@Stylz You could argue that the BM Pocket is the miniature, cheap equivalent of an Arri Alexa. It is actually being used as a B/C cam along with the Alexa since its image can be easily graded to intercut with Alexa footage. Cine cams like the Alexa or RED even have many of the same practicality 'issues' that the BM Pocket has: need of IR cut filters, need of external sound recording, need of rigging, need of post-pro noise filtering and sharpening, limitations with low light performance or shooting at non-native white balance settings.

These are just non-issues in cinema productions where you create controlled shooting conditions to prevent them, as people always have done when shooting on film. This is why we get the flame wars on the BM user forum. The amateur shooting crowd is frustrated and upset while the pros don't see the big deal. Which in turn upsets the amateurs who think that the pros blame their skills while the camera should be blamed.

Hey guys, I've been doing a few tests of my own. Here's what I've learned:

Vintage Switars are REALLY vulnerable to IR pollution. I've got some stuff I've shot on tungsten where the skin tones are just destroyed. A color temperature shift gel over tungsten to boost up to daylight just exaggerates the problem.

Modern lenses are less vulnerable.

IR cut filters are the way to go. I laid my hands on a very nice Rodenstock IR cut filter & the problems have gone away. If you're a vintage Switar junkie like me, you'll need to track down a custom filter adapter.

This camera loves shooting under hi CRI floursesents. I've built some DIY kino-flos and have been blown away by the results. I'll post as soon as I can. Numerous paid projects are piling up at the moment.

@renovatio There are a lot of people who bought the Pocket just expecting a better DSLR/GH2-type camera, and ended up being greatly frustrated by its practical limitations and complications.

(Such as: need of external audio recording/preamp, need of lots of batteries, need of expensive Sandisk Extreme Pro cards with only 20 mins capacity on 64 GB, need of stabilization, need of IR cut filters, need of Resolve/semipro grading skills, need of noise filtering & sharpening in post, need of Speed Booster or extreme wide angle MFT zooms for real wide angle shots, issues with the low quality TFT display, non-pixel-mapped hot pixels, moiré, mediocre-to-bad low light performance, quirky menu ergonomics, lack of fine-grained WB for ProRes recording, bad color under fluorescent light, lackluster color science with in-camera Rec709 and in Blackmagic's standard log-to-Rec709 LUTs, difficulty of good exposure using only the zebras.)

This deep frustration is evident, every day, on the Blackmagic User Forum - and in horribly looking BM Pocket home videos uploaded to Vimeo and YouTube. Many frustrated BM Pocket owners will likely sell their camera as soon as the GH4 or competing cameras like the rumored Sony A7s will be available.

(That said, I personally love the BM Pocket and wouldn't trade it against any other. But I also consider it a true 'digital Bolex' rather than a DSLR or ENG camera replacement.)

I'm thinking i was so excited when Pocket was announced.But right now, just a few months later and with major's product going to be here with 4k and good DR even without prores, i think blackmagic has to give us a "pocket 2" at max next year.

What do you think? Am i too pessimistic?

Shot this the other night using just the Pocket Cam and the SLR Magic 12mm. Pretty happy with with the combo for just handheld, low-light party situation.

It's too bad YT doesn't allow you to replace your file and re-compress, without creating a whole new stream, so that you could do QC. These kinds of unfortunate glitches can often be corrected for on VIMEO by slightly altering the file you upload. It's a roll of the dice and total voodoo, and it sucks, but shuffling the bits before they get their mits on the pixels is sometimes all it takes to get a more consistent stream from them, or at least a less objectionable set of compromises in quality.

YouTube compresses and destroys every video. Is this the first time you've ever seen compression artifacts on YouTube?

Here is a video that i shot with the BMPCC in ProRes. Youtube is doing something really bad to the video if you look at 4:04 and 4:29 the girl smoking shot in blue and green some big pixels show up... The original and compressed video doesn't have this problem so that's youtube. I used ProRes Proxy (35mbps) for this cause that's the best compression i found so far in order to maintain the quality and grain that i added in post. I used to like this camera till i put this video on youtube. Now i'm thinking i might need a 4k camera so i'll get better results on youtube. Would like to have you guys opinion on the overall quality(colors/details/exposure) on youtube cause the original sure looks good.

For those interested, here's why camera sensors give odd results with compact fluorescent bulbs.

Web page link: http://www.bealecorner.org/best/measure/cf-spectrum/

Sunlight is a continuous spectrum but fluorescent lights have large parts of the spectrum missing. This is also why grading is so difficult. Some colours are not in the captured image.

@Alfaerik Here is my attempt to flat tiff. I made LUT for you to give a try.. you may apply it in FCPX by LUT Utility. Tell me how it goes. Thanks. https://www.dropbox.com/s/89cn9f8ighmemzl/ods-2.cube https://www.dropbox.com/s/vnnfzicsvuchcgq/ods-2.tif

These new "bulbs" (actually tubes in a bulb) are awful and give ugly surprises with some sensors.

@vicharris I agree about the micro jitter and the shoulder rig and the clip/test would have been better , but I think its a pretty good demo of the set up stock hand held and just the Zacuto. The SLR Magic Anamorphot made the camera heavier by a bit and it felt more stable in the hand, but next time I will rig it up. Tell me what you mean by SS?