 3200 mode (this shot is 3200) are extremely clean. On top of that I believe the shot was slightly overexposed and the noise further reduced. And being that it's likely a well-lit scene and the ISO was unnecessarily high (likely fast shutter or something) there is no noise. The 6400 images do look to have considerably more noise but the patterning looks more even than that of the Ursa Mini Pro which has vertical clumping.
 
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