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

    @juMo, yeah the noise is pretty hard.

    Do we know if there's any in-camera noise reduction? If not that would explain the grain, don't forget cams like the GH's heavily filter noise.

  • AusboyAusboy

    Really nice to have original footage and I can't wait to take ownership of one soon. To be honest, it's not wow territory though. Sure the sky isn't blown and that's a welcome change from a GH2 but the gritty, noisy sensor thing.......I guess it is a Blackmagic camera characteristic that's not going away until they nick some of Sony's sensors or tech he he he. Will have to figure out where in the chain to do noise reduction for sure. Resolution is okay but certainly could have helped with a tad of oversampling. I think that with fast lenses and an anamorphic lens this thing will be amazing. I think it is feasible to get a Voigtlander 25 mm as the taking lens with the crop right? Anamorphic specialists? I mean that would be quite a setup. It would also be amazing in that the centre of the lens will be used so hopefully no soft corners at all. Am I on the right track with my thoughts? Anyway thanks to JB for the footage.

  • No_SuRReNDeRNo_SuRReNDeR

    @HenryO The sky not being a banding nightmare is more accurate... cant shoot the sky with Gh2, have to be very careful it seems. For a sub 1000 dollar camera that will eventually have RAW not thinking this great is just lunacy.

  • QuinEtiamQuinEtiam

    Ok they have one setup up at the Vistek shop, with a panny 1.7

    On the Apple 27"

    Frigging stunning. Amazing.... really.

  • luxisluxis

    NeatVideo should suffice. If i am not wrong it would work better with this footage then the gh2.

  • mattherematthere

    JB originally linked to the three files in a tweet this morning, I have heard that additional footage was linked later in the day.. But the bandwidth problems have blocked the tweet links, there are a few mirrors popping up now :)

  • luxisluxis

    @No_SuRReNDeR "The sky not being a banding nightmare is more accurate... " amen!

  • QuinEtiamQuinEtiam

    a real camera

  • thegood83thegood83

    @QuinEtiam Overgraded. Little Content. Lacks Filmic Qualities. It's what I expected.

  • GravitateMediaGroupGravitateMediaGroup

    @quinetiam it's only good for some uses, not all or every use.

  • No_SuRReNDeRNo_SuRReNDeR

    @luxis Yeah Ive been playing with it and noise is about rough in some spots after the grades. on the street above the girl on the lefts feet and the window in the background. I guess its time i fork the 50 bucks for NEAT anyways been putting it off.

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  • luxisluxis

    @No_SuRReNDeR NeatV. is a lifesaver. What did you use to do the grading here?

  • jakepowelljakepowell

    any speculations why this footage seems to be so noisy in the lows?

  • _gl_gl

    @jakepowell, 'coz it does no filtering? (guess)

  • caveportcaveport

    The original ProRes file shows a little noise but the black level is way too high. I don't think we should be too critical as grading ANY footage that has less than ideal exposure will reveal issues that a properly exposed scene will not. The GH2 8bit 4:2:0 format has MANY more issues than the BMPCC 4:2:2 ProRes. Testing these very rough shots in Resolve shows me that this is about as bad as this camera will look! Bring it on!

    BTW I work as a colourist on broadcast TV shows and have been an editor & technical director for over 30 years. I choose to ignore uninformed comments and do my own tests. My opinion is that the GH2 is a great little camera with some issues to deal with and the BMPCC is a great little camera with slightly less issues to deal with!

  • bwhitzbwhitz

    Footage from that great dane promo looks awful. I think someone else said it here... but if you really think that JVC camcorder footage looks better than any DSLR, you should be nowhere near a film-set. Looks very, very, cheap. Nowhere near anything resembling "filmic".

    As as the BMPCC footage looks, I think it's definitely on par with GH2/GH3 level detail... and probably has more "real" detail in the end honestly. These vids aren't "sharp" yet... but they have "detail". GH2 has more processing than these prores files. I remember that night-time video JB posted earlier and some of those city scape shots definitely showed more fine-detail than a GH cam. These vids look good for what they are. Definitely not from a "real" shoot, with lighting and ect, so I don't know what people are expecting to see here?

  • neokooneokoo

    Those three test clips do have noise, but it's not that bad, close to what I've seen on GH2. Does anyone know what ISO they were shot at?

    Anyway, good to finally have an affordable ProRes cam on the market. If it had 48p/50p, I'd already be handing over money.

  • Ian_TIan_T

    .....and remember....the sharpness (detail) of RAW on the BMCC looks like night and day vs its ProRes output. So....if this isn't RAW from the BMPC then...as good as this is....it only gets better from here. :-) m2c

  • pinger007pinger007

    The original footage was very flat and neutral, which was nice for grading, but there was little to no highlight recovery possible in this prores file.

    Grading was nothing too special: 7-8 minutes messing around in AE with levels and curves. No sharpening and no noise reduction. I might spend some more time tinkering tomorrow in Resolve, but I may just hold out for raw footage or for my own camera's delivery.

    On a side note, why is the footage so bad/boring? You're charged with revealing a highly-anticipated camera's first footage to the world and this is what you come up with??? Give us something exciting! Is JB instructed by BM to make the footage as amature and boring as possible? I guess the footage provided us a good test of dynamic range, but if that's the goal, then I'd much rather have a few seconds a raw instead.

  • No_SuRReNDeRNo_SuRReNDeR

    @luxis Colorghear Pro( Shian's Baby) in FCP7 -- was 10 minutes so I didnt monkey around with it for ever just a few different looks.

  • jrdjrd

    I'm no colorist, but the footage is more gradeable than folks are letting on.... This took all of 5 minutes in Lightroom (thanks to JuMo for the stills).

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  • AusboyAusboy

    I agree. Once the noise is treated it certainly is very good so having actually passed it through my workflow it passes rather well. I guess that makes sense - what I have been seeing on BMCC shots is probably stuff that hasn't really been noise reduced. Graded in firstlight and got some good results. I am sure that with anamorphics this will be a terrific combo.

  • TrumpetmanTrumpetman

    Amazing! Brawley stated that he had some footage that he really didn't want to put out there because he knew the reaction it would get, but some people were bitching and moaning that it didn't matter and he should upload anything that he had. So he decides to post it and now some of the same people are blah blah blah blah blah...

  • mattherematthere

    There is some more footage posted today by JB, and can be found here..

    https://www.copy.com/s/74tnqvQo4hwM/SLRMagic_35mm_1.4_MK2

  • TronTron

    A base ISO of 800 should resolve cleanly in daytime shoots unless there is some sort of electrical noise taking place within the internal circuitry. Having to use noise reduction passes as a standard part of the camera's workflow would probably lead me to just return the camera and walk away, so I hope that is not the case with the BMPC.

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