Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

[Tone1k]

2 hours ago, kye said:

I hope so!!  

They look quite large to me - considering that a condenser microphone is a very small object.  I'm having evil thoughts about them having multiple capsules in there with parabolic reflectors and wired in a way that makes the output more directional.  

I'm probably completely wrong, but this thread is about taking very little evidence and running wild with it, right?

The Pocket 4k does have four microphones apparently. 

[kye]

3 hours ago, Savannah Miller said:

From the demo footage that was leaked, the audio did sound very good.

Just listened to it..  I'm assuming it was the 12fps clip?

Audio sounded good, but there was nothing in front of the camera making noise so not way to judge isolation / directionality

1 hour ago, Tone1k said:

The Pocket 4k does have four microphones apparently. 

Hmm..  unless they're recording 4 channels of audio it is possibly to control pickup pattern.  Promising!

[Tone1k]

1 hour ago, kye said:

Just listened to it..  I'm assuming it was the 12fps clip?

Audio sounded good, but there was nothing in front of the camera making noise so not way to judge isolation / directionality

Hmm..  unless they're recording 4 channels of audio it is possibly to control pickup pattern.  Promising!

Built in mic is stereo so just two tracks. 

[jonpais]

I think it's the X-H1 that can record four tracks if I'm not mistaken.

[arant.joseph]

Wow, you can really manipulate that image and it doesn't break down at all.....

[Axel]

36 minutes ago, arant.joseph said:

Wow, you can really manipulate that image and it doesn't break down at all.....

ProRes, recorded in 10-bit, definitely feels creamy. When it's back to H.264 8-bit, you realize how that crumbles.

I find (in this possibly not yet finished iteration) that the highlights clip hard. As for the shadows, they can be pushed hard. Indicates that there was room for better roll-off, if 12 stops DR were okay.

[jonpais]

Colors look way off and even at small magnification, there is ugly, splotchy graininess. What ISO was this supposed to be? Because these images look far 'creamier' to my old eyes.

[sanveer]

Actually since the sensor is the same as on the GH5s, I am wondering whether Black Magic should also have a 14-bit RAW when one needs to absolutey push the codec and push maybe 3+ stops either way. 

[John Brawley]

2 minutes ago, sanveer said:

Actually since the sensor is the same as on the GH5s, I am wondering whether Black Magic should also have a 14-bit RAW when one needs to absolutey push the codec and push maybe 3+ stops either way. 

I don’t believe it actually is the same sensor.

All BMD files in RAW are 12bit LOG / 16 BIT LIN.

JB

[sanveer]

Just now, John Brawley said:

I don’t believe it actually is the same sensor.

JB

Oh ok. Hmmmm ... I hope, then, that it is as capable, if not more. I suspected that the sensor may have a few versions with slight differences in size and ISO sensivity (with dual sensitiity being common to the group). 

[Axel]

2 hours ago, jonpais said:

Colors look way off and even at small magnification, there is ugly, splotchy graininess. What ISO was this supposed to be? Because these images look far 'creamier' to my old eyes.

You are judging from an 1000 px jpeg. What ISO? We can't tell. The stolen clip was @ ISO 800. You should better ask: what WB? From the stolen clip we know: the backyard is not blue because of daylight at tungsten WB, it really is a blue wall! The colors are off? You mean: not to your taste.

Would a GH5 (or GH5S) have handled that better? Well, that remains to be seen. 

About creamyness: all your linked images have prominent sDoF, they are more or less CUs. A 5DM2 (the classic one) with it's barely 720p (the impression was better) can do this, and as pleasant skin. That's what people see immediately (though subconsciously). The said 5D also had that massive bokeh, because of full frame with big pixels. What I meant by creamy: not baked-in, soft dough.

When you say the colors are off, can you nail down what you are actually referring to? Judging from the limes, green is somewhat undersaturated. We can assume that the blue background is really that aggressively lit, but my interpretation would have been that this was supposed to look like a color temperature mix and that the lounge was supposed to feel warm and homey in contrast. With less saturation of the "cold outside" and with more warmth in the foreground.

At first glance, the whole image is not very appealing, I agree. Too neutral, too sober. What I see though is that her skin - no matter whether it has *the* right color or not - is composed of many shades and hues, like the many layers in a renaissance oil painting. I do know that this is no given thing with, say, a Sony mirrorless. Anyone who disagrees? Then prove me wrong! Link to your living skin Sony frames. I like to forgo the P4k, so give it to me!

[jonpais]

44 minutes ago, Axel said:

You are judging from an 1000 px jpeg. What ISO? We can't tell. The stolen clip was @ ISO 800. You should better ask: what WB? From the stolen clip we know: the backyard is not blue because of daylight at tungsten WB, it really is a blue wall! The colors are off? You mean: not to your taste.

Would a GH5 (or GH5S) have handled that better? Well, that remains to be seen. 

About creamyness: all your linked images have prominent sDoF, they are more or less CUs. A 5DM2 (the classic one) with it's barely 720p (the impression was better) can do this, and as pleasant skin. That's what people see immediately (though subconsciously). The said 5D also had that massive bokeh, because of full frame with big pixels. What I meant by creamy: not baked-in, soft dough.

When you say the colors are off, can you nail down what you are actually referring to? Judging from the limes, green is somewhat undersaturated. We can assume that the blue background is really that aggressively lit, but my interpretation would have been that this was supposed to look like a color temperature mix and that the lounge was supposed to feel warm and homey in contrast. With less saturation of the "cold outside" and with more warmth in the foreground.

At first glance, the whole image is not very appealing, I agree. Too neutral, too sober. What I see though is that her skin - no matter whether it has *the* right color or not - is composed of many shades and hues, like the many layers in a renaissance oil painting. I do know that this is no given thing with, say, a Sony mirrorless. Anyone who disagrees? Then prove me wrong! Link to your living skin Sony frames. I like to forgo the P4k, so give it to me!

tldr; the clip you referred to as ‘creamy’ is in fact falling apart at the seams. I could give a rat’s ass about Panasonic.

Looks more like Pointillism than Renaissance to me.

[jonpais]

[Cinegain]

She's very self-concious about her skin condition, no need to harshly point it out like that.

 

You're definitely right, that looks concerning. But it seems like it could be a post thing from removing noise, adding grain and weird adjustments.

[kye]

There is definitely some strange colour splotchiness going on, but my question is what the signal path of the image has been to get it from the camera to my monitor.  I agree with @Cinegain that it could be from some wayward processing.

 

3 hours ago, jonpais said:

The ISO performance on that image is terrible!!!  And it's a daylight landscape too!  

[mercer]

That looks like a mixture of aggressive grain and compression artifacts from the jpeg. AKA Jpeg Schmegma. Plus, if I remember correctly this wasn’t shot in Film Log Mode but Extended Video Mode, so it probably shouldn’t even be counted as an example of the camera’s capabilities. 

[Damphousse]

So someone ignored Blackmagic's request and clandestinely hastily recorded a clip using god knows what settings on a preproduction camera.  And now people are analyzing it and extrapolating.  And people wonder why camera companies are so tight lipped until the day they are almost ready to ship.  No good deed goes unpunished.

[Jim Giberti]

It is pretty absurd to be analyzing a surreptitiously shot screen grab from a preproduction demo at a trade show.

Making judgements about it?

[DBounce]

5 hours ago, Jim Giberti said:

It is pretty absurd to be analyzing a surreptitiously shot screen grab from a preproduction demo at a trade show.

Making judgements about it?

Indeed, and also strange so many remain convinced without seeing any footage from the production camera. 

For myself I will wait until the real reviews are out. With official footage. 

This camera seems interesting... let’s see if it lives up to the hype. 

[Myownfriend]

18 hours ago, jonpais said:

Colors look way off and even at small magnification, there is ugly, splotchy graininess. What ISO was this supposed to be? Because these images look far 'creamier' to my old eyes.

Why are you judging the color on a graded image?

Arant even said "Wow, you can really manipulate that image and it doesn't break down at all..... "