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

    It is all cool, but you need to show all this to service center, not us :-)

  • yeah, the glare on that sucker is awful - makes the rig almost completely useless. I had to throw a jacket over my head like a 19th century photography hood to see a damn thing on it.

  • @shian haha I found myself doing the same thing first day I had the camera outside. Didnt have a micro hdmi cable yet. Not comfortable. Now I've got my DP4 going MUCH better.

  • Some people (including me) are suffer problems wiht Hot / dead Pixels. A quick test . Iso 1600, cap on the lens, activate peaking(double click focus), and vuala!...me around 20 noticiable "hots" in very low light situatons. Some one more??

  • @Inean Just tried that on mine and I actually do see em everywhere but they turn on and off. Is that what you're talking about? I might have 15 or so.

    I've never seen it in any footage though but I never really pixel peep anymore.

  • Low light: Chinese Lanterns with Rokinon 16mm T2.2.

  • Love the Rokinon 16mm t2.2!

  • @maulkentor

    I recognize that leaning tower in the back ground. Where did you get you bmpcc from?

  • @vicharris No, are permanet and visible in low footage!On and off also...its normal noise i suposed, but fixed pixels in white...visible in dark zones , better in 1600 iso...some more people detected in Bm forum...some people also receive a new bmpcc! Comon people...do a little 1600 iso cap test please...

  • @Inean I recorded high DR scenes with mixed lighting at night and noticed a persistent noise pattern as well - it stays in the same place during pans. Overall the BMPCC sensor is still impressive and the footage is very malleable to color correction. Anamorphic film look at 23.98fps 172.5 degree shutter ISO 800 f2 50mm Summicron graded in Lightworks

  • @Inean I had the same issue. 30+ pixels visible in low/extreme low light at 800-1600asa. None visible at 200-400asa. Only a handful showed up daylight/properly lit footage, but enough that it was distracting. I contacted BM and they had me send them a bunch of screen grabs showing the noise in different asa's and shutter angles. They authorized a RMA for me.

    If your Pocket Cam is similar I suggest contacting them.

  • @Dionysus The footage seems way to dark for me. I can hardly see anything in the frame lol.

  • @Dionysus I don't know what you are expecting of this camera but you're going to get noise and all kinds of stuff when you record a scene like that. It's WAY too dark. This is absolutely the wrong way to shoot with this camera.

  • i agree , but when it wasnt too dark (the car coming toward it directly) it looked good actually... give it a little more light, crush it down in post if you want too, but let it breathe ! black magics cameras have most of they dr in the upper end of the spectrum anyway.

  • Did anyone notice I was already at 1/50s exposure ISO 800 at f2 - just where is more light supposed to come from for scenes like that - a Noctilux? Sorry to say friends - that's the brightest a pitch black night scene will appear on any BMPCC footage without 5K spent on glass! I graded it using the scope and the waveform shows plenty of clipped highlights with breathing room in the blacks. Zebras were set at 90% and filled any light source that was being filmed. Do you have a CRT monitor? Maybe I'm just used to a lack of Light pollution - I do live in a small dark town. Cheers :)
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  • @vapourtrail Contact BM on Friday morning, but had not yet response. Sorry for the ignorance. What is an RMA? I live in Spain, and this can last forever ... @Dionysus ...i cant see in your footage any signs of Hot Pixels...but sometimes are visible in a "big screen"...

  • @vicharris Thank man... I guess the other cable i bought was crap IDK? I went ahead and ordered the one you linked me to today :)

  • @Dionysus Perhaps it's an issue of context here. Realistically, you're seeing more here than a filmmaker would with high speed film stock, which is why they park a big light on a condor at the end of the block bathing the scene in fake moonlight, a cluster of lights into a giant overhead silk or float some moon globes or other means of providing ambient fill. That is, unless it's a film with a director who wants a natural look where night is black, not silvery blue or full of what looks like industrial light pollution, like you get with a highly gained up low-light DSLR.

    Without actors in the scene (hopefully with some kind of motivated supplemental light) you might have to remind yourself that there's plenty of precedent for this kind of night look working just fine in a lot of motion pictures. As its own thing, outside a broader context, it's maybe just not as interesting to general audiences versus flowers and cats and stuff.

    You might have wanted to push it a stop or two and then crushed the noise that you're likely to get in the blacks for a little more detail and texture in the higher mids. Looking at that scope, most of the information is down below 20% with nothing much really at midrange.

  • @Dionysus One suggestion to get more effective light on the BMPCC for free is to change the ISO from 800 to 1600. That'd be a place to start - while 1600 isn't as nice as 800 quality-wise, the vast majority of that footage looked underexposed to the point of uselessness and exposing up another stop probably wouldn't hurt. Also, faster glass than f/2 doesn't in any way need to cost $5000. You can get a decent quality manual focus 50mm f/1.4 lens for around $80 or an f/1.2 version of the same for like $150. Panasonic's 20mm f/1.7 lens costs around $400. Otherwise, you also have the magic of going around 2 stops faster with an SLR Magic or Voigtlander f/0.95 lens (ranging from $600ish to $1200ish).

  • @Inean It took two business days for BM to get back to me so hang tight. RMA is for return merchandise authorization... I think :)

  • @Dionysus You're obviuosly mistaken on our comments. Yes, we know it was dark. It's going to look like crap if you shoot something like that. That's what we were saying. Also, curious as to how you shot with a shutter speed of 1/50th on you camera.

  • It is an issue of context - I was responding to Inean's hunt for hot pixels by shooting footage of blacks and harsh highlights - what mid tones were you expecting to see? 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 - hence rolls of it in my freezer. Less highlight range means you have to key low to avoid clipping just like on every other digital. Sorry to say, there's no skew toward highlights apparent with the DR of the BMPCC. The video below clearly shows that it's either clipped highlights or lost shadows, you can't keep both like on film. Kodak vision would spank the lost orange clouds seen here with its S roll off and golden saturation.
    Are we splitting shutters now? 24fps 172.8 degree ~= 1/50 it's what I set in the Sekonic. To those suggesting replacing a Summicron with a random $80 1.4 prime or nokton, please see an occulist - you may be suffering from chromatic aberration blindness. Those are issues I don't have to deal with once I screw on a Leica. The current noise at 800 ISO is enough of a chore to suppress, I have no desire to put up with any more at 1600. At that point might as well reload the scoopic 16mm and have the lab push the stock, it would come out with much cleaner blacks. It may be better than most DSLRs yet BMPCC is not film and wet dreams of a similar DR on highlights are just that. With my unit's hot pixels, bars and lines I'm already on the fence about a straight refund instead of warranty exchange. Only hopes keeping me with BM is the actively cooled sensor, lack of AA filter and finally seeing RAW... and I guess Niagara film lab's processing delays.

  • Is there a chance that you just aren't accustomed to post processing log footage? Or shooting Log? Not being offensive, just asking.

    Both blackmagic cameras are 8/5 if I remember right, that's 8 up top, 5 down bottom. No, it's not film, but DR's balanced for top end.

    Edit: and yeah, the people suggesting faster glass aren't wrong.