2K BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera, active m43, $995

eatstoomuchjam

I'm not sure I've ever seen a digital sensor which avoided some form of fixed-pattern noise on extremely underexposed footage (especially at higher ISO settings) after I brought up the shadows. Given the choice of a better exposure and a bit more grain at ISO 1600 or shadows crushed beyond the point of recovery, I guess I'd opt for ISO 1600. That's just me, though - and if you believe that Summicrons are the only lenses worth using, I hope that works out for you, though others seem to manage to shoot stuff which looks pretty nice without them. Otherwise, please do enjoy shooting the ~1 hour or so of 16mm film on your scoopic which, with processing, will cost around the same as the BMPCC, a nice memory card, and a converter for your super 16 glass.

BurnetRhoades

The DR of the BMPCC is nowhere near film - I can easily get 10 stops in highlights while keeping four to five in the shadows on Kodak 500T

Nobody is saying it is. My comment was related to sensitivity. That 500T wouldn't have seen quite into the murk as well as the native 800ISO of the camera. It may or may not hold up to being pushed further. All that highlight retention, either film or the BMPCC, exactly what is it buying you in these scenes, as shot? Again, context.

vicharris

Seems that you want to get old film DR from a $999 from your posts. If you don't like it, judging from your constant critical comments here, return it. Simple. No need to keep telling us how you don't like it. Unless everything is just lost in translation here.

Dionysus

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera with three distinct quality control issues apparent in the image has been returned to the dealer. Thanks for the advice! From my experience, a four year old Olympus PEN can outperform it for solid blacks at night when the scene is keyed on highlights.

balazer

Having used this camera for almost two months now, here's my opinion:

BlackMagic's ProRes film log is half baked.

If you expose so that you can pull the image out of the upper part of the camera's range (giving you the equivalent of ISO 100 or 200, approximately) and the white balance setting in the camera is pretty close to the right value, you can get good images. If you don't expose that way, the images come with weird color casts that can't be easily corrected in Resolve or in any other software, especially oranges that turn pink, over-saturated sky blues, and muted greens. The color casts change depending on what range you're pulling from, so without the ability to expose consistently you can't simply figure out how to correct them and apply the same correction to other scenes. I see these weird colors all the time in things other people have shot, and they drive me crazy. So while the camera has a huge dynamic range and much of the lower part of the range doesn't have too much noise, the full range is not usable in a practical sense. BlackMagic's BMDFilm color space is simply not the right color space for making the manipulations that are necessary to enjoy the large range that this camera offers, and BlackMagic has provided no spec that we could use to map the BMDFilm space back to linear. This camera can deliver good results when you get things right in the camera, but the range of exposures that look good is much smaller than on a traditional camera, and the camera's screen gives you really lousy feedback about how you've exposed and set the white balance. With practice you'll get good for certain kinds of scenes (e.g., expose a bright blue sky a little below the zebras), but with unfamiliar scenes and artificial lighting you'll have inconsistent results. There are some high dynamic range scenes that I couldn't get with any other camera, and capturing a wide dynamic range offers tremendous flexibility and freedom to adjust in post and get the look I want. But in the end the trade-off isn't worth it for me. I'd rather have consistently pleasing and accurate color than huge dynamic range.

For all you guys who figured out how to make this camera work for your needs, good for you. It's not suitable for what I shoot. I'm under a lot of different conditions and shooting things as they happen with no opportunity for a re-take. I have my own aesthetic for color, and this camera isn't giving me what I want.

Here's hoping raw recording will give me more of what I want.

vicharris

Ahh too much to say here. I guess we should all just stop responding to someone here :)

kholi

@balazer

Are you up to answer any questions about your workflow/post-workflow and hardware (NDs)?

Edit here: I have had a lot of trouble in the past getting consistent results with the 2.5K, that's why I ask. I actually do not disagree that sometimes it's really inconsistent and I could not figure out why.

balazer

I'm up to answer questions if this is not an inquisition. :)

kholi

Nah, there's this entire thread on one of the other forums about exposure, and we kind of never got to the bottom of it. I could not balance the 2.5K to save my life unless it was a very controlled environment, but these things seem to help, gathered from experiences from other forum members:

NDs play a major role in daylight. Especially if they don't have very strong IR cut. BUT... I've also seen random footage with ZERO IR filtering that looks good. It's really weird.
Some of my glass was just bad... I stopped using certain lenses and that helped a lot.
I stopped exposing to the right drastically, and almost never break out of the -1.0eV - +1.0eV bracket. Exposing to the right, for me, does not produce great color with RAW or PRoRes, and I would rather underexpose the camera. Basically, exposing it like any other camera but knowing you can hang out at the top of the curve if you must.
This isn't a hard rule that I would suggest anyone follow, but you can try it: I shoot everything at 4500. I doubt either camera has a native color temp, I think that's kinda old sensor talk? But, if I'm shooting I just leave it at 4500, and have since had solid reds (not orange, absolutely red), normal skies -- even for LA where half the skyline's green every day, etc. I don't know if this is actually why, but I just shoot 4500.
As far as post goes, mostly just balancing lift and offset in Resolve gets me where I need to go if I'm not using a LUT, but I did build a half-assed LUT that seems to work with both the 2.5K and Pocket as a starting point, and being that it's an input-LUT, you can still move data around before it hits 709 or whatever you're exporting. But, again, it's half-assed and not really anything I would pass around. Try the Alexa to Rec709 LUT, it looks better to me than the BMD 709.

WHat glass are you using? Nds etc?

I'm only really trying to help people figure it out, and in the end it won't be the solution for everyone. Exposing without tools, super frustrating, even more an issue on the 2.5K IMO, seems a lot easier with just the screen on the back of the Pocket.

balazer

I've used a bunch of different lenses - Leica D 14-50/3.8, Lumix 20/1.7, 1-inch TV zoom lenses and some really old primes. The old primes weren't great on the pocket cam, but the others were all fine and fairly similar. Newest wasn't always best. A 1980s TV zoom gave me the best color. I have no shortage of lenses to try, if I thought that would help. :)

My ND is a Heliopan 1.2, and it's been fine. I didn't notice any problem with IR pollution. Daylight footage with the ND is some of the best I've shot.

I shoot at ISO 800 or 1600, film mode, and almost everything at 4500K. That white balance setting gave me the best results after testing different ones under different conditions. I've had better luck exposing to the right.

The type of lighting seems to be a really big factor for whether I get good results. In sunlight, I get good results when I expose to the right. Under incandescent lights, I can't get good results no matter how I expose. I can shoot an unremarkable low dynamic range indoor scene and expose right in the middle of the output range (ISO 800), and no matter what I do with grading I can't get it to look right. I've tried with and without output LUTs, and every knob in Resolve. For scenes that I can get to look right, the grading is a breeze: I just manipulate the color balance, saturation, levels, and sharpening (filters arranged in that order) - no LUT or curves. It takes literally seconds to get an image looking right, when it works. Sharpening turned out to be really important. Everything looks bad the way it's soft out of the camera, even if the color is right.

I have one of the earliest pocket cameras with the white orb problem. I've wondered if my camera is defective. I'm running the latest firmware.

I'm really hoping that BMDFilm is the problem, but I won't know for sure until I get a chance to test raw.

kholi

Alright, glad I'm not the only one that found 4500 optimal. Did not ask BMD about this and haven't told anyone really, well up until a week ago on the other forum.

On the topic of glass, I had at least one lens that produced this nasty color cast that I could not pull out of footage without destroying the rest of it, that's why I asked.

If you ever have a chance or the time to post a ProRes clip that you've experienced the issues with it would be cool. Just to see what's going on/grow the knowledge base.

I wish my Tiffen 1.2 was as strong as your Heliopan, as that thing simply does not do its job. If I had the money I would skip it all and grab TrueNDs and a Mattebox. =T

For the record, shooting RAW on the Pocket and ProRes has been the same experience. Color etc. are mostly the same, you just see the RAW shine when it comes to detail preservation, color depth (of course), and DR.

kurt10

Hello I'm looking for a bag-bmpcc like this http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Bt6UACQAL.jpg

Where?? thanks

peaceonearth

@kurt10 that does not make too much sense as different to a pocket photo camera there is no standard lens at the BMPCC. Which size should fit?

eatstoomuchjam

If it's going to have as small of a lens as the one pictured, it's gonna have to be the Olympus body cap.

http://www.amazon.com/Olympus-BCL-15mm-Panasonic-Micro-Cameras/dp/B009DL0LOW

crisvpl

Let-s learn to live with BMPCC! It is hard to shoot, but if you do it right you will be pleased after grading... Definetely you need a ND and I prefer a variable one, for the ease of use... What do you think about Tieffen VND? My biggest problem now is that I did not find a way to export my movies 422 10 bit in a usable format, only DNXHD 175Mbs, or 8bit 422 down to 36Mbs directely Mxf or Quick time. OK, for future use of the material I will export 422 10bit, but what if I need to post on youtube/vimeo or Bluray? 420 8bit and I will get banding in skies... Is there a pack of codecs I have to instal for Adobe PProCC?

matt_gh2

@crisvpl Maybe try asking the guys over on the Adobe Premiere forum - they're pretty good. I would be curious to know what you find out because I'm also on Premiere Pro CC.

JuMo

@kholi I'm curious to hear a little more about your 4500 strategy. Are you talking just RAW? or ProRes too?

vicharris

Been shooting everything with both cameras at 4500K since we did that commercial Kholi.

Not that happy with the Tiffen IRND set but with two cameras, having 8 different filters does save some money. They work good enough. I wait to see what Shian says when he colors the pilot we shot using both cams, all kinds of glass and about 4 different Tiffen IRND filters. Either it'll all work out in the end or he'll be cursing me! Still can't get a good 2.1 filter to work on either camera.

balazer

I don't know if the Heliopan ND1.2 is especially good, or if I'm just oblivious to the IR pollution problem or if I got lucky with what I was shooting. If I can extrapolate from the ND0.9 data, it's pretty darn good for IR. But there's still a minor color shift. It looks like I'm looking through a piece of dark glass.

Sure wish I could get a TrueND as a screw-in.

edit: @kholi, I appreciate the offer to help with my other color problems, but I'm going to wait for raw. I've convinced myself that BMDFilm is not a good color space for doing primary color correction. I want to see what kind of workflow I can develop outside of Resolve.

kholi

@vicharris -- You know I totally forgot that we did that. I guess I WAS the one that told you about that.

@JuMo -- RAW and ProRes, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea in ProRes, or rather I'm not sure what the negatives of doing that are. In my experienced, the ProRes is robust enough to correct balance if you've exposed it properly, but again I wouldn't say run out and do that, that's just me.

When I started doing that, I did get more consistent results, and the reds no longer skewed orange. It doesn't help the very saturated blues, though. Strangely, Alexa's blues are very saturated as well, I'm only now noticing this after correcting a 60 and 120 this past week.

@balazer

For sure, it may not help but maybe there's some info in there that someone else could use to help us figure out what's going on.

IR pollution actually only bothers me when it begins to contaminate skin... clothes I can handle, but contaminated skin irritates me to all heck and back. At that point, you have to create a "look" to get out of the weird skin tones. =[

I do wish TrueNDs came threaded! It would be an instant buy, for me. Frank says his Heliopan IR Cut works well with his ND fader, so maybe you're also having the same luck.

matt_gh2

@kholi For TrueNDs, I'm not sure how they're constructed but with filters there's always a way to DIY a solution. For example I'm just finishing shooting a feature with old Lomo lenses, but they had no threads, so I carefully taped step up rings onto the front of the lenses using gaffers tape. Now we can put on ND filters. We've been out for 16 days of shooting and everything held up perfectly. So maybe there's a way to attach a threaded step up ring to the TrueND filter and then you can just screw on as needed. BTW, a lot of people will try these modifications using super glue or some other type of glue, but I prefer tape, because if you miss with the glue, now it's on your glass, but if you're dealing with a small surface area between the True ND filter and the step up ring, the glue may be the way to go as the tape may not have enough surface area to really grip. (That gaffer's tape is great stuff- LOL. One of the old Lomos had an aperature ring that would move and change exposure when you turned the focus ring, so once we selected aperature, we just taped the aperature ring down.)

Anyways, hopes this helps. Looking forward to seeing the progress on image quality with the BMPCC. My feeling is we are obviously in the early stages, and hopefully we'll soon be wowed with the cameras potential, and see the beautiful footage we're all hoping for, along with a better understanding of how to shoot and grade with this camera. Thanks for your work on all this. I'm hoping to see beautiful footage with BMPCC, speedbooster and sigma 18-35.

JuMo

@kholi @vicharris Cool tip, I'll be sure to try it out on the pocket later this week! Either of you guys come across any notable problematic lighting conditions for 4500k in ProRes, such as sunrise not correcting well? Sounds like blue skies are holding, so maybe everything above 4500 is pretty good, but I'm curious to see how low on the Kelvin scale a scene can be recorded in ProRes baked 4500k and still be corrected.

Inean

After 3 days, i obtain an RMA (its a reasonable time) today send to UK office for a Replace /repair (i hope replace) . When receive again the camera, make test in high Isos and post it. I hope a whithout problems camera. :-(

lmackreath

Morning all!

Received my BMPCC here in the UK this week thanks to Jigsaw24. My first shock was how small the box was and the camera itself!....looking at the pics online doesn't give you an appreciation of how small the camera really is in your hand bare without any lens on.

I plugged the camera in to update the firmware and was pleasantly surprised to find that it already has the latest firmware installed, meaning no black spots for me!

First thoughts when playing with the cam was what a bugger the battery\sd compartment is to open and close...and its a really tight squeeze for both sd card and battery. I have purchased 8 off market batteries from Ebay and they all seem to work well albeit drain quicker than the supplied one.

The buttons on the back of the cam aren't great to press, especially the on/off switch which is kind of flush with the cameras face so you really have to squeeze your thumb in to get a solid purchase on it. You also have to hold it down for about a second to turn it off, rather thank a quick press for on/off. I have found myself accidentally leaving the cam on when I thought I had turned it off...not good with a cam with such poor battery life!

I plugged in my Pansonic Leica 25mm 1.4 and started to have a play. The lens locked in solidly to the mount and I was away shooting.

It became very obvious straight away that this lenses focal range is unusable on the BMPCC without being sat on a tripod or with the use of heavy stabilization in post. What was a 50mm FF equivalent on my GH2 now has become a 75mm FF equivalent on my BMPCC and I cannot get anything close to me in frame without have to step back a lot!

I even tried to use the Leica on a mono pod yesterday to give me some stabilization while at the same time giving me some freedom to move around. Sadly in post I still found myself staring at micro jitters and using lock and load to remove them.

I purposely bought myself the 14-45 Panny last month in anticipation for the BMPCC as I knew it was the cheapest lens with IS with decent wide angle. I clicked this lens in and found myself a lot happier with both the focal length I was getting and also the very stable IS. I know this is a cheap piece of glass and I plan to replace this soon but as it stands it probably will be my go to lens and I may have to leave my Leica to tripod work in low light.

Both of the above lenses support auto focus and auto iris..both of which are useless to any serious filmer. The auto iris just completely underexposes your scene to make sure there is no clipping at all which is not helpful and as for the auto focus...forget about it...beyond useless! I use full manual focus using the peaking which general works ok, and I use zebras for exposure.

As for blooming I am 100% that this cam does not display any such issues. I filmed a lot of headlights last night and street lights an nothing so it seems my cam is from the new batch of calibrated cameras out the factory.

Now for the dead/hot pixel issue. I am definitely seeing SOMETHING when I have the lens cap on and ASA set on 1600.. but truth be told that is not a proper shooting scenario...so whatever I saw in terms of static or dancing pixels with the lens cap on was not noticeable in normal shooting conditions. I think if you are looking for any kind of dead pixel you will find it..but nothing that I can see that would make me send the camera back.

In terms of shooting I stuck with 180 degree shutter, 25p frame rate which gives me smooth cadence and perfect motion blur. I also set the ASA to 800 and the ISO at 4500K for all scenes which seems to work fine.

I set my zebras to 75% which has been recommended on a few forums. With this setting I expose my scene with fixed aperture and shutter speed and control the light coming in using a variable ND filter. I let as much light in as I can until I see zebras appearing and then dial it back a bit until they are gone again. Obviously I allow zebras for areas that I am happy to be clipped or blown out.

I have been using the Sandisk 95mb/s 64gb card and have had no issues with dropped frames or anything. The batteries do drain fast but you are totally aware of this fact if you keep any eye on the LCD and even if it dies mid shoot it saves the shot you were filming at the time.

As for post production I use a mac and FCP X. The files are a dream to import being native pro res files so there are no transcoding issues anymore.

On first look the washed out files look blank and disappointing (obviously). I used Nick Shaws LUT to throw on a 709 log to the footage straight away so I have a good base to work with in terms of saturation and contrast.

Most of the work in terms of grading can really be done simply through Nick's plugin if you so wished. It offers enough sliders to get your footage looking great in my opinion. I have gone on to use FCP X's own colour correction to add a feel to the footage but this is down to personal choice. I have applied filmconvert to my footage that I used extensively with my GH2 but I find because the native footage coming out of the BMPCC already has a film like grain and look that I might be now only using filmconvert sparingly.

I have exported my finished work as a h.264 file at around 20mbs for viewing on my LCD TV through a media player. I must say the footage on the big screen rendered looks a lot better than it does in the NLE. I was concerned/disheartened at first when looking at the footage in FCP X, even after grading as I thought "my gh2 stuff looked better than this". Trust me, once you get it on the big screen you will see why you went to the expense of investing in this camera.

All in all I would say after owning the cam for 2 days I would say I am a little wary of this mini beast. I think its a given that under the perfect circumstances, with the perfect shooting conditions with the right lenses and good grading this cam can produce amazing stuff. From the few shoots I have done over the past 36 hours though it is clear that it is very easy to have a lot of duff footage, out of focus, over exposed and ungradable, even if when shooting you thought you had nailed the lot.

Practice makes perfect as they say. I think a lot of the bad footage on Vimeo is testament to my statement above, you cannot just pick this camera up, press record and run round and shoot with it. I would say 99% of the BMPCC footage on Vimeo is indicative of how easy it is to get things wrong when shooting with this cam.

I was keen to upgrade my lens arsenal soon and invest in the highly regarded Sigma 18-35 plus speedbooster combo. I have no doubt this setup would produce excellent images...but again my worry would be that without IS this beast of a setup would be useless in the wrong conditions. I think due to the run and gun nature of my work I am now more tempted than ever to stay on the IS path and maybe punt for the Pansonic 12-35 2.8 instead. I can see that people have commented that the footage looks 'video' like and I might agree...but there are trade offs with both lens choices and I think for me the IS is a must.

I hope to do some proper shooting at the weekend and get this posted up, a couple of clips on my Vimeo page now but they are rubbish, plus some of my earlier GH2 stuff.

https://vimeo.com/videoccasionsuk/videos

jakepowell

had to share - some of the best colours i have seen coming out of any black magic camera in my opinion.

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