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BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K
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  • @NickBen

    Sorry for the delay.

    It supports HDR in that it captures a high dynamic range image. How you map that is up to you. But there's nothing formal that I know of that does that as yet.

    They have done a new version of what used to be called "Video" which was their REC 709ish LUT. It's now called "extended video" and it's a real improvement when used with the new gen 4 colour science.

    The screen is the same screen as used on the Video Assist 5" and the Ursa Mini 4.6K. A good screen, but not a high nit screen for any kind of serious monitoring. I think of it as a touch / menu / interface screen.

    There is fan noise, it's not especially loud, on a par with the Ursa Mini. It's a constant fan, like all BMD cameras. Remember they use solid state cooling, not fans to maintain the temperature. Weirdly it vents out the bottom instead of the top of the camera. I find my hand gets warm when holding it underneath. Not uncomfortable, but you notice it.

    I didn't try it on a gimbal. I kind of hate them :-) (I own a Ronin 2 and a a Ronin S)

    I didn't use the SSD feature.

    The rear display uses almost no power, and just like on all BMD cameras, it's always on because it's your status screen.

    I've been using the existing screens in other iterations in all the weather situations you mention and it's worked fine for me.

    I didn't do any stills, and yes it can do timelapse but I didn't use it for that. I literally had a very short amount of time with it. When I shot with it I believe it was the only "functional" version in the world. It was hand carried and flown to me to use and then taken away :-)

    I imagine it will do great green screen, but I didn't use it in this scenario.

    It's not technically late yet, whereas RED...

    JB

  • @johnbrawley Thanks for taking time to respond to my post & I look forward to seeing you shoot the "8K URSA MAJOR" they must have under wraps sometime soon- I hope they let you keep it permanently... ;-)

  • Fan noise? Hmmmmmmmm.

  • It's probably comparable to the IBIS noise on a lot of modern cameras. My G85 buzzes away the whole time you're using it and it hasn't caused me any problems yet.

  • @DrDave

    You can't have fanless design with powerful FPGA they use. As it is around 10-30 times les energy efficient compared to custom LSIs big companies use.

  • Voldemort is apparently not going to buy one of these now because Black Magic won't give him free stuff and because @johnbrawley didn't kiss his butt. I guess we'll have to miss out on a bunch of bad pseudoscientific review comments about how "cinematic" and/or "filmic" it is. :(

  • WTF! Blackmagic didn't invite me to their camera party! I'm buried just a few km away! - Stanley Kubrick #rollinginthegraveMAD!!!!!

  • "You can use a metabones adapter to give it a look exactly like a full frame camera or even with the beautiful depth of focus rolloff of a medium format camera. Here's a 2 minute 'film' that I made of walking around my city at night with it. More details and in-depth test shots of some books and toys and rope lights in my living room coming in part 2 of my review..."

    (18 months pass, part 2 never comes)

  • @eatstoomuchjam

    Yet he has a point.

    BM marketing is worst I ever had experience with.

    They do not value old communities and sites who actually made BM first cameras success possible.
    They do not behave like friends, but more like cold blooded lawyers who use people like condoms.
    Do they have economic reasons to do such? Of course. But in such way no need to be upset with that Andrew wrote.

    I think this is that Andrew tries to tell.

    I believe he is upset to see that BM became no different to Canon or Nikon, having their pet reviewers who release footage upon inspection and are all under NDA. Actually this is that John said.

    Current situation with camera reviews is very serious and must be stopped definitely.

    Companies interests is one thing and here we see full happiness, but they completely ignore interests of the people.

    P.S. And it is not cameras, can see some blog posts of that Nvidia is doing. At least in case of computers we can see strong opposition to such methods.

  • I'm not saying he has no point at all - I'm just saying it's ridiculous to get so angry that there was a meetup in his area that he wasn't invited to. With an attitude like that, if he lived in NYC or LA, he'd spend his entire life angry and full of rage.

    I can't see any reason at all to be angry at JB who, as you said, told things exactly as they are and doesn't even work for the company.

    It's also somewhat offensive how he keeps talking about giving manufacturers "free advertising" and acting like he runs his site for purely altruistic reasons. He is selling products on his site as well (how-to guides for cameras, mediocre color correction luts, etc) and driving extra traffic is extra marketing for him to sell more of his stuff.

  • I'm not saying he has no point at all - I'm just saying it's ridiculous to get so angry that there was a meetup in his area that he wasn't invited to. With an attitude like that, if he lived in NYC or LA, he'd spend his entire life angry and full of rage.

    It is proper BM department job is to invite him. In reality they just don't care.
    Thing go such way not only because it is good for company, but also because it is good for PR/marketing.
    Having close controlled group means that you have much less things to do, and need much less skill.

    I can't see any reason at all to be angry at JB who, as you said, told things exactly as they are and doesn't even work for the company.

    I believe he is more angry at BM, and John only as being close to them.

    It's also somewhat offensive how he keeps talking about giving manufacturers "free advertising" and acting like he runs his site for purely altruistic reasons. He is selling products on his site as well (how-to guides for cameras, mediocre color correction luts, etc) and driving extra traffic is extra marketing for him to sell more of his stuff.

    Compared to many other sites - he is quite good.

    Yep, he sells quite useless LUTs. Yet somehow he needs to survive. It is cold stone jungles of capitalism.

  • It is proper BM department job is to invite him. In reality they just don't care.

    Agreed about this - BM marketing doesn't care about him and that's why they didn't think to invite him. It's not surprising - if you check his site, when is the last time he even finished a review of a camera? Why should BM care about him? Or any other vendor, for that matter?

    A while ago, his site turned into a garbage dump of him giving his opinions on camera news - the closest thing to a review in the last 6 months was him talking about great the 4k crop is on the EOS M because it works well with 16mm glass (3 months after he called the same crop a "middle finger"). The last "review" he did was more than a year ago and as I joked earlier, was talking about a few things with GH5 firmware 2.0 and then saying he would publish a longer review before the weekend which never came.

    I believe he is more angry at BM, and John only as being close to them.

    He is angry at JB as well because he didn't like the things that JB had to say.

  • BM marketing doesn't care about him and that's why they didn't think to invite him. It's not surprising - if you check his site, when is the last time he even finished a review of a camera? Why should BM care about him? Or any other vendor, for that matter?

    Well, one reason is number of real visitors. Andrew never made marketing empires that many of youtube reviewers are with buying views, cross advertisements, click farms, etc.

    One thing we need to do here is put person out of our focus and look at just some facts and arguments I talked above.

    As for reviews - either you go systematic and scientific way or you don't. And camera reviews is the most complex thing from all. This is why PV will start doing such in 2019 only.

  • Blackmagic and BMPCC4K brings out the funniest drama from people:

  • It's probably comparable to the IBIS noise on a lot of modern cameras. My G85 buzzes away the whole time you're using it and it hasn't caused me any problems yet.

    Uh oh, just how bad is this IBIS noise?

    I'm a bit more phobic to any extra sound noise than most people.....

    Because I kinda want to upgrade my G6 vlogging camera to the G85 specifically because of the IBIS for handheld selfie shooting.

  • Ok, I was asking a lot of annoying questions about shooting HDR video with this camera. And guess what? There is a built-in REC2020 HLG 3D LUT! BM now has extended information on its web page, including the camera weight (1.59 lbs). And you can see in one picture this optional LUT in the camera menu.

  • @IronFilm I have never noticed any noise at all from IBIS on any of my Sony cameras or from my GH5. I have no G85, but I would be surprised if it were a lot louder than the GH5 (which is to say "inaudible").

  • @IronFilm you'll definitely notice it while operating the camera coming from a camera without IBIS. Like I said though I've never had it get picked up at least noticeably on a shot even in cases where I had to use scratch audio as the final audio due to technical issues. I would say the IBIS noise definitely "exists", but is not an issue similar I expect to the fan noise on the BMPCC4K.

  • I found BM Marketing to be polite and prompt.

  • @Ironfilm the ibis noise from G85 is very soft, but the GX85 is softer. If you use an IS lens you get two whirrs, of course. You do hear it, but I use it for concert recordings.

  • Anybody have example videos of IBIS noise in the background to share?

  • It is hard to believe Black Magic would have to play any marketing games to sell this camera. I imagine if they did have a marketing concern it would be that they will lose some USRS Mini Pro sales when people decide that the Pocket 4k looks good enough and may even look better under certain circumstances compared to the USRA Mini Pro (given time and testing and I can imagine there will be use cases where it is preferred - in low light etc...) and then people will purchase 3 x Pocket 4ks and 3 x Speed Boosters for less than 1 x USRA Mini Pro costs...