The Pocket 6K with Super 35mm sensor is a $2500 upgrade compared to the much cheaper $1200 Pocket 4K. Does it do enough to justify the price increase?
Speaking personally, I held off ordering the 6K.
Tempting though it may be, Blackmagic doesn’t seem to have solved any of the very basic shortcomings of the Pocket 4K. $2500 is a very different ballpark to $1200 and I expect a battery fit for purpose. I also expect a tilting screen, an EVF and IBIS.
These are the bare minimum convenient features for me. Autofocus another one. A) I need to shoot on one battery for at least 2 hours and not have to attach a brick to the camera. B) I need to see the screen when shooting on a tripod without breaking my back. C) I need to see the screen in bright sunlight, so an EVF is critical.
Call me lazy. Call me ignorant of cinema cameras. I am not a fan of rigging up small cameras. When you do that, what’s the point of them being small and affordable? You end up with a clunky expensive spider that needs constant babysitting, is heavy and large.
The other reason I decided against the $2500 Pocket 6K is that I am always suspicious of cameras that ship before any reviews come out.
Sure enough, as Dave discovered above – it ships without the ability to record 6K in ProRes and he couldn’t even get the 6K footage to work at all in Resolve 16 Beta, eventually having to transcode it to 1080p!
The larger sensor is something more welcome than 6K for me, but not withstanding the fact that real Super 35mm film is 25mm wide and the sensor in the Pocket 6K is 23mm, is it really worth double the price of the Pocket 4K with that very good 19mm wide Sony sensor in it?. The price of the Pocket 6K goes up to $3000 if you factor in the kind of bespoke, limited edition focal reducer you need for an EF mount Blackmagic camera to fully make use of your full frame EF lenses. I am only aware of one that exists, from Lucadapters, a friendly small Italian one-man manufacturer, and it’s great they will be making a focal reducer for the 6K, as he did for the URSA Mini… But it will be made in small quantities compared to how many Pocket 6K owners will want one!
I already have multiple Speed Boosters for Micro Four Thirds, that I can use for 1.2x crop coverage with EF lenses on the Pocket 4K.
So remind me – what advantages am I getting with the EF mount exactly?
1.6x crop instead of 1.86x but fewer lens choices?
No ability to use Super 16mm c-mount lenses?
No ability to use Leica M or my existing PL mount adapters for Micro Four Thirds?
I just don’t see the advantages of EF mount on a crop sensor. Full frame, then fine. Dual Pixel AF, then ok. The Pocket 6K is neither.
Don’t get me wrong, I do understand the hype. It’s a relatively affordable Canon mount Super 35mm cinema camera that shoots 6K RAW.
But I think people need to look at it in cold light of day, with clear head, and wonder whether the Pocket 4K might be a better choice.
