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

    I haven't tried that. What color spaces is that supposed to map from and to?

  • jrdjrd

    BMD Film to Rec. 709. Hook can answer more authoritatively, but as best I understand it, it was created specifically to normalize the color of BMD log footage.

  • AusboyAusboy

    @balazer Another path that may help - have you heard of the Cineform workflow? You use RAW4Pro to convert to Cineform RAW and you can grade in Gopro Studio which is free. No more folders with DNGs - you produce a 'video' file with audio muxed.

    http://raw4pro.com/

    RAW4Pro has just announced a version that does not require a licensed version of Cineform - just as well as Cineform have stopped selling the Professional products anyway. I think you pay about $60 and as far as value for money goes - it is the bomb.

    http://shop.gopro.com/EMEA/softwareandapp/gopro-studio/GoPro-Studio.html

    What this means is that you can use the easy, fast and powerful tools in Gopro Cineform to grade - fix white balance, gain, exposure, tints, make primary adjustments, add 3D luts and actually edit in any NLE of choice without ever having to use Da vinci Resolve. So - no they do not have to go together. You can even copy and paste your settings from one clip you like to all your clips for a quick grade. Then you can tweak as you work. I really am surprised that few people consider this workflow as it is the best imho,i.e if you want to stay in your familiar edit suite.

    Now as far as colour accuracy goes - I think the colour science of the BM cameras is pretty excellent. Just my humble opinion - apparently I am not alone. Is it like my eyes see - probably not but hey this art isn't about extreme accuracy - my video cams are accurate but unemotional. Can it get close to the look of film, err yes - much closer than many prosumer cams costing much more - and film doesn't see the world the way I see it either. I reckon this is a tool that requires a bit of TLC to make it shine. Some people want a camera to look good out the box. Great - many video cameras do that just fine. These cams are CINEMA cameras - they expect you to spend some time tweaking the footage to look great. In fact the Cineform RAW footage looks flat and greenish!!!!!!

    Once you get rid of the colour casts at acquisition - you need a UV and IR cut filter - grading these cameras is a dream. You do also need a good white balance though. Grey and white cards make a big difference here.

    Deal with these two things above and you will see how amazing the cameras are. Be sloppy about them and you will see footage that looks blue brown and lacks punch. But the beauty of RAW is that you can just about make the footage look however you want it to look.... and I am not kidding.....yes the BM look will always be there but the range is incredible. There have been adverts made that have these cams intercutting with Alexa and few could tell the difference as far as colour was concerned. Now that is high praise indeed.

  • balazerbalazer

    @jrd, thanks for the suggestion. I thought about this some more. In theory a LUT can compensate for a camera's inaccurate color processing. The problem here is that the Blackmagic's inaccuracy is already in the DNG files. (which you can verify by processing the DNGs in 3rd party DNG decoders: they look better than in Resolve, but still not quite right. Processing a Blackmagic DNG in Lightroom should work just like processing any other camera's raw image in Lightroom, but it's never that easy with Blackmagic DNG files. They need huge amounts of tweaking) If I use a LUT to compensate for the camera's inaccurate color, I need a different LUT for each different combination of exposure and color balance settings. The only way a LUT can really fix the problem is if it operates on the raw color values. Essentially it needs to happen inside the camera before the DNG files are written, or, equivalently, on the raw DNG color values before linearization. The linearization curve embedded in the DNG files is probably not right. It could also be simply that the spectral responses of the sensor's primary color filters just aren't very close to human cone spectral responses. A LUT can't fully correct for that.

    @HenryO, yes, I am familiar with Cineform. I'm already able to do primary color correction outside of Resolve by using the ACES workflow of Sony Vegas Pro, and I get better results than in Resolve. I would expect similar results from Cineform. David Newman actually understands color science, and he's written some things about it. I haven't tried GoPro studio with Blackmagic footage, but I have with GoPro Protune footage. It's doing a good job there and I'd hope it does a good job for Blackmagic footage as well. But as I mentioned above, the color accuracy problems are already in the DNGs, and whatever is decoding those DNGs is going to get inaccurate colors.

    I don't want to emulate the look of film. That's decades-old technology limited by photochemical processes. I want to emulate what my eyes see.

    Fortunately most other cameras do it better than the BMPCC, so I have lots of other choices, including an increasing number of cameras that record to camera-log or raw color spaces.

    Thanks everyone for the suggestions, but all I really wanted to do here was say my piece and steer people clear of Blackmagic if they care about color accuracy.

  • jrdjrd

    I tried the ACES workflow -- you're right, the results are, well, interesting.

    Color is far more accurate converting RAW to BMD film and then applying the BMCC V2 LUT. But if that's not for you, it's not for you....

  • AusboyAusboy

    @balazer Cool. And go well.

  • CaptainHookCaptainHook

    @balazer - BMDFilm uses a log curve WITHOUT any colour matrix (channel mixing) corrections for the sensor. This is fairly standard and similar to other cameras like the Arri Alexa (they actually publicly document various Matrices to use for conversion purposes along with their curve information for their LogC files). The intention is that you use the 709 in the Resolve RAW tab which applies the necessary conversions along with the matrix corrections (these corrections can be derived from the Matrix information stored in the DNG headers as per Adobe spec as other RAW convertors that support cDNG should do), or by applying our V2 LUTs which also utilize the matrix corrections.

    This is a fairly crucial step for 'accurate' colour with BMD cameras. Some colourists choose to forgo this step and make their own corrections or use other "creative" LUTs or other technical LUTs which may or may not make use of the matrix information in the DNG headers, which is also perfectly valid as ultimately its down to taste.

    Most of the "BMD's reds look orange" is due to this misunderstanding. If you apply the V2 LUTs or use 709 in Resolve then reds and other colours should be fairly accurate and subjectively pleasing.

    One reason some may not have noticed that other digital cinema cameras do the same, is that many use a proprietary RAW format either not supported in typical still camera RAW convertors, or that require using their proprietary SDK's for decoding. We tend to use "open standards" instead. Comparing to other cameras that open in Lightroom for example would mostly be stills cameras that are not concerned with Log formats like digital cinema cameras are. Lightroom and Adobe RAW from what i know also use custom processing and profiles specific to each stills camera to give their software a "look" with each camera so as to provide a pleasing starting point for the user. Open the same canon raw file in Lightroom or Capture One and both by default look very different. Which is "correct" and "accurate" then? It's all taste really. I don't think such processing would be done for generic DNG files since they could be from a multitude of sources so in general may take a bit more work in a stills RAW convertor to look as pleasing as a stills RAW file.

    Here's an image showing a DNG from an URSA 4K V1 under tungsten light (shot by John Brawley, hopefully he doesn't mind!) where on top i simply opened the DNG in Resolve without changing any settings and leaving the default interpretation to 709, below is the same file opened in Photoshop (Adobe RAW convertor). Personally i find Resolves version more pleasing and natural and looks like it would be fairly accurate to the scene with no work done, but that's personal taste.

    http://s6.postimg.org/e4jigrna9/Resolve_Photoshop.jpg

    Resolve_Photoshop.jpg
    960 x 1080 - 867K
  • johnbrawleyjohnbrawley

    @balazer You obviously have a different experience to most that have used Resolve and the Blackmagic cameras.

    You are, like anyone else here, entitled to an opinion.

    Your posts however, are more than personal opinion. You actively state an intent to turn people away from a workflow and products which many other people happily use for the exact opposite reasons you state to be turned off them.

    If you're going to make such statement, they are kind of meaningless sledging unless you back it up. Words are easy.

    I'd invite you to show this list, in detail, how you've come to your conclusions rather than making broad sweeping generalisations.

    You're also sledging BM for shooting to DNG inferring it's somehow proprietary and closed, which is in fact far more open than say RED or Sony, who DO have their own closed proprietary SDK and processing if you want to access their RAW files. You can't access their RAW files without the special sauce code in between the files and and what you see, no matter which application you use.

    For a very long time, RED would never even spell out what bit depth their cameras were shooting.

    Nothing is more open than DNG, and therein perhaps, lies the problem. It's so open that every application from the finder, to our favourite image processing apps we all know and use will display something different.

    Again, why don't you show us the tests you've done that lead you to your conclusions. Don't forget to included the source camera files too.

    JB

  • TrumpetmanTrumpetman

    @balazer "I don't want to emulate the look of film."

    Then why would you buy a camera that was designed to emulate the look of film?

  • suresure123suresure123

    Was there any good reason why they couldn't of put the global shutter they have put on their new drone camera on a newer pocket, will they ever beef up the pocket with stuff like flip out or better quality LCD and global shutter. I personally think they would sell like hot cakes.

  • Manu4VendettaManu4Vendetta

    Is it true or not that the Black Magic's arent very good in low light and need good lightning for avoid noise?

  • spacewigspacewig

    Bmpcc native ISO is 800, max is 1600, which is noisy. So no, not good in low light if what you mean is clean high ISO but at 800 it is very good.

    I don't understand second part of question. But if you have choice between lifting dark parts of image four stops in post or adding four stops of light on set, use the second option.

  • katigkatig

    Simple music video... BMPCC, Speedbooster 0.58, Sigma 18-35 1.8

  • AlbertZAlbertZ

    @katig beautiful color! can you describe your grading process?

  • katigkatig

    Premiere's Lumetri color panel used for CC. I did not use any luts because I feel like I do not have 100% control when I use them and sometimes it is very hard to match different shots when using luts. On some 'bad' shots I used Colorista's power masks to recover shades. Moderate sharpening with Unsharp masks. Very basic setup.

  • zcreamzcream

    Why does the title say 2k bm pocket camera when it only does 1080p in prores n raw? Am I missing a secret 2k recording option?

  • zininzinin

    @katig Sometimes exaggerate -> 3840 × 2160 = 4K, 1920 × 1080 = 2K

  • brianlbrianl

    katig, what country/language?

  • katigkatig

    Croatia(n)

  • AlbertZAlbertZ

    Anyone has tested the free tool Raw Photo Processor with BMPCC raw videos? I've just watched a video test, nice colors

  • MikeLinnMikeLinn

    Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Caméra (BMPCC) MFT Micro 4/3 for 533 EUR

    http://www.lovinpix.com/fr/cameras-de-cinema/3037-blackmagic-pocket-cinema-camera-bmpcc-mft-micro-4-3-9338716001938.html

  • crowbarcrowbar

    This was filmed on the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. The Olympus 75mm f1.8 lens was used on over the shoulder and close up shots. The Veydra 16 mm Mini Prime was used on the wide shots. The Neo Rotolight was used to supplement the natural window light. Editing and grading were done in FCPX.

  • MikeLinnMikeLinn

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    http://www.production1studio.com/2016/02/07/black-magic-pocket-camera-tests/

  • euggie2000euggie2000

    I'm wondering if there is any way to hack the bmpcc and activate global shutter, since its known that they used a sensor (either this: http://spie.org/x85325.xml or that one: http://www.fairchildimaging.com/files/data_sheet_cis_1910f_0.pdf ) with the gs ability? Or at least any other features that is hidden or factory-disabled... I guess there should be some king of physical modding, like extra cooling and stuff...

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