I must express how much happy I was this early week when I saw Blackmagic FINALLY announcing a successor to the Pocket Cinema Camera.
The original 16mm Pocket Camera was my first digital camera ever - I didn't have a digital stills camera neither - and it was really an inspiring tool at the time, I've shoot all my school films and smaller projects on that little camera. At that time all the folks where going after Canon 600D, the more ambitious to the hacked GH2, but the sexiest piece of video making was the 5D Mark II.
I remember exactly the day the Pocket was announced I was practically ready to buy a used (but in very nice state) Canon 7D, and the moment I saw it's specs I said "This is absolutely it", although the fact that the 7D appeared to be more versatile and of most value, and although the Pocket was a dedicated video camera with no large megapixel photography skills, I sensed the Pocket would be a game changer... So I got it...
This last one with LCDVF and an old Angenieux 12-120 16mm cine lens
And even 5 or 6 years later it still is (or was untill 3 days now) in a kind of undisputed territory and bang for buck category, 1080p professional 10 bit prores and raw 12 bit for 990€??? Can you imagine how big this was back in 2013? And I knew the super 16mm sensor size wasn't such a deal breaker for me, for I knew there were awesome super 16 designed lenses from Arri, Zeiss, Angenieux, etc, I could rent at relative low price, and even old CCTV lenses on the second hand market that would work great, besides my Canon FD's for Full Frame. I found an amazing Cosmicar 12.5mm f1.4 (you read that correctly) for... 20€!!! And it was very, very small, and very very interesting. I miss that lens...
"Ai Vida que a Morte já Tarda" 2014 my first short as a director in film school
Didn't go so well, but i like this shot!
I remember getting the camera and experiencing the outstanding ProRes workflow on my old Windows Toshiba Satellite a355 laptop, with 4gb of RAM and Intel Core 2 Duo. This laptop was quite well featured at the time, but it struggled with AVCHD and MPEG4. I was completely blown away to see my footage running at real 24fps in premiere in Full HD with no bumps or drop frames, smooth as butter, it really was a joy I never experienced before and it definitely made editing more fun, intuitive and fast. But that was just part of the joy, when I started messing around with color correction and exposure compensation, my balls fell on the ground. I was in love. We had an amazing time for 4 years... Unfortunately it was stollen back in 2016...
who said it didn't take photos?? I took amazing photograms with it!
Serra de Montemuro, Portugal
on set
Pimping an old cctv zoom lens to correct the flange distance
and remove the stepping of the iris ring
"Pequena Natureza" 2015 Directed by Bernardo Nabais
Melgaço, Portugal
"Palhaços" 2015 Directed by Pedro Crispim
"Endo Exo Genesis" 2015 by me and some friends
Now that I think about it, as I write this "homage" to the BMPCC, I may say that part of the reason I ended up getting more and more into Cinematography and lightning (eventually doing a Master Degree on that topic) was because of the experience I was having with this camera. Christian Berger, DoP of Haneke films, whom I had the chance to meet at a film festival here in Portugal said how much he loved small cameras, how much these small cameras help him, daily, to better understand certain light behaviours and subtleties. He said something like "the best way to learn how light behaves is to observe, wonder, and grab these little moments as fast as possible, with any camera".
The sun reflected in my bedroom's floor. Beautifull natural key-light
Grabbing these little daily things with the pocket really helped me to understand many things relative to color and light (reflection, diffusion, intensity, working with available natural light, etc). And the fact that the BMPCC was so small was undoubtedly a stealth bonus that permitted to get into other peoples or places intimacy without troubling them too much.
"Fancy coffee and the ghost client"
Foz, Portugal
Mia, the queen of cats, on the opening of the mosquito hunting season
Boticas, Portugal
Porto, Portugal
Matosinhos, Portugal
The Blackmagic Pocket was a really important tool to me as a film student,
helped me out successfully doing first films, docs and experimentation.
It has given me much more than what it costed, I paid it many times.
:'(
So... it's time to talk about this one!
Mr. Grant Petty... First of all, congratulations, but... There was something that kind of annoyed me in the presentation you did at NAB Las Vegas... "The Blackmagic Ursa is the camera you shoot people with, the Pocket Cinema Camera is the camera you shoot yourself with"
"Say what old sport?"
Really????
I wasn't expecting that.....
I mean... Mixed feelings right there... And that front record button......... Isn't the one on the top as accessible as that one??? That feature right there is the only thing I really don't like... It may even end up being usefull at some occasion... But the fact it was thought out to people "shoot selfies"... It's like selling astronaut suits to farmers, no? Nothing against farmers, i'm from a family of farmers! We would sure put good use to an astronaut suit...
You have such powerful cameras, and you seem to be trying to sell them to kids! Kids are smart, they dont need that fancy glitter marketing, they know what's good, and the Pro's really dont like this marketing. I think, for example, for rental houses, it disbelieves Blackmagic, somewhow... They have Arri's and Red's, now they will buy a selfie toy camera?
Blackmagic's marketing team... I dunno.. They have kind of bad taste, IMO... I don't believe it were Youtubers that bought the previous Blackmagic Pocket in the past... Maybe i'm wrong.. The whole catalog is crowded with these sterile, HDR, ultra high definition clean pics of awesome boys and girls having a blast while shooting Blackmagic with no decent rigs at all, just bareknuckle camera... I really wanted to say how much ABSURD this feels to me, trying to market this camera to people who shot selfies?
"We are very mindfull of people who shoot themselves" - Grant Petty at NAB Live Press in 2018...
Hilarious and absurd...
MOVING ON
It's such an awesome camera!!!!! 4K RAW/PRORES 60FPS? 120FPS 1080P? DIRECT RECORDING TO A F*CN! EXTERNAL DRIVE? DUAL NATIVE ISO??? :0
It was a total shock, as it should be ;) Congrats to Blackmagic, you have a faithfull follower!
Built in 3D LUT's is also fantastic, bluetooth (can prove very usefull for wireless menu control), mini xlr... Dedicated stills button! I like that! No more time lapsing at 1FPS to get a shot. They even put an industry standard 12V RS!! How cool is that? I would however prefer a BNC type SDI output instead of the hdmi, but being the big hdmi is OK.
Patterns are repeating, as I was getting ready to invest on the Sony A7III, I'm pretty sure I will be investing on this one instead, as my main activity is towards video... Just waiting for same sample footage to test it out... (continues down)
The sensor size is 18.96x10mm, or aprx 1.9x1cm, wich is almost a 2:1, wider than 16:9 and 1.85 we all know. This new Pocket sensor is actually bigger than the 2.5K sensor we all know and love on the first BMCC which was 15.6x8.8mm
To remind us all, Super 16mm is 12.52x7.41mm and Super 35mm (4perf) is 24.89x18.66mm.
The aspect of the sensor, however, is worth of appreciation in comparison to other Micro Four Thirds sensor, the GH5 for example:
The Lumix sensor is taller and narrower, more into 4:3 ratio territory, the new sensor on the Pocket4K has a ratio of almost 2:1... wider then 16:9 (1.77x1), slightly larger than 1.85 cinemascope (x1).
So this "Micro Four Thirds" sensor on the BMPCC4K has wider window but it's shorter... I guess that's why they call it a Cinema Camera... I mean, I think I may have prefered for a squarer aspect ratio, like 1.66, but from a sensor design aspect it's clearly on Blackmagic's favor to go for wider aspect, in fact, our tv's are getting widder too... All those cropped 1.85's are gone this way, users looking for wider perspective may now enjoy all of their pixels. But... Only will happen if Open Gate feature is available, WICH, would be awesome...
(Just to mention... that imo the ALEV III is the best cinematic sensor in the world, hands down...)
I calculated the diagonal on this sensor, it's 21.435 so I guess this is not the Sony sensor I thought it could be... But I could be wrong... Sony has an interesting sensor on the shelf the IMX294CJK (not friendly), which is a 4/3 sized one very similar to this:
It's an ExmorR (sony's most efficient pixel structure, present in the A7III), wich would explain the claimed exceptional low noise) and they also name it STARVIS (refering to the back-illuminated pixel technology), but for what I understand this sensor is more targeted for security cameras because of it's good low light performance at high ISO's.. But isn't that why people buy a7S's? But the diagonal on this one is different, 21.63... But... I have my suspicious they've worked with Sony on this one, I could be wrong. Check out it's speeds:
Knowing that (who makes the sensor) is kind of cool. I liked to learn the sensors on some cameras where made by companies like Toshiba, Panasonic, and thinking about the images those cameras made, maybe helps in understanding better each ones characteristics. I don't remember well if I read something about the first BMPCC having a sensor made from other brand... I liked it's texture, I hope this sensor retains that same texture, possibly it will, thanks to that crystalline 12bit RAW.
Oh, and Dual-Native ISO! That's a BIG thing. What it means is that you have two different ISO settings capable of delivering the same number of stops above and under the 18% mid grey. In other words, you dont have to sacrifice highlights on a low ISO nor getting muddy shadows with high ISO. The name "Dual-Native" is self explanatory, at least if you know what were talking about. If not: it's a bit like having two different speeds of the same stock film, like Vision 3 50D and 250D. They try to perform very identically in respect of dynamic range distribution in relation to the middle grey, color reproduction, noise structure...
So I'm guessing 800 and 6.400 are the Natives. But it seems they are saying that performance with 25.650 - Dynamic range wise - is as good as with 800, succesfully shifting the middle grey bellow about 4 stops... Nice!
LATER EDIT
The actual Natives are 400 and 3200.
I think I would have prefered to see the dual native only kicking at 2000 iso, so that 1250 and 1600 allowed more DR in the highlights (for some dark silhouette/bright sky background shoots, which is pretty usefull). Guess for those shots will be sticking with ISO 1000
I dont know much about sensor engineering but I would like to see the middle grey "tuned" 2 stops bellow across the whole chart.
Anyway, one can work around this and it will be interesting to test it in real life. Great job from Blackmagic for putting out these charts, not even RED does this, and it's very useful.
BTW here is the original pocket Dynamic Range Chart
But another thing that I really liked about the Pocket Cinema Camera, is it's educational factor, as a learning tool is great, thanks to it's simplicity and efficiency. I learned to expose! I very very rarely changed the ISO on the BMPCC, neither the Shutter Angle. I exposed with iris, ND's, and light control. And I enjoy working like that. I'm really not into the hype of scrolling through crazy extreme ISO's not knowing how that is affecting my dynamic range. I prefer to keep it simple, knowing what I can count with, and what iI cannot, working around those things, create better lightning conditions, get faster lenses, use a matebox with filters. Having that "limitation" made me know how digital sensors and exposure works, what you win and what you loose when messing with the ISO. Thanks to that I found myself exposing situations with abundant light or very high key with high ISO's, instead of a low ISO like some people tend to do without really understand what they're doing, to get those little details on the clouds and the white walls.
If you're into Digital Cinematography you must understand this!
I would like to understand better how dual native gain works, previously I thought it could be achieved by running the camera at different Voltages (like switching from 12V working to 24V), but now i'm guessing it has to do with how the ADC's (analog to digital converter's) are working...
Active Micro Four Thirds mount was what we liked in the BMPCC so we have it again, most practical and logical choice (imagine if the camera came only with EF mount.... terrible no?)
Now that I think about it I remember when the M4/3 sensor came out with the Panasonic AG-AF101
Remember this one?
Should I remember that this was the first camera of it's kind? I mean, 5000$ for a Full HD camera (with the AVCHD getting broader acceptance) with a sensor larger than Super 16, and, above all, interchangeable lenses. This was the thing back in that day!! A 2010 review by Nigel Cooper may refresh our minds
http://www.dvuser.co.uk/content.php?CID=246
I remember that I thought the Micro Four Thirds sensor would be a one of a kind experience in this camera, I never imagined Micro Four Thirds would grow so much as a lens mounting system nor as a sensor size. Now we see fully featured photography cameras featuring this sensor size and mounting system, as well as a wide range of lenses designed for this specific format. Panasonic now only offers S35 solutions, and with the ability to crop into these new sensors pretty much justifies why.
SO
What I like:
- 10 bit PRORES HQ baby, gotta love working with ProRes...
- 4K and 1080p modes.
- Built in 3D LUT's (will it be possible to import your own LUT's?)
- Blackmagic Colour Science
- Up to 120 FPS
- Same 13 stops DR (enough for me)
- Included Davinci Resolve 15 (worth a couple of dollars alone)
- Direct recording to external drive via USB-C
- Dedicated buttons, including 3 Function ones.
- Keeping that SD slot there
- Mini XLR is very nice as well
- Nice spectrogram and meters
- Knowing that it delivers to Netflix standards. That's cool...
- and finally... the Price man... 1295$, only 300$ more thant the previous BMPCC. Such potential packed under those 1300$.
What I don't like:
- Selfie button - hate that
- No physical buttons to navigate the menu... Which means if I get some appropriate EVF hood like my previous LCDVF I will have to take it off to change something in the menu. But maybe with the help of the new dedicated Fn's, and other buttons, trips to the menu will be more periodical.
- HDMI. Altough far better than the micro hdmi on the original BMPCC I would much prefer a standard BNC SDI connector. But it's ok...
- It only arrives in September!! :/
What I hope it will have:
- OPEN GATE mode (I would't mind if it was 25FPS max this way)
- Ability to power external accessories via the 12V RS
- Future firmware adding ProResRAW format (would be a hell lot of value...)
- Ability to crop into the sensor (S16)
- Minimum but good weather sealing (rain, dust...)
What I hope it will not have:
- Drop Frames!6
- Overheating!
My previous BMPCC never, never let me down. Never one single drop frame or interrupted take because of overheating or whatever.
It's not a perfect camera for everyone, but it's quite perfect for what I expect to do with it, exercises, small films and experiments, small docs, location scouting, etc. Some noobs will cry "oh if it had built in stabilization... or flippy-fluppy screen... or 256.874.358 ISO... or bigger sensor... or global shutter..."
I like to put on my cork sniffier outfit and tell them "It's a Digital Cinema Camera. And it cost's 1295$. So shut the fuck up, go to school".
I hope that after testing I can confidently say that!
Hahahaha
This ends this weird review-thoughts-homage-whatever. Dunno why I wrote it in English...
Have a nice day!
EDIT 2020:
So immediately after the first batches arrived to Lisbon I grabbed one.
You guys may not believe it but I had the camera for 5 days and then sold it for 200€ less and bought the AMAZING Sony A7III. Why?
Video quality was astounding as expected, the camera felt well built and I was loving it's peaking and false colour, as well as loading in Luts. But the drawbacks I experienced were just too much for the style of situations I would put it through. I didn't know but the main thing I wanted out of a camera was to
have fun and grab inspiring moments.
The BMPC IS NOT A FUN A CAMERA:
- Battery life is terrible
- Form factor is terrible
- The camera felt huge and was drawing too much attention on the street
- Lack of autofocus, program exposure and stabilization meant more time and attention for camera setup, less time and attention to delve into the action and grab the shot.
So after I got home after some first street tests I understood this was really not the camera I was looking for and I made a bad decision because I was stuck at home looking at dynamic range charts and video bit depths comparisons instead of acknowledging what my true needs were.
I was looking for a camera mainly for inspiration and study of light behaviour and post production workflow, but I also wanted a camera that I could fit in a professional workflow when there was an opportunity, and as a Cinematographer I had to have those 10 bit prores, I simply could not accept 8 bit 420. Well, turns out I realised something I was denying when I chose the BMPC:
1 - The best camera there is is the one that is strapped to your shoulder when interesting situations occur, and chances are the bigger your camera setup the less likely it will be strapped to your shoulder that day lightning was AMAZING and you just had your Iphone with its pinky fingernail sized 1/32" sensor.
2 - The best camera to learn and have fun is a large sensor (> 1") small, light and discreet camera, that is instantly ready to shoot and deliver well exposed and focused images. Many times your Iphone is really the best camera there is, because it's ALLWAYS with you.
Having the BMPCC in my hands while shooting felt like there was always something between me and the subject. The camera was between me and the subject, like an obstacle I always had to manage and deal with before I could concentrate on what was happening and what I wanted to grab. Having the A7III in my hands I fell like there is nothing between me and the subject, I know I can turn on the camera, have it in program auto, start approaching the subject without even looking through the viewfinder, understanding the light direction and how the rest of the environment was framing and interacting with the subject, scouting to see how much attention I'm drawing (I still didn't even pull the camera up to my face), and finally in not more than 5 seconds pull the camera up and shooting a perfectly exposed and focused shot.
Main relevant differences between both is really the amount of time you have to dedicate to the camera VS the amount of time you have to dedicate to the subject/environment.
For the BMPC I needed 15 seconds for camera and were left with 5 for subject, and response time if the situation changed was very laggy, A7III I have 15 seconds for subject and 5 to no time for camera, I can just shot it from bellow my waist in full auto.
Without me understanding it it was not the camera needed, I was wowed by its specs and price and convinced myself I would make better images that way. I was making terrible images with that camera! Setting up a shot took too many time and attention, many times the situation I was trying to grab simply disappeared, shots were shaky, out of focus, bad framing...
There was an opportunity for a small fashion film job for me to do some B Roll shots with the BMPC, so I made a list of accessories I would need to have the camera fully operational, cage, external monitor, follow focus, battery solution, gimbal, etc etc. Needless to say I had to spend another 2000 to 3000€ to have the camera ready for pro work - I didn't.
Pro work we allways have Alexas or at the very least a Sony FS7, so there was really no need for me to invest in this complicated setup.
Of course that doesn't mean its not a great camera for other people, a friend of mine has a beautifull rig for the BMPC and is making great small corporate videos and fashion films. But he's not going out with the camera on vacations or for inspiration. It's a professional camera that needs professional rigging and a focus puller. It's not a pocket allways with you camera.
If you're looking for a Pro camera for Pro workflows, you're probably no even reading this and you know exactly what camera you need. If you're an enthusiast or just getting into videography or photography and you're looking for a new or first camera my advice is: don't let great specs overshadow what really makes a camera great for your needs, you learn more from a small and simple camera that is allways with you than you will with a huge and expensive setup, because the latter wont be with you when the best situations happen. The Sony A7III is a BEAST of a camera because it features a gorgeous full frame in a very compact form factor, pair it with the amazing Zeiss 35mm 2.8 or the 55mm 1.8 and you have a crazy powerfull yet compact setup. I'm having much more fun and making WAY better shots with it, not just because of its specs, but mainly because it's small size and great battery life, I know I can just grab and go while quickly leaving home for some coffee or just a walkaround. The Fuji X100 is another interesting camera if you just want photos, it's roughly the same size as the A7III, yet even simpler and easy to carry out since you only have the built in lens option. The Sony RX100V is another great camera. Really the most important things are small size, simple form factor, battery life, sensor size.
The best camera there is is the one that is with you. The camera that will most likely be with you is a
small camera with decent battery performance, autofocus and some kind of stabilization (for video). With that camera you will actually leave home with it, and when the time comes there will be no distractions between you and your subject, and this is crucial to become a better photographer/videographer.
