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

    @Sangye Additional optical elements can degrade the quality of a lens even behind the main optics quite a bit. It's not only about resolution, but CA, coma, distortion and such too. The Mutar tele converters for example – made by Zeiss and considered some of the best in the world – even they degrade the quality of my excellent Zeiss Contax lenses. So, we need to wait for facts from real world testing.

  • odessaodessa

    As was noted, if you play a little with image, the strange position of the sensor make sense.. image

  • kodakmomentkodakmoment

    Does the BMPCC correct distortion and CAs?

  • mattherematthere

    It would be good to see some images/video which shows the distortion on some of the wider lens options for the BMPC as some of the BM team seemed to think there was no correction for either distortion or CA in cam..

  • kodakmomentkodakmoment

    photozone.de measures the uncorrected distortion of m43 lenses. If the BMPCC does not correct distortion, it is going to be next to useless.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @kodakmoment

    By idea it must not correct any distortions. At least in all RAW modes. All it can do is set proper data for software correction.

  • KeithLommelKeithLommel

    @kodakmoment: Useless is perhaps too strong a word. Remember the camera is cropping the center (and therefore presumably least distorted) part of the frame...

  • _gl_gl

    Where does BMC's Pocket page say their RAW is lossy?? It only mentions "lossless CinemaDNG RAW", including in the specs. Nowhere does it say 'visually lossless' or anything else. Lossless compression means no data is thrown away at all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless).

    Red do compress, but they call it 'visually lossless' which tells you that it's lossy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDCODE). That's exactly what Cineform call one of their codecs because again, it's lossy. Yes, 'visually lossless' is what the BMC rep at NAB said, but I'm pretty sure he was wrong. He clearly checked the RAW codec details as the first rep got RAW support completely wrong, so I doubt he pulled the 1.5:1 compression ratio out of his ass. And that's exactly the kind of ratio you expect from lossless audio/video compression (eg. FLAC, UT Video, Huffyuv, Lagarith).

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @_gl

    Calculations show that loseless at least is not an option for SDHC cards they use. 93 312 000 bytes per second in 30fps mode (and it is without audio and small DNG format added weight) if no compression is used. So, for any hard frames it'll just go into errors.

    As I already said in other topic, most people misunderstood Red legal battle with Sony, as it is, in fact, warning to BM. And it is the reason why on exhibition none of new cameras had raw support. So, now they just want to play nice, depicting loseless compression (to not get into legal issues), while all words had been about loss one.

    It is also can be real reason of absent 60fps modes in all cameras.

  • _gl_gl

    Thanks @TrackZillas, the BMC CEO confirms that they're initially using true lossless compression on the Pocket cam as expected (2:1 - 1.5:1 rates), and a lossy compression on the 4k model. But they will probably offer the lossy version on the Pocket cam later.

    watch the video @ 9:00:

    9:00

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @_gl

    the BMC CEO confirms that they're initially using true lossless compression on the Pocket cam as expected (2:1 - 1.5:1 rates), and a lossy compression on the 4k model.

    Let's just wait for cameras and tests.

    watch the video @ 9:00:

    Right now none of the cameras have ANY raw, so let's ignore fantasies of this guy for now.

  • Peter123456Peter123456

    @fatpig , at least one disadvantage of this vs GH2 that I see, is that it is more cropped. This means it is harder to find wide angle lenses for it. Also, you are going to have more storage costs, and will have to buy faster/larger/more expensive SDHC cards, and maybe a faster editing machine. Also, it is more expensive than a used GH2. Nonetheless, I am still very interested.

  • GravitateMediaGroupGravitateMediaGroup

    I'm pretty sure BMD didnt design the BMPocket to be "the gh2 killer." It's intended to be another tool to add to your tool box. I don't use a hammer to cut wood...make sense?

    The cameras may not have RAW yet, and it could be a while before it's a reality, I don't think BMD would false advertise.

  • HaznaHazna

    Peter123456, the 3.x crop actually means it will be easier to find lenses for it...

  • HaznaHazna

    Easier then the gh2...

  • kodakmomentkodakmoment

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev ProRes is not RAW though, so corrections could be done in camera. Which software would correct lens distortion automatically, based on camera meta data? Resolve? No matter whether the correction is done in camera or by external software, it should result into resolution loss since the camera does not down-sample to generate 1080p. I think Black Magic put the active mount on the wrong camera. It should be on the cinema camera where as the pocket camera would be fine with a passive mount for Super 16 lenses. It annoys me that Black Magic seems hobbles it's products with lacking features and justifies it with the lower price (hyper deck shuttle without control monitor, BMCC with a passive mft mount etc). I am pretty sure that BM would sell more pocket cams for a price of lets say $1500 if it the full sensor resolution of the 2.5K sensor, for my sake down-sampled to 1080. Heck, I would even pay 2000 if it included Resolve. I am not willing to wait until BM upgrades the BMCC to an active mft mount. I can't imagine technical reasons, it is just marketing to not piss off the people who have been waiting for months to get the passive mft mount version.

  • TrackZillasTrackZillas

    I think the best thing is wait and see how the BMPCC pans out, me I believe it's going to be a great camera. If John Brawley can say the images are soo.. simular to those of the BMCC that you couldn't tell the difference, the guy that introduced us to the BMCC that says a lot.

  • No_SuRReNDeRNo_SuRReNDeR

    3d potential- I was thinking with a pair of these flip one over they would make a good 3d rig since the lens could be placed close like that... not sure the exact distance they could be fit but from pictures it looks idea if you just flipped one cam over. Thoughts on the 3d potential? I know 3d is dumb blah blah....but some people want it.

  • mattherematthere

    More confusion around the crop factors.

  • _gl_gl

    @No_SuRReNDeR, I shoot 3D with 2 GH2s, works (mostly) great. The problem is rolling shutter, if you flip one cam they will jello in opposite directions. Useless with motion.

  • matt_gh2matt_gh2

    13 Stops of DR, MFT mount, 220 Mbps bitrate, $995 - enough said. Definitely a camera worth trying out to see what you can do with it.

  • johnnymjohnnym

    Would be funny to see Panasonic come out with similar specs for the GH5.

  • SangyeSangye

    @matthere that video is referring to the crop factor relative to an MFT sensor. So when it says that a Panasonic 8mm f3.5 = 11mm effective (approximately), they mean that an 8mm lens on this camera will look like how an 11mm lens looks on, say, a GH2.

  • mattherematthere

    @Sangye Thanks... that method of calculating what you'll see is quite convoluted.. when you're used to full frame reference.

  • TrackZillasTrackZillas

    @matt_gh2 lol.. great way of putting it into prospective. When I purchased my GH2 I paid way more than $995 so really you can't lose with the BMPCC putting into consideration what your getting from it.

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