Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

[Shirozina]

3 hours ago, mercer said:

Theoretically it should as the GH5 outputs a highly compressed 4K 10bit 4:22 400mbps image.

Even with 1080p only, the OG Pocket murders the GH5, so one would think the P4K would obliterate it

I've yet to see any compression problems with the 150mbps codec let alone the 400mps one so I'm not sure how the P4K can better it with regards to compression artefacts. I'm not expecting murder or obliteration in other areas either. Such hysterical language doesn't really stack up when comparing any modern cameras.

[Andrew Reid]

1 hour ago, grex said:

Great response Andrew.

I am actually coming from an Sony A7RIII and am considering the pocket 4K, primarily because of the RAW, BRAW and high color depth since i am also into VFX work. I do color grade and appreciate great color science although color science can be subjective. I personally prefer the creamy, saturated less clinical look of the Alexa. On that note, I've had major difficulty with slog 2 skin tones. Trying to isolate skin in resolve in order to correct it in 8 bit has been a nightmare. HLG just seems like i'm sacrificing dynamic range.

Alexa vs S-LOG! Well of course! Let's try and stick to options in the same price range.

I suppose it depends on how much colour grading you need to do. Isolating skin tones, VFX work, that kind of thing - well, RAW is going to be a nice advantage for you there.

Needs must!

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I also thought with the invention of focal reducers, having the full frame look was achievable on a M43 camera? Are you against this?

No absolutely not against it, not sure what gave you this idea, but the number of full frame cameras has increased dramatically, so unless a smaller sensor camera can have other advantages not found on a full frame camera, I can see a point where 'generally' people will choose the larger sensor, and crop if they need the look of a smaller one (i.e. deep DOF).

Also it is hard to get sharp corners at infinity focus on a focal reducer. For a lot of stuff, this doesn't matter - but for the rare occasion where you want a corner to corner sharp landscape shot at infinity focus, you're probably going to want a native prime lens.

Quote

So in terms of color science and color depth for my particular needs is the pocket 4K a waste? Can i achieve just as good results with an A7RIII? Is the added benefit that minimal? Anyone can chime in on this.

No it's not a waste for you, by the sounds of it. I'm not an expert on your workflow or projects though, so that's just an assumption.

For me, I know I can get very nice results from an A7R III or any 8bit camera, and that 10bit or RAW is only a significant upgrade if it's going to be made use of.

There really does need to be more 10bit vs 8bit video comparisons out there under a range of shooting situations and grades.

I have compared RAW to 8bit H.264 before on EOSHD and for some shots, when pushed, the difference was obvious to the advantage of RAW, but the 8bit H.264 I was comparing it to was pretty basic 1080p back on the 5D Mark III. Then I did a comparison between Magic Lantern 14bit RAW and the A7S S-LOG 2, where the A7S came out on an even keel in terms of the end result with a normal grade, in Resolve, on a wide range of shots in natural light. No VFX work though. No treatment of skin tones differently to the rest of the image, so what worked for me might not work for you.

I'm going to make some more up-to-date comparisons, and would have done already if I could get hold of a Pocket 4K but it's still a complete mystery to me.

[Emanuel]

13 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

(...) and would have done already if I could get hold of a Pocket 4K but it's still a complete mystery to me.

Don't breathe too deep, they feel self-subsistent. Rather frustrating their corporate contempt. Their products and innovation would deserve much more. I hate to have to write this but never thought to feel like to post it.

Half million of views and silence is all you can get there. They don't ignore to take advantage from anyways.

[grex]

6 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Alexa vs S-LOG! Well of course! Let's try and stick to options in the same price range.

I suppose it depends on how much colour grading you need to do. Isolating skin tones, VFX work, that kind of thing - well, RAW is going to be a nice advantage for you there.

Needs must!

No absolutely not against it, not sure what gave you this idea, but the number of full frame cameras has increased dramatically, so unless a smaller sensor camera can have other advantages not found on a full frame camera, I can see a point where they stop being used.

Also it is hard to get sharp corners at infinity focus on a focal reducer. For a lot of stuff, this doesn't matter - but for the rare occasion where you want a corner to corner sharp landscape shot at infinity focus, you're probably going to want a native prime lens.

No it's not a waste for you, by the sounds of it. I'm not an expert on your workflow or projects though, so that's just an assumption.

For me, I know I can get very nice results from an A7R III or any 8bit camera, and that 10bit or RAW is only a significant upgrade if it's going to be made use of.

There really does need to be more 10bit vs 8bit video comparisons out there under a range of shooting situations and grades.

I have compared RAW to 8bit H.264 before on EOSHD and for some shots, when pushed, the difference was obvious to the advantage of RAW, but the 8bit H.264 I was comparing it to was pretty basic 1080p back on the 5D Mark III. Then I did a comparison between Magic Lantern 14bit RAW and the A7S S-LOG 2, where the A7S came out on an even keel in terms of the end result with a normal grade, in Resolve, on a wide range of shots in natural light. No VFX work though. No treatment of skin tones differently to the rest of the image, so what worked for me might not work for you.

I'm going to make some more up-to-date comparisons, and would have done already if I could get hold of a Pocket 4K but it's still a complete mystery to me.

Thanks mate. That was very helpful.

As for the S-Log vs Alexa comparison, I only mentioned this in terms of mojo which by the sound of most of the reviewers the 4K doesn’t seem to have.

[Andrew Reid]

I'd say RAW or LOG has as much mojo as you're prepared to give it in post, unless the sensor is an absolute dog and the quality just isn't there.

I'm not too concerned about the image quality with the Pocket 4K.

It's the other aspects around it that concern me... reliability, battery life, ergonomics, autofocus, availability, so on...

In fact the biggest concern has nothing to do with Blackmagic. They're a great company.

The concern is the competition.

X-T3, A7 III, EOS R, Z6, Z7, X-H1, Panasonic S1, GH5S, GH5, list is almost endless. I think to myself, how often am I going to pick up the Pocket 4K which is basically a box with a sensor and RAW, over something that does it ALL and high resolution stills as well. There is a stills mode on the Pocket 4K and the resolution is a big step up from the 2K on the original, but it's no Z7 or S1R!! It's a one trick pony. RAW / codec. The rest, I could have designed better myself.

[Emanuel]

Competitors are there but they've raised the bar too. I believe there's room for all, trust me, they're not even worried with them.

We arrived to a certain point it's not the major players to ignore innovator companies like Blackmagic anymore, rather the opposite. Numbers, the only God. Who pays the bill, after all? Is it really important to them? It should be...

I don't think this is meaningless. Not only tech is important at least to my book. RED got the love of the clientele because their service, view and respect for their support basis.

[Yurolov]

 If you need to color grade then raw is the preffered option. Isolating skintones even in 10 bit is not a perfect science. There is still a fair bit of blockiness. The bmpcc has a good codec but its advantage also lies in the fact that the image, sans grading, is more pleasing as regards skintones etc. This saves a lot of time in post. It also looks more filmic and has better motion cadence, that is, it is generally more like film. Whereas the japanese mirroless cameras dont have the same pedigree and in fact lean more towards a camcorder look. So i dont think codec is the only difference. This was always the appeal of the original pocket. 

[Emanuel]

...and their superior color science & acquisition tech, no matter what : ) It is a bit pointless to try pretending to ignore that. Useless IMO. We have the right to favor something else if our IQ standards match fulfilled, though. May the holy grail be beyond pixel peeping ; -)

[thebrothersthre3]

24 minutes ago, Yurolov said:

 If you need to color grade then raw is the preffered option. Isolating skintones even in 10 bit is not a perfect science. There is still a fair bit of blockiness. The bmpcc has a good codec but its advantage also lies in the fact that the image, sans grading, is more pleasing as regards skintones etc. This saves a lot of time in post. It also looks more filmic and has better motion cadence, that is, it is generally more like film. Whereas the japanese mirroless cameras dont have the same pedigree and in fact lean more towards a camcorder look. So i dont think codec is the only difference. This was always the appeal of the original pocket. 

This is a big reason I would buy if it had PDAF. Skintones and colors should look amazing. Black magic is known for having good color science.

[mercer]

1 hour ago, Shirozina said:

I've yet to see any compression problems with the 150mbps codec let alone the 400mps one so I'm not sure how the P4K can better it with regards to compression artefacts. I'm not expecting murder or obliteration in other areas either. Such hysterical language doesn't really stack up when comparing any modern cameras.

As I previously noted, I was being hyperbolic with murder and obliterate but that doesn’t negate the fact that ProRes XQ at +700 mbps should look better than 400 mbps of the GH5. And in some ways it does but I don’t know if it looks almost twice as good.

[Emanuel]

4 minutes ago, mercer said:

As I previously noted, I was being hyperbolic with murder and obliterate but that doesn’t negate the fact that ProRes XQ at +700 mbps should look better than 400 mbps of the GH5. And in some ways it does but I don’t know if it looks almost twice as good.

On the spot, Glenn. Will you notice it then? ; )

 

7 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

This is a big reason I would buy if it had PDAF. Skintones and colors should look amazing. Black magic is known for having good color science.

If you look after PDAF nothing will stop you to not end there ; -)

[thebrothersthre3]

2 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

 

If you look after PDAF nothing will stop you to not end there ; -)

The PDAF on the fuji xt3 is just lovely. ?

[mercer]

1 minute ago, Emanuel said:

On the spot, Glenn. Will you notice it then?

Lol... probably not. If you stick up for the GH5, the BM fanboys attack you, if you stick up for the P4K, the GH5 fans go nuts... I may as well talk to myself in the ML Raw forum... I’ll definitely like what I have to say... ?

In the end, these are just cameras and it’s not worth getting angry over.

[Emanuel]

BM fanboys are far, but so far away from their company policies... ; -)

Tough business, no more no less.

Sometimes can even happen to contradict the common sense behind : X Well, I guess some senior executives can be junior executives (or the contrary hehe) trading places in disguise... LOL

[BenEricson]

6 hours ago, Kisaha said:

I am not sure why everybody keep comparing it with the GH5. 

Same sensor. Similar specs.

[kye]

4 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

The Pocket 4K has a lot of interesting features, of course, but somebody needs to do a proper comparison of 8bit, 10bit, ProRes, LOG, RAW, etc. Because the image quality is closer between them than people realise, when it comes to the end-result.

I've had Blackmagic cameras in the past, and it's fun pulling around a raw file in Resolve and seeing all that dynamic range on demand, but then I have also had a lot of enjoyment out of 8bit S-LOG and Canon LOG too. Seeing how silky smooth, noise-less the shadows are in low light from a full frame sensor, being able to fluidly play it back and slap on a LUT over Canon 1D C footage - wow - you wouldn't know THAT was 8bit. Instantly nice colour and dynamic range. Same with Hybrid LOG Gamma from an A7 III, or V-LOG with the GH5 and F-LOG on an X-T3. Even the EOS R, for all its faults, has an amazing ALL-I codec with film-like colour - and it's 8bit.

We are trading a lot of things on the Pocket 4K for that RAW codec. 10bit too, but others offer that now, so it's not unique to Blackmagic. Out goes a large sensor, out goes decent video AF, out goes IBIS, out goes articulated screen, battery life, high quality body, weather sealing and more besides. So it is important not to over hype it, as some have been doing on this thread. I have nothing against the Blackmagic Pocket 4K, but it has to be seen objectively.

I do have a little bit of annoyance pent up at the company, for their lame availability and non-support of EOSHD despite the tons of work I have done over the years to bring people's knowledge up to speed on their cameras and Resolve, but I am not going to let that influence the review once I finally get one.

Still no luck on that front BTW.

 

1 hour ago, mercer said:

As I previously noted, I was being hyperbolic with murder and obliterate but that doesn’t negate the fact that ProRes XQ at +700 mbps should look better than 400 mbps of the GH5. And in some ways it does but I don’t know if it looks almost twice as good.

 

After I posted those shots of the Philip Bloom pushed and pulled around I had the same thoughts and wondered how well other lesser footage would respond.  So I pulled in a shot from my XC10 in C-Log and a shot from my 700D and applied the same push and pull.  I expected both to not stand up, and of course the 700D footage broke so hard it looked like modern art, but the 305Mbit 8-bit C-Log from the XC10 looked just fine.

As I don't film like PB I didn't have a shot with similar tonal distribution, and then all my thoughts about how camera comparisons aren't done right (by basically anyone) so I didn't end up posting them.

I really like the look of the OG Pocket and this one hasn't given the same wow factor, but considering that BM release early and tweak, considering that we've not had many examples of footage that was well shot, considering the extensive camera tests that high-end cinematographers do with a new camera working out it's sweet spots and optimal settings, and the maturity of understanding with other contenders like the GH5, A7Sii, etc, we really can't tell what potential there is in this camera yet.

[Cinegain]

Bit random what they've done with it, but atleast it's interesting to see what can be done with the footage. Certainly looks alright to me.

 

[Emanuel]

Man, have you looked/watched "The Color of Light"? @Cinegain

[Deadcode]

5 hours ago, mercer said:

As I previously noted, I was being hyperbolic with murder and obliterate but that doesn’t negate the fact that ProRes XQ at +700 mbps should look better than 400 mbps of the GH5. And in some ways it does but I don’t know if it looks almost twice as good.

You are shooting with 5D right? Could you please show me what is the difference between ProRes LT (88Mbps for 1080 24p) and ProRes XQ? Just convert Raw to ProRes do a grading and crop the difference please.

[jonpais]

Just now, Deadcode said:

You are shooting with 5D right? Could you please show me what is the difference between ProRes LT (88Mbps for 1080 24p) and ProRes XQ? Just convert Raw to ProRes do a grading and crop the difference please.

i have no idea what any of that means, but I'm eager to see what happens.