Personal View site logo
2K BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera, active m43, $995
  • 4493 Replies sorted by
  • The problem seems to be your eye now Brian, not PB's. Gotta look better ;)
    https://twitter.com/PhilipBloom/status/371402708508766208/photo/1

  • I think maybe most of ya'll are making something out of nothing really. One thing is for sure...this issue does not show up in every video out there. It could either be what some already claim as over-exposure or only appears on certain faulty cameras. If so there's a workaround for both. The first...careful with over-exposing...or the later...return your camera for a working one. Regardless I'll just wait for a response from BM on this.

    Personally...I think this might be mainly related to ProRes. Maybe RAW will show something different.

    EDIT: I doubt over-exposure.

  • @Ian_T - I'm pretty sure that Ive seen it in all the BMPC footage Ive seen. It's in JB's footage, and all the new owners footage that has been recently loaded to youtube, and vimeo.

  • @Flaaandeeers I'm confused, what am I missing about this photo?

  • @theconformist Same golf ball blooming in the highlights than you can see more clear in this example that I grab from BM forum:

    image

  • OMG now the white blobs on our nightmares.... lol... All this talk is wierd.. didn't them tested for this problem before? This is a well-documented issue related to sensor construction. How the sensor behaves under strong clipping situations? Should be on their check-list!! So, all those desirable portrait shots for extreme bokeh with our f0.95 lenses in downtown at night are under real risk?? ;(

  • @Flaaandeeers Opps, you got me. I guess i missed that one out of the 50 tweets a day that he does ;)

  • IMHO, the blooming really doesn't bother me that much. I didn't notice it at all until everyone started talking about it but I think I could chalk it up to a unique characteristic of the camera if that was the only issue...

    The game stopping problem for me is still the weird shutter/cadence. I could live with the globes :)

  • Mmmm... two more vids... dynamic range is everywhere, so as some blooming...

    https://vimeo.com/groups/blackmagic/videos/73116934

    https://vimeo.com/groups/blackmagic/videos/73037044

  • @Wilbo One thing I'd like to bring up, though it's only for people with more than 1 type of BM camera, I'd hate to try and watch shots while shooting with both cameras as I imagine many of would be shooting with both. If you're just shooting with one type, no big deal but both, might run into some problems.

  • @rlima

    To be clear, the dynamic range of the camera stayed the same, it was the exposure that was all over the map. The first video was mostly overexposed and the second video was mostly underexposed (and not corrected in post). I think with the white orb issue, this camera should only shoot at night in VERY controlled lighting environments. It's not doing well as a run and gun cam at night (sorry doc shooters).

  • @rlima Eh, to me those videos were among the worst I've seen. Sorry but all the skies were blown out during the day so they didn't know how to expose there. Looked just like GH2 or GH3 footage to me. And then once again people are trying to open this camera up at night as far as they can and yet again, we not only see the Orbs of deception but they are accompanied by the Black Spots of Misfortune. Somehow this person managed to expose everything wrong! A mighty fine feat if you ask me :)

  • I'm really starting to think people are exposing this thing wrong on purpose now ;)

  • @vicharris

    lol, hopefully not on purpose, but so far it does seem that even experienced DSLR shooters are having a hard time wrapping their head around exposing this camera properly. To me it pretty much looks like a lot of people are shooting like it's a baked in 8bit codec - trashing potentially usable data in favour of getting the skin tones (or whatever subject) in 'the zone', often leaving huge headroom on one end or the other. This type of camera may require a different type of approach than what the actual target demographic of this camera is accustomed to. Personally, I'm thrilled that lower budget projects can realistically start moving away from the 5-7 stop DR, baked in like a left over lasagna, blow your highlights out your ass, type of shooting. I expect that a lot of us will be cringing at our DSLR days in the near future.

  • @JuMo I know, I'm just being an idiot :) Actually it seems like they are doing the opposite and thinking they can blow the highlights and pull them back in post. I think people believe ProResHQ is like RAW since most are coming from DSLRs.

    Myself, I started on an HVX200 so I was used to a good ProRes codec already. You still need to make the choice on this camera with highlights and shadows. Just think most people are making the wrong choices. I don't know, maybe it's just me but if I shot some stuff with one of these cameras and it looked just like DSLR footage, I wouldn't post it. Trust me, I have a crap load of horrible BMCC footage I've shot since I bought it. Do I post that as a test..... hell no!!!! Right in the trash bin it goes!! :)

  • @vicharris

    Good points, you might be right about people blind-faithing because: ProResHQ! I'll always have a soft spot for the old workhorse HVX200. So many memories. So much squinting (that screen gave me more headaches than whisky). I know a few studios that still keep them around and will probably have them kicking around somewhere until the end of time. Re: the pocket cam - it feels like we're all still waiting to see what this little thing can really do in the right conditions / hands.

  • @JuMo Yep, agreed. I know a studio here in LA that used the 200 up unit last year. All their cameras were stolen so they upgraded to the 250.

    As for the Pocket, it's so close. No matter what people say about Bloom, when I say his stuff, I felt pretty excited about the camera again. Some of the best stuff I've seen from it but he knows how to expose a shot....period. And that's half the battle with these BM cameras.

  • That's actually a thing that worries me. The longer it takes to get some great footage due to conditions and hands the more I think this is not a camera I should even consider. There are 'always' some conditions and hands, somewhere, allowing good footage. But that's not the way I think a camera should be. It shouldn't get into your way.

  • @WarrentyVoided You know, I really think besides whatever is going on with the Orbs of Death, the main problem is people have no idea how to expose these cameras. It really takes some research and even standing behind someone who knows what they are doing and telling you, "Even though you see this, here's what is actually going on when you do this" Just like the BMCC has shitty footage but screams when someone knows how to expose the scene properly, I think it's the same but even on a tighter leash with this cam. People are just walking around pointing this camera at anything and thinking it will be amazing.

  • Bang on, Vic. This is a cinema camera. Cinema is fucking parade of preparation - if you'll pardon my french.

  • I think you're right about this not being a, grap it and shoot kind of camera. That's why I was talking about how long the process will take. If even the experienced shooters take quite some time to get used to this than I'll have to reconsider. And actually I was talking about more than just the exposure. That, in my opinion, is one of the things which should be the strong points of this camera. It has more dynamic range so should help you out, a bit. Ah well, I'll just wait patiently (yes really), I have other things to be really concerned about. Even on the camera side of things.

  • Camera seems fine when underexposed slightly in night conditions. Should be the same for daytime shots with harsh highlights. So - it would work for run & gun shooters (handled right) but is maybe not ideal. (until fixed) I´m looking at the pocketability as a feature, rather than a condition for the usability of the camera.

    On the other hand, the bmcc doesn´t suffer from the same orbing issue so the pocket cam issue should be fixable. (they have the same sensor)

  • It's a different sensor. Pretty sure that's been discussed before.

  • Underexposed?! The one thing I remember about the BMCC is het fact it likes to be overexposed, up to the point you wouldn't think anything good could get out of it.

  • @vicharris Where? By who? (I haven´t seen that)

    @WarrantyVoided Yes, shadow response is not great on the bmcc, yet, if orbing is not acceptable you can expose low and lift the shadows slightly and live with the noise / remove it in post. Bmcc clips hard when it clips, you want to make sure you don´t clip anything important with it (even seemingly unimportant stuff to allow for smooth rolloff), so "overexposing" is a bad term in this case.