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2K BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera, active m43, $995
  • 4493 Replies sorted by
  • @Vitaliy

    There is no random glitching if you're using the right cards. I've been shooting with three different Pocket RAW Betas over the last month or more, have stress tested it to hell and back with death charts and death scenes, and never have I encountered a random glitch.

    battery drop tests, iris switch tests, shutter ramp and random menu button press testing, while recording to a hyperdeck out testing.

    It works, plain and simple.

  • @kholi after a first test I have the impression that color moiré is even worse than in ProRes. I saw also some samples on dvxuser.com which confirmed my impression. What's your experience and is there a workaround e.g to use the Lightroom moire tool? thanks!

  • 8 sec Raw video, was in video mode , clip was render 2 times plus vimeo so 3 times i use 1 Davinci because my adobe premier cc gave me error to import Raw from camera , so i use Davinci Resolve 10 to export and after render again in final cut x, resolve in windows sistem, after macbook pro 13

  • @kholi

    Do you have any measurement about actual maximum bitrate?

  • @Derek: that's odd, as soon as I switched to raw I lost the video option and could only use film mode.

    @Vitaliy on the short test of raw I did earlier, all frames were just under 2Mb in size, 1850kb to 1914kb to be precise

  • i record in film mode and after in Davinci yes come in video mode way?

  • @Derek

    Think its the same as when using BMCC, RAW only records in Film mode, because of the wide latitude. But you probably could monitor in Video mode.

    Anyway, the footage looks kinda sharp. Hope someone will compare BMPCC and BMCC RAW soon. i dont have a Pocket, so cant do it. It'll be instructive to put compressed(lossless) DNG, and uncompressed DNG side by side.

  • A little surprised that they didn't include any other fixes in the firmware, other than RAW.

  • @kazuo

    https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8-f-XPnmOp6R0dsMzdxREtzN2M&usp=sharing

    There are three videos there depicting the same shot from two different cameras, the Pocket Camera and the 2.5K, labeled motion_1, ..._2, ..._3

    I did these yesterday with @Vic_Harris prior to the release today.

    Both shot at 24P, one has a Rokinon 35 @ about 4-5.6 on it, the Pocket has the Sigma 18-35 @ 28mm on it.

    They're all presented at 1920 x 1080, two of them are the Pocket camera (one has been sharpened in Debayer settings).

    Edit: the other two files in the folder are both derived from RAW as well.

  • Just imported some raw footage into Lightroom now.. So with raw it doesn't have the flat look that prores does straight out of cam?.. All of my dngs looked already graded??

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    I don't have the data rate, it's somewhere in my emails, but the frames will come in at at 1.5 - 2.4Mb a frame. I've been able to spike the recording to a steady 2.4Mb a frame extended over the period of 8 minutes.

    @lmackreath

    Actually, yes and no. The DNGs from the Pocket behave differently than the DNGs of the 2.5K in that if you expose them properly, they don't look over-exposed. So technically, you could just take them into your NLE and export that, and have something that's more saturated than Rec709.

    However, if you go into Resolve and select BMDFilm, you'll get back to a Logish space to grade from.

    We've discussed this with BMD for a bit, on how the files actually look much more pleasing versus over-exposed on the Pocket camera.

  • @peaceonearth

    Both cameras have an issue with moire/aliasing ,just the 2.5K is worse. The 2.5K has a mosaic filter coming (I should be receiving another prototype this week), but Mosaic feels that the Pocket may be too inexpensive to justify a 300.00 filter, which would also reduce detail in the camera.

    On the Pocket I just chroma denoise to get rid of the dancing color, but it doesn't remove the actual aliasing. On the 2.5K, I'm getting a mosaic filter for each of my cameras, as it's far far worse.

    Maybe I should start a Q and A thread specifically for the Pocket RAW? I could probably answer everyone's questions pretty easily and catalogue them in a first post with a little help.

  • @Kholi

    Nice. hang on, motion 3 is BMCC 2.5k?

  • Where is @balazer? I'm highly interested in his forthcoming tests with RAW, and have some info to share about NDs that I think he might like.

    @kazuo

    Motion_1 - Pocket Camera

    Motion_2 - 2.5K

    Motion_3 - Pocket Camera sharpened in Debayer settings to match Motion_2/2.5K

    A note... I've exported Pocket RAW @ 2.5K Res (2400x1350) and compared to the 2.5K, it looks just as good but with less moire/aliasing, and this very film like softness/veil over the image that helps to soften the motion of the image.

    Roman helped me go back and forth about this, then the tests Vic and I did helped me pin down why I prefer the Pocket Camera more than the 2.5K... there's a hint of more pleasing colors coming out of the camera right out of the box, and the veil of softness reduces the harsh edge the 2.5K can have sometimes, but is hard to get rid of, which combined with the aliasing/moire, affects motion... forcing it to look video-ish (Sony like).

  • my raw 10 seconds

  • Raw is here? Cool. I've been too busy shooting to check in here. :) And my camera is still at Blackmagic to have its white orb re-calibration.

  • @kholi If it wasn't ironic with the Q&A catalogue it would be great. If it was ironic I apologize as I fully understand that it gets boring being asked always the same questions.

    I don't own the BMCC therefore I use only Resolve lite without moire filter option. I played around today looking for a quick and not too complicated method to handle moire. see the result. I had no time for color adjusting but I am sure you can level colors quite similar in in all these app

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8273739/test_RAW.mp4

  • @peaceonearth

    No way, that wasn't ironic. I was fortunate enough to sit with the RAW beta and help out to get it working, I'm always up to hand out information/work with the community to solve problems before they come around.

    Noise Ninja does an incredible job and ripping moire and aliasing out of an image... but, it is in no way suited to video/moving pictures. =T Looks like Capture One does a good job of removing the moire, maybe for select shots it's good to have it running alongside Resolve. Thanks for sharing.

    Resolve doesn't have a moire filter option, but you can denoise the area effectively most of the time.

  • I am not sure about CaptureOne as it's taking all the bue/grey color from the building. I will go on with more tests to other subjects.

  • @kholi

    We've discussed this with BMD for a bit, on how the files actually look much more pleasing versus over-exposed on the Pocket camera.

    I assume you're saying that a traditionally "correct" exposure, as opposed to exposing for highlights, just below clipping, is preferable in RAW. Is this before grading, or after?

  • @jrd

    Sorry, let me clarify:

    Even when overexposed slightly (for highlights), the camera's DNG files are still actually pretty pleasing. This is before touching them, or in Resolve, before switching to the BMD Film space. If you expose for the end product, yes, it's pretty much as shot, with a lot of leeway to do what you want.

    I have yet to compare them to the Rec709 coming out of the camera, but from memory it seems like they're actually more saturated than the REC coming off of the camera. So, you could shoot RAW, use something like After Effects or Premiere to just convert that data into DNxHD or ProRes, and deliver or cut.

    Agan, I haven't tried this yet, but from what I've seen over the last four to six weeks through the betas, it's definitely more viable than what I'm used to seeing from the 5Mb raw files on the 2.5K.

    If it seems like I'm biased toward the Pocket... =P you are not imagining it.

    Here's a folder of DNGs from the Pocket, nothing done to them: https://drive.google.com/?tab=mo&authuser=0#folders/0B8-f-XPnmOp6XzlibWVpNTNLZm8

    Just glancing at the Google Drive thumnails, you can see that they're already saturated, and represent what was shot. The beach shots were slightly overexposed, just slightly (I use a waveform ritually, now, and tend to put most of my image in the 50-60 IRE range)

  • Has anyone ever tried using a Black Pro Mist filter, maybe 1/8 or 1/4 on the BM cameras to see if it helps reduce the Moire?

  • It doesn't, neither does a Tiffen Digital.

    It does nicely with reducing the edge and helps with shadows, but does not reduce moire/aliasing on either camera.

    Mosaic is the way to go for the 2.5K.