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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

I hate social media used for business, for over energetic people to amuse themselves hen pecking around the internet to find information that should be hosted on the main site. Meanwhile for sensible people it's a nightmare and reflects badly on businesses with websites.

We used to have a famous politician who referred to news conferences as feeding the chooks. Now the couple of objectionable things he said came completely true.
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
I think it will be very successful. Many DPs will forego the Alexa Mini in favour of this.
Click to expand...
None of the ones I know would do this. But it would be fantastic as a drone camera, or a crash camera that goes off a cliff, or as a B- or C-camera in a fight scene that might get smashed up. If it's 10-bit 4K ProRes 422 (or even 422HQ), that'll be much better than what we already have from DJI and GoPro.
 
Frank Glencairn said:
Don't know what Burkhart is shooting, but the color was officially "thick" enough for 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' - so maybe he has a higher quality standard than Joss Whedon and Ben Davis, who knows?

Also I never had a "thin color issue" with it on any production since years, and I'm talking international high glossy documentary stuff.
But I know how to process raw CDNG BM material in a proper way.
A lot of folks who claim to have problems with BM material, after I looked at it, turned out, they just had the wrong workflow.
Click to expand...

Why is it that people always feel a need to invalidate others experience by naming some well known figure who has an opposite experience ?

Frank, I have been grading for others for fifteen years. I use all kind of workflows. I also know issues when I see them.

What I mean by "thin", is that I don't see a lot of latitude for error before serious issues arise or before there is a significant loss of color palette.

Despite the prevailiing and somewhat ridiculous idea that the owners of these cams have on the other boards that they own "baby Alexa's" (these guys actually believe this - nice marketing on the part of a few individuals), one thing I am sure of is that you cannot under or overexpose by 2-3 stops like you can on an Alexa and come back anywhere nearly as easily to a normal looking image. It can be done, but it's going to take a LOT more work. That is the difference.

I still frequently see FPN, magenta corners and color crossovers from a lot of BM footage that comes in. Testimony to poor QC.
And yet there are still some folks saying that doesn't exist because they have one without those issues or have had one cherry picked for them.
I even had a senior management figure at BH tell me that over the years they have literally had so many BM cams returned to them because of QC issues, that it is something like ten-fold by comparison to other manufacturer's. Yet people on that "other board" think it is all a false rumor and part of a conspiracy against the little upstart - Blackmagic. Crazy !

However, to get back on track, and perhaps more importantly in terms of the BM image itself from some of the later cams, what I still don't see is a lot of room for error in the way that many other cams do have for instance. I have even seen properly exposed images on these cams that still have issues in the shadows as if the whole image was underexposed, even though it wasn't. I find that astounding.

Don't get me wrong.
I am not saying that you can't make a nice image from these cameras.
I am saying that unless one is very careful about hitting the sweet spot on these cams and that your entire scene is well controlled and lit, the quantity of issues multiplies quickly and the loss of nuance is also quite visible. In short there is a sweet spot as with all cams, but but I find it is especially narrow on BM ones before color crossover and all kinds of other issues appear. Especially where saturation is concerned. You better get your ISO and metering and lighting right because otherwise there is a heavy price to pay.

So I don't care how much footage some pro with a large budget production shows me that was shot on a UMP. He generally has the means to do whatever he wants and the staff to support it. That doesn't tell me what I need to know about a cam.

Let's face it, the truth is that if you have the means, time and experience at your disposal you can make almost any camera look good today (I think the GH2 episode on the old Zacuto Shootout proved that well enough), however, that does not mean the tool you are working with is anywhere near on par with the buzz around it or the highest end cameras it is being compared to in terms of latititude, durability, speed of use, etc. That's the reason why company's hire pro's to shoot their promo's for point and shoot's, right ? Experience and budget can always to some degree make up for what is lacking in the product itself.

So, end of the day I don't give a damn what anyone says, when a young guy comes into my grading suite and tells me that he shot his film with a "baby Alexa", I know exactly where that idea comes from. And I know exactly what we are in for over the next few hours.

However, if by some logical manner your workflow (that I have totally missed and am somehow ignorant of) is the key to changing all of this, please by all means share this with us. I am all ears.
 
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C. Burkhart said:
ing

What I mean by "thin", is that I don't see a lot of latitude for error before serious issues arise.
.
Click to expand...

I really like to see some of the examples you are talking about,
cause my experience with shooting BM cameras since 2012 is the sheer opposite.

IMHO BM raw material is super forgiving and flexible.
R3d feels like ProRes compared to that (and yeah I know I gonna get some flak for saying that here).

The latitude for errors ist the next best thing to Alexa material, if you ask me.
That's why we often use BM cams of all sorts as B cams,
when I shoot Alexa, they intercut almost totally seamless, like no other cam.
 
Frank Glencairn said:
I really like to see some of the examples you are talking about,
cause my experience with shooting BM cameras since 2012 is the sheer opposite.

IMHO BM raw material is super forgiving and flexible.
R3d feels like ProRes compared to that (and yeah I know I gonna get some flak for saying that here).

The latitude for errors ist the next best thing to Alexa material, if you ask me.
That's why we often use BM cams of all sorts as B cams,
when I shoot Alexa, they intercut almost totally seamless, like no other cam.
Click to expand...

As I have already stated in the past to John, I don't own a BM cam.
So the work I deal with from BM is generally from others.
I sincerely doubt they want their work showing up on a website to discuss their image flaws.
That would be instant grounds for dismissal from some of the clients I work for.
It would also mean digging through archives on some of our servers, which is frankly a far too time consuming task for me to be worth it.

I tried showing some examples of what I see already out there on the web as illustrations knowing the caveats, but it just became another excuse to get beat up by fanboys at BMCuser. Really disgusting, insulting behavior towards people with a dissenting point of view.
After that, I figured "why bother?". Screw 'em.

Please by all means, share your workflow, if you think that is the answer.
I feel you are sincere in what you say (and I appreciate that), but I gotta ask, if BM cams are really complimentary to Alexa's as John often has stated...
Well, why bother to continue to shoot on Alexa's ?
 
Last edited:
Frank Glencairn said:
I really like to see some of the examples you are talking about,
cause my experience with shooting BM cameras since 2012 is the sheer opposite.

IMHO BM raw material is super forgiving and flexible.
R3d feels like ProRes compared to that (and yeah I know I gonna get some flak for saying that here).

The latitude for errors ist the next best thing to Alexa material, if you ask me.
That's why we often use BM cams of all sorts as B cams,
when I shoot Alexa, they intercut almost totally seamless, like no other cam.
Click to expand...

Do you work for BM? LoL


PS: If not, they should hire you. ;-)
 
I loved the footage I got from my pocket cam years back BUT that was about it. Everything else was a PITA to deal with, that being said if the price is right I will pickup the new one and throw it on a gimbal.
 
Patrick Tresch said:
Do you work for BM? LoL


PS: If not, they should hire you. ;-)
Click to expand...

To me it sounds like he works with BM (camera's).
I can only speak for the UMP (and a bit for the 4k mini studio) and totally agree with Frank.
We rented an AMIRA for a commercial (clients request) and used the UMP's as B-cams, our client couldn't tell which camera was which (our new colorist is 21 and is pretty good with Resolve to be honest).
ARRIRAW and CinemaDNG are both very forgiving and flexible RAW formats.

The only real draw back of the UMP is that it can't see in the dark.

Don't know about Frank, but we paid for our "cherry picked" UMP's.
 
C. Burkhart said:
Why is it that people always feel a need to invalidate others experience by naming some well known figure who has an opposite experience ?

Frank, I have been grading for others for fifteen years. I use all kind of workflows. I also know issues when I see them.

What I mean by "thin", is that I don't see a lot of latitude for error before serious issues arise or before there is a significant loss of color palette.

Despite the prevailiing and somewhat ridiculous idea that the owners of these cams have on the other boards that they own "baby Alexa's" (these guys actually believe this - nice marketing on the part of a few individuals), one thing I am sure of is that you cannot under or overexpose by 2-3 stops like you can on an Alexa and come back anywhere nearly as easily to a normal looking image. It can be done, but it's going to take a LOT more work. That is the difference.

I still frequently see FPN, magenta corners and color crossovers from a lot of BM footage that comes in. Testimony to poor QC.
And yet there are still some folks saying that doesn't exist because they have one without those issues or have had one cherry picked for them.
I even had a senior management figure at BH tell me that over the years they have literally had so many BM cams returned to them because of QC issues, that it is something like ten-fold by comparison to other manufacturer's. Yet people on that "other board" think it is all a false rumor and part of a conspiracy against the little upstart - Blackmagic. Crazy !

However, to get back on track, and perhaps more importantly in terms of the BM image itself from some of the later cams, what I still don't see is a lot of room for error in the way that many other cams do have for instance. I have even seen properly exposed images on these cams that still have issues in the shadows as if the whole image was underexposed, even though it wasn't. I find that astounding.

Don't get me wrong.
I am not saying that you can't make a nice image from these cameras.
I am saying that unless one is very careful about hitting the sweet spot on these cams and that your entire scene is well controlled and lit, the quantity of issues multiplies quickly and the loss of nuance is also quite visible. In short there is a sweet spot as with all cams, but but I find it is especially narrow on BM ones before color crossover and all kinds of other issues appear. Especially where saturation is concerned. You better get your ISO and metering and lighting right because otherwise there is a heavy price to pay.

So I don't care how much footage some pro with a large budget production shows me that was shot on a UMP. He generally has the means to do whatever he wants and the staff to support it. That doesn't tell me what I need to know about a cam.

Let's face it, the truth is that if you have the means, time and experience at your disposal you can make almost any camera look good today (I think the GH2 episode on the old Zacuto Shootout proved that well enough), however, that does not mean the tool you are working with is anywhere near on par with the buzz around it or the highest end cameras it is being compared to in terms of latititude, durability, speed of use, etc. That's the reason why company's hire pro's to shoot their promo's for point and shoot's, right ? Experience and budget can always to some degree make up for what is lacking in the product itself.

So, end of the day I don't give a damn what anyone says, when a young guy comes into my grading suite and tells me that he shot his film with a "baby Alexa", I know exactly where that idea comes from. And I know exactly what we are in for over the next few hours.

However, if by some logical manner your workflow (that I have totally missed and am somehow ignorant of) is the key to changing all of this, please by all means share this with us. I am all ears.
Click to expand...

Burkhart. Wow, I'm not up to reading it all at the monent. But I can back you up a little. I think the use of the BM action camera on age of Ultron was just that action, not that it was great.n I personally love what I see from the pocket, a lot. There are a few issues with the picture, and the color purity seems to lack. But this sort of camera is about liking the look and doing the old fashion work with lighting, filters and lenses on the shot to set your look so you have less distance to push. I can imagine you could setup an old top rating tv show film look, itself graded, but they still need to do the work like film crews did. For me, the standard looks is pretty good, and correctly exposing I could find lots of things without doing more. I really want a 16.5+ stop camera that does that. I was hoping we would see the 4.6k pixel technology at least years ago. Why they never went to a 2.5k+ version years ago of that sensor, inbetween doing 4k. But it is what it is. If the hydrogen module kit is going to set me back $6k and this $1k with 4kp50, I guess it will likely be this, or something else.
 
The z-cam figures are way out there, with an engine able to run 8k by the look of it, if he had the sensor. We are talking about over 200 megabytes h265 (rumour). If it is what I think it is, then 8k raw cineform should be possible, if 8k was available. So, if it is, what will happen in the future with a sensor change.
 
Finally, here is the actual figures:

http://www.z-cam.com/e2/

To me, I could dump a number of things and pay $699 for this. 10 bit is not enough, 12 bits is low in the hdr age, and something like cineform or prores raw would not go astray. For that price I would expect at least the latitude of the newest s16 inch sebsie, 4:2:2 or raw, 14 bit to 16 bit.

But we will see these secret improvements coming.

Now, to wait for new Sigma cameras, the JVC gy-ls300 upgrade, and the Canon, CX-20. (have I forgotten any)?
 
Billy Jim said:
$999 & $1299 prices rumored
Click to expand...

It would be a shame if it's that cheap. Since perceived bang for buck is relatively consistent with BMD, a cheaper camera just means less specced out.

I think $1995 would be the sweet spot for this camera. Then again if the roughly $800 difference wouldn't allow BMD to take the camera to the 'next level', then by all means sell it cheap.
 
C. Burkhart said:
I feel you are sincere in what you say (and I appreciate that), but I gotta ask, if BM cams are really complimentary to Alexa's as John often has stated...
Well, why bother to continue to shoot on Alexa's ?
Click to expand...

Actually these days, I use a Ursa Mini more often than an Alexa, unless some of my clients really demand it.

Also some clients want/need 4k, so the normal Alexas are off the table for those jobs, and the Ursa (or sometimes a RED) are in.

Having said that - on a personal, more artsy-fartsy note: the image of the Alexa sensor has on top of every thing - a special and very subtile kind of magic, hard to describe (like the magic of Cooke primes) that I just love. It's nothing techie, more like something you feel, when you look at it.

Patrick Tresch said:
Do you work for BM? LoL
PS: If not, they should hire you. ;-)
Click to expand...


Nahh, but I shoot with BM cameras a lot since 2012.
 
mikeburton said:
this is like a studio making a sequel to Gigli. No one asked for it, no one wants it but, fuck it
Click to expand...

On the contrary...people have been asking for an update to the pocket for years. I actually just sold my pocket a few months ago for MORE than I paid for it.
 
I refuse to spend any money on BMD's cameras until they start integrating OLPFs. Dealing with aliasing and moire is not something anyone should have to do in 2018. I'll be keeping an eye on this tomorrow...
 
C. Burkhart said:
Please by all means, share your workflow, if you think that is the answer.
I feel you are sincere in what you say (and I appreciate that), but I gotta ask, if BM cams are really complimentary to Alexa's as John often has stated...
Well, why bother to continue to shoot on Alexa's ?
Click to expand...

Because different cameras offer different advantages to the physicality of the shooting situation. It's not about post or what workflow you use.

It's about what shots you can get.

I can get shots with smaller cameras that I can't get with bigger cameras like an Alexa Mini.

Just like there's plenty of situations where the Ursa is the wrong camera to use in a scene.

I understand you're a post guy ? Maybe you're only dealing with the end result.

I'm the guy that has to physically fold myself into a car or a small toilet cubicle or hold a camera above a surgical field. If we spent enough time and money, sure we can jam the principal production camera in there. Or I can pick up a much smaller camera that gives me in almost all situations a visually indistinguishable result from the principal camera ofen enabling unique shots and make the call sheet. I've been getting away with it for years before I used Blackmagic's cameras.

I come up with a look for a show. Then I shoot with lots of different cameras, always attempting to be consistent and match the look across the board. It's not about matching one camera to another. It's about having different cameras match an overall visual tone for the show. There's a difference there as WELL you should know if you're background is in colour correction.

My current show has Alexa, Alexa Mini, Ursa Mini PRO, Micro, EM1 Mark 2 and the DJI X7. They all have their caveats.

I also use smaller cameras like the UMP in situations I like to call "visual jazz" where the operating is more spontaneous, responding to actor performance and movement. In the same way actors improvise, I can do the same thing with camera composition. It's fast. It's highly reactive. It's incredibly sympathetic to actor performance. It gives unique and unconventional coverage. All GREAT reasons to use a camera.

So great that directors start to ASK for a pass of this style once exposed to it. It's not the camera itself per se, it's HOW it's operated.

When I have a smaller and lighter camera, I can do this in a more spontaneous and reactive way.

I like to practice camera agnosticism. I also like to get unique shots. And I can't always use one camera to do everything. So I use lots of cameras.

Here's a picture of me shooting in this physically more agile style with a RED EPIC from a few years ago. Look how small the camera is.
https://flic.kr/p/fa8bZ6
https://flic.kr/p/dB54hz

RED is somewhat heavy for this work, and that's why there's no transmitter, no follow focus. They add bulk and weight.

Now it's this, but I've added an MDR, motor and a transmitter and it's STILL lighter than the RED EPIC was.
https://flic.kr/p/GiuwuX
https://flic.kr/p/Giur96

Look at the second picture. It has a macro lens on it. There's no way I could hand hold an Alexa mini for as long as I can hold a UMP in that position, starting in super close on the surgery field and then be able to transition to a crouch looking up at the surgeon.

I don't freaking care so much about the camera, as I do about getting the shot. But if I have a camera that better matches the principal production camera that let's me get this style of operating, then I'll do it. I could maybe do a lot of what I want using a canon C series. But I find I can't get the Canon's to match the show look as well as I need. Mostly because of their crappy bit depth limiting codec.

I also use Blackmagic Micros for an even more extreme version of this. I just finished a medical series where we talked about getting a periscope or a skater scope for getting shots inside the surgery field. Instead I used a Micro Cinema Camera to get the shots much much faster and still got shots I couldn't have gotten with a clumbersome periscope rig because I could use my arms to boom up to the surgeon's eyeball, and then walk around the surgeon to the over of the other surgeon in the space of a second and a half.

I struggle more with a micro to match to the look of a show, but it looks freaking great for the DRAMA of the story so that's what I've been using to shoot surgery. Who cares if the DR is blown more easily and it's harder to match the mixed colours.

When you make specific comments that absolutely imply the Ursa Mini 4.6K isn't able to match an Alexa and when you decry the thin negative with colour problems, I'm going to beg to differ and point to these shows where the percentage of Ursa mini shows caries from 20-30% of the finished episodes.

www.imdb.com/title/tt6483832
www.imdb.com/title/tt1064899 (For series 2. Series 3 DP went and got his own cameras to continue what I started and are currently shooting)
www.imdb.com/title/tt5918926
www.imdb.com/title/tt6432854 (Ursa Mini 4.6K was actually the principal camera)
www.imdb.com/title/tt1530541 (First three seasons shot RED then later seasons are Alexa but have used all BMD cameras as well as GH2's, AF 102's)
www.imdb.com/title/tt4983204

My response to not being able to use these cameras alongside an Alexa is about 70 hours of network and cable TV where I did exactly that.

You're 100% wrong when you allege that my Ursa bodies are somehow cherry picked. I've called you on this before and you continue to say it. It's a cheap shot and doesn't speak well to your own beliefs if you keep using it in your arguments.

The only way you can tell which are Ursa Mini shots in the above shows are because I just told you what visual style the shots are. I recall challenging you and posting a bunch of stills and asked you to tell me which were Ursa Mini from Queen of the south and if I recall you didn't take up the challenge.

I know they aren't the same camera.

I don't think you understand that I don't shoot the Ursa Mini (or whatever camera) because it matches an Alexa. I shoot them because I can get shots with it I can't get with an Alexa, and I can make it match the look of the show I'm doing.

Otherwise as you say, why wouldn't I just shoot with an Ursa full time.

JB
 
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