Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

[Savannah Miller]

From what I understand, Blackmagic uses the same IR filter in all of their cameras.  If this sensor design is less prone to IR then it will look cleaner than the other cameras, but the Gen4 color science will also help improve the images to.  I feel that whatever IR filter BM uses is just not enough for their sensors and they tended to show a little too much IR compared to the Alexa in similar situations.

With the new Gen4 color science and a stronger IR cut filter like those found in the Rawlite OLPFs will you see too much IR reduction and will the shadows start looking green?

[mercer]

4 minutes ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

I'm with you there, this shot was great - not too sure about the funky colours for the sunset (colourist's choice).

I think it was a WB choice. I’ve been using cooler WB with my 5D3 and it really seems to help give that more “modern” look.

[jbCinC_12]

44 minutes ago, Kieran said:

They're coming thick and fast now:

'Sunset At Changi'

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K
ProRes 422, UHD 4K, 50FPS
ISO 100-200 (the magic hour silhouettes), 400-800 (blue hour), 1600-3200 (twilight and nightfall)
Canon FD 50mm f1.4 SSC lens
Mitakon Zhongyi FD-M43 Lens Turbo II

 

Awesome.  If that isn't "filmic", I don't know what is - at $1200+.

Excellent clip by the way.

[mercer]

24 minutes ago, Savannah Miller said:

From what I understand, Blackmagic uses the same IR filter in all of their cameras.  If this sensor design is less prone to IR then it will look cleaner than the other cameras, but the Gen4 color science will also help improve the images to.  I feel that whatever IR filter BM uses is just not enough for their sensors and they tended to show a little too much IR compared to the Alexa in similar situations.

With the new Gen4 color science and a stronger IR cut filter like those found in the Rawlite OLPFs will you see too much IR reduction and will the shadows start looking green?

I’ve seen some videos from Pocket and Micro where one of those cheap Chinese IR Cit filters were used, and perhaps if any is needed, they will suffice. Or maybe Rawlite will produce a sensor specific version for the P4K if one is needed.

31 minutes ago, Snuff said:

Finally, a soft organic picture, but the sun, glare looks overdone. We need to carefully select the plot and shooting parameters to fit into the DR.

 

 

I think it’s a combo of the SSC FD lens used... the coatings just aren’t as good as even FDn lenses. But if this was Raw, you’d be able to use that Highlight Check box in Resolve’s Raw Tab... that thing works miracles.

[Sage]

36 minutes ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

I'm with you there, this shot was great - not too sure about the funky colours for the sunset (colourist's choice).

 

35 minutes ago, Snuff said:

Finally, a soft organic picture, but the sun, glare looks overdone. We need to carefully select the plot and shooting parameters to fit into the DR.

This won't be a concern

[zerocool22]

Yeah its the only vid that uses nice glass. I really hate that digital sharp look. But to each their own I guess

[mercer]

1 hour ago, Snuff said:

Finally, a soft organic picture, but the sun, glare looks overdone. We need to carefully select the plot and shooting parameters to fit into the DR.

 

 

To add upon my previous response on Resolve’s Highlight correction in the Raw Tab, here are some frames from ML Raw video I took with an old Minolta lens. When I processed the footage through the Footage App, this was the best I could bring down the highlights...

Bringing the footage into Resolve using the Highlight correction, I was able to pull this out of it...

That feature is magical. I don’t know if it would have helped with that footage if it was shot in Raw, but I think it may have.

[Trek of Joy]

Been working on learning color correction with the new-ish tools in FCPx 10.4, so I'm using the P4k samples as grading practice. I'll admit I'm a total novice, but I hope I'm heading in the right direction. The red jersey in the MTB video was way hot, so I pulled it down a bit. The balloon was tough with the sun in one part of the shot. The bugs gave me the heebie-jeebies. Cool stuff, hopefully more to come. Thanks Blackmagic for the samples.

Chris

 

[wolf33d]

After so many FF mirrorless cameras coming, especially A7SIII and Panasonic with great chance of having 10 bit and 4K60p becoming standard, I canceled my preorder for the BM. 
I would rather trade RAW against FF and good AF. 

[Sage]

Question - is there interest in a solution to precisely match the GH5 to the P4K (and vice-verse)?
(would be indistinguishable from the other, no matter what is filmed)

[Robin]

2 minutes ago, Sage said:

Question - is there interest in a solution to precisely match the GH5 to the P4K (and vice-verse)?
(would be indistinguishable from the other, no matter what is filmed)

Unless the gh5 spits out raw and bypasses the built in noise reduction and sharpening I would be surprised if indistinguishable could be achieved. I'd imagine a very well made lut could get the colour close however and that would be most welcome regardless ?

[Sage]

Just now, Robin said:

Unless the gh5 spits out raw and bypasses the built in noise reduction and sharpening I would be surprised if indistinguishable could be achieved. I'd imagine a very well made lut could get the colour close however and that would be most welcome regardless ?

I'm really excited for the P4K for this reason. The lack of IBIS is the only factor that keeps me from being a complete P4K fan.

The OLPF settings counter sharpening in the 5 nicely, but the purity of the P4K material will be a thrill

[Jonesy Jones]

3 minutes ago, Sage said:

Question - is there interest in a solution to precisely match the GH5 to the P4K (and vice-verse)?
(would be indistinguishable from the other, no matter what is filmed)

Yup.

I'm selling my GH5 for the P4K. But I love my GH5 and have thought that I'd love to have one of each for the sake of IBIS. Perhaps I'll pick one up again.

Btw, I knew you were going to offer this, and I've many times thought you should create transformations from many different cameras to each other. I'm guessing there's a good deal of time and work that goes into that, but you could eventually build up an ecosystem that would make matching nearly any camera to any camera nearly effortless, and valuable.

[deezid]

 

5 minutes ago, Robin said:

Unless the gh5 spits out raw and bypasses the built in noise reduction and sharpening I would be surprised if indistinguishable could be achieved. 

We will see flying pigs before...

3 minutes ago, Sage said:

I'm really excited for the P4K for this reason. The lack of IBIS is the only factor that keeps me from being a complete P4K fan.

The OLPF settings counter sharpening in the 5 nicely, but the purity of the P4K material will be a thrill

Yh, seems like the ProRes footage is free of any sharpening and noise reduction as well. Really promising.

[Robin]

30 minutes ago, Sage said:

I'm really excited for the P4K for this reason. The lack of IBIS is the only factor that keeps me from being a complete P4K fan.

The OLPF settings counter sharpening in the 5 nicely, but the purity of the P4K material will be a thrill

I'm aware of your work on the gh5 but have not tested it myself. In truth I was thinking about it but I have started using my Fuji xh1 for still and video most of the time now, I find the eterna profile with sharpness and noise reduction turned down to to have a more pleasing, less 'processed' look.... The same reason I'm still looking at the p4k I guess 

[Sage]

18 minutes ago, Jonesy Jones said:

there's a good deal of time and work that goes into that

That's the challenge. The P4K is definitely something special among cameras to me

28 minutes ago, deezid said:

Yh, seems like the ProRes footage is free of any sharpening and noise reduction as well. Really promising.

The datarates for 1080p DNG are great, but the downscale is key, and I hope they will do it well to ProRes (though I know you go 4K all the way)

29 minutes ago, Robin said:

I'm aware of your work on the gh5 but have not tested it myself. In truth I was thinking about it but I have started using my Fuji xh1 for still and video most of the time now, I find the eterna profile with sharpness and noise reduction turned down to to have a more pleasing, less 'processed' look.... The same reason I'm still looking at the p4k I guess 

Ah the Fuji. That's the other one that excites me; if only they would get 10 bit*. Eterna - the film stock - was my absolute favorite when they were still making it (over V3)

[RWR]

I know it's all pre-pro teasers etc at this point, but..wonder if anyone's tried the audio/timecode features.

[Snuff]

A comment from vimeo that explains a possible reason of the clipped highlights in this video:

Quote

Zebuk

Thank you for shooting these, man. Just a quick note from an original bmpcc user. You should try shooting the day scenes (sunset etc) with a higher iso. When you drop the iso you drop the noise, but you also drop the dynamic range from the highlights. It would have been nice to really see that sunset with 2 more stops of dynamic range that you lost going to 100 iso. It seems counter intunitive, but it really is how the camera works best in high contrast situations. Thanks again man!

[RWR]

"It seems counter intuitive"

Sure does. Can we assume the two cams adhere to that?

[majoraxis]

With daul native ISO's it should have the most dynamic range at ISO 400 and ISO 3200 - correct?

So the assumption is shooting at ISO 100 would reduce the dynamic range and the noise by the same amount - 2 stops?  

Hmmm... I would like to see some tests that illustrate the reality of this assumption or disprove this assumption relationship between ISO and dynamic range.