Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

[IronFilm]

On 10/14/2018 at 7:56 AM, Jonesy Jones said:

We do need more testing though, on the P4K. I can't wait until you get a P4K in your hands, especially one with .braw.

Also, according to a certain DP who has been on this forum but not so much lately, Alexa ProRes is purely budgetary. When you have 3-6 cams shooting RAW, the storage difference compared to prores is not negligible. We're they similar (or less like .braw will be) date rates, you can bet they'd shoot RAW.

But it is not just the storage requirements. It is also the workflow. Every post house on the planet is set up to churn through ProRes footage with ease in a blink of an eye. But raw? Not so much. 

On 10/15/2018 at 2:06 PM, A_Urquhart said:

Aaaand on this note, it would seem that Blackmagic's biggest mistake is making a cinema style camera that everyone can afford but not everyone would know what to do with.

It's like handing an Alexa Mini to a teenager  who's only interest is in taking photos of themselves in the mirror for instagram. They are going to wonder why the camera doesn't focus for them, or have built in tacky picture styles etc. Blackmagic have stuffed up the release of this camera, by making it so affordable and available to everyone it would seem.

Nailed it. 
This seems to be a far too common problem with manufacturers who try to offer more at a low price point. 
I seem the same over in the Kinefinity forums, with many users ripping into Kinefinity over minor points. And I'm just thinking "hang on guys, but RED does it just the same, or even RED has got it even worse. But you're giving Kinefinity flack over some quibble??"
 

On 10/15/2018 at 2:34 PM, A_Urquhart said:

I originally came here to discuss the camera I had pre-ordered as I saw John Brawley was active on here. Then, when I received the camera, I came here to share information as well as find things out from others.

Sadly it seems like JB might be gone for good now ?  A loss to this otherwise excellent forum. 

 

[IronFilm]

On 10/15/2018 at 2:59 PM, A_Urquhart said:

It's like me getting on the Sony A7III thread and ranting and raving about the fact that it doesn't do RAW or 10bit. Just sillyness!

I'm trying to give people some perspective but people just want to bang on about why it doesn't have feature A or B that a mirrorless camera does have.

This. 

It gets a bit tiresome if people go on over and over banging on about a missing feature that which is obviously / widely known as not being there. 

Is like complaining about a Jaguar sports car not being a six seater electric car. Well d'oh, everyone knows it is not one. 

 

On 10/15/2018 at 4:12 PM, jonpais said:

Actually, not only is Blackmagic giving away DaVinci Resolve for free, but they’re also throwing in the Video Assist - so the Pocket is really only $500. ?

haha, imagine if only the BMPCC4K had an input! So you could use the BMPCC4K as a monitor/recorder too (with loop through as well! ha). 

On 10/15/2018 at 8:23 PM, Shirozina said:

I am upset there is no pop up flash. For a camera that has stills capability this is a bad decision for a camera at this price point and will put off many buyers. They have not included an EVF to make it more familiar to people who transition from a mobile phone but why then do they not make it go in a pocket like a mobile phone but then lie to everyone and say it's a pocket camera? It's easy for them to give away software as it doesn't cost anything to make and doesn't add any weight to the camera but why do I need software to use this camera when other cameras work fine without it? Also there is no lens with the camera so that is an extra item you will have to buy and I don't see this mentioned in any of the videos. If BM don't make lenses then they shouldn't be selling cameras to people as this is like selling a car to someone without wheels. It seems BM do not care about customers who haven't got a clue.

Boom! Exactly what I was talking about ?

Well done. Well played.

On 10/15/2018 at 9:24 PM, Shirozina said:

BM are a fascist organisation -  Black Magic / Black Shirt!  Also I never wanted this camera but with their stupid low prices they made me an offer I couldn't refuse so not only Fascist but Mafia mentality. Free software and battery are a bad joke. I need free trousers with extra large pocket for this so-called 'pocket' camera to work for me.

LOL!

I might need free trousers too after reading this thread....

 

[shooter]

27 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

It gets a bit tiresome if people go on over and over banging on about a missing feature that which is obviously / widely known as not being there. 

Is like complaining about a Jaguar sports car not being a six seater electric car. Well d'oh, everyone knows it is not one. 

 

 

It seems a few of you miss the point.  Don't read or... Don't understand. Don't want understand. Whatever. Only God knows! Who mentions features when they forgot to invite Mr. Reid? You see fair criticism in a wrong way.

[IronFilm]

On 10/15/2018 at 10:24 PM, Turboguard said:

Okay guys, PANASONIC DROPPED THE FUCKING BOMB. I ordered Lumix LX100-2 on announcement, was said to receive it OCT 1st!!! Then that changed to Oct 16th, which is tomorrow, and STILL no shipping, I looked at BH now and it says exp delivery Oct 25th?!? WTF Panasonic?! I will never trust a company that lies so much to its customers! I’m not canceling my preorder cause it was a gift to my partner, but listen PANA, you lost a customer in me! Panasonic = Evil corporation mentality, I’m nothing but a slave consumer to them.

 

edit: this is a Panasonic thread no?

Thank goodness RED has never done that to us!

edit: this is a RED thread no?
 

[shooter]

3 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Thank goodness RED has never done that to us!

edit: this is a RED thread no?
 

 

No, where are you now? Australia? The neighbor New Zealand? Okay....

[IronFilm]

26 minutes ago, shooter said:

 

No, where are you now? Australia? The neighbor New Zealand? Okay....

Guilty as charged. Clearly I'm an undercover BMD operative. 

 

On 10/15/2018 at 4:43 PM, TurboRat said:

Hi guys,  how much do you think will it take to outfit a P4K including SSD and batteries? Will P4K + SSD + additional batteries exceed $2000+?

No. 

But once  you add on cage / lenses / etc.....  the sky is the limit! (actually, no it is not, the moon is! actually, no it is not, Pluto is! actually, no it is not, the alpha centauri is! actually, not is is not.... )

[Yannick Willox]

This seems like quite an honest review. All the cons are mentioned, and then you have the image quality & price point.

[Deadcode]

13 minutes ago, Yannick Willox said:

This seems like quite an honest review. All the cons are mentioned, and then you have the image quality & price point.

We already discussed this comparison several pages earlier. This video favors the BMPCC4K in every scenario: poor grade on the GH5 in skintone example, dynamic range comparison while the GH5 is rolling in it's natural PP, BM on gimbal vs GH5 in handheld... It a joke.

 

[jonpais]

19 minutes ago, Yannick Willox said:

This seems like quite an honest review. All the cons are mentioned, and then you have the image quality & price point.

We already saw this garbage video, which, as @Deadcode rightfully observes, is incompetent and clearly favors the P4K (though the grading of both sucks ass).

[Yannick Willox]

Maybe we looked at another video ?

The one I saw had a GH5 owner and user in it, and he admits the P4K is much better image wise (skintones !). They also show the GH5 stabilisation is great, but of course not as perfect as a gimbal.

[jonpais]

On 10/12/2018 at 4:21 AM, jonpais said:

How hard can it be to at least make a small effort to try to match the shots from the two cameras? The one on the bottom is from the video, the one on the top a two-second color correction. In the video, I'd almost say they tried their hardest to make the GH5 look ghastly. No wonder what they saw were thin skin tones with little to no gradation. Even checking the vector scope, it's plain to see that their grade is far too magenta.

@Yannick Willox The grade is pretty awful. I've never seen such bad skin tones with the GH5 in all my life.

[Yannick Willox]

The positive I take from this vid then is even with awful grading, the P4K looks much better. Your two second grade does help, but it still makes the GH5 look quite bad IMO. She still needs to go and see a physician.

[dslnc]

Well, just because because there are a new kid in class doesn’t mean that the other cool kid is suddenly shit. Can we get past that, please?

[Deadcode]

24 minutes ago, Yannick Willox said:

The positive I take from this vid then is even with awful grading, the P4K looks much better. Your two second grade does help, but it still makes the GH5 look quite bad IMO. She still needs to go and see a physician.

The image from the BMPCC4K is superior to GH5, but not this much. It's awesome if you just put a REC709 LUT to BMD Film how good the results are. But it does not require advanced grading skills to make the GH5 image look good. 

This is my problem with Wofcrow's Alexa comparison too. We can see REC709 LUT's side by side. But what happens if you want to match the GH5 and BM's image to Alexa? Is it possible? (Yes...) how hard is it? . Can the cheap cameras keep up? (in some cases, yes). 

[AlexTrinder96]

BRaw Vs DNG test

 

 

 

[tonysss]

Today I was shooting in the vineyard with GH5 and I took the old pocket, and I have to admit bmpcc surprised me again with better color and at least +2 feet of dynamic range extra. I noticed that I use a lot more pictures in my pocket camera. Only add saturation and contrast and it's there. In new pocket I see less DRs and a worse transition of highlights to clipping and of course  colors are different and worse for me... the old pocket remains a loyal partner of my GH5 for beautiful B-roll or more cinematic work. Of course, working with old pocket needs more time and patience ?

[jonpais]

4 minutes ago, tonysss said:

Today I was shooting in the vineyard with GH5 and I took the old pocket, and I have to admit bmpcc surprised me again with better color and at least +2 feet of dynamic range extra.?

+2 extra feet of dynamic range is impressive!  

[kye]

1 hour ago, tonysss said:

Today I was shooting in the vineyard with GH5 and I took the old pocket, and I have to admit bmpcc surprised me again with better color and at least +2 feet of dynamic range extra. I noticed that I use a lot more pictures in my pocket camera. Only add saturation and contrast and it's there. In new pocket I see less DRs and a worse transition of highlights to clipping and of course  colors are different and worse for me... the old pocket remains a loyal partner of my GH5 for beautiful B-roll or more cinematic work. Of course, working with old pocket needs more time and patience :)

From what I understand it took a number of firmware updates to get the BMPCC to where it is now.  I'd imagine the newer one will be the same?

If so, just think about it like you're buying a software subscription with free upgrades

[Emanuel]

9 hours ago, shooter said:

 

No, where are you now? Australia? The neighbor New Zealand? Okay....

 

9 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Guilty as charged. Clearly I'm an undercover BMD operative. 

 

David is surely a reputable voice not connected with BMD as much as RED : D or any other manufacturer. I see him as brand agnostic as me, I guess : )

I don't believe shills are coming here, not BMD type, I think. My beef with them is just related to business policies and their obsession with broadcast market. Even though, they struggle to move on. Just not as quick as a few people, myself included, would like. I am their supporter from day one. I believe and know they could care about us outside better than they actually do. Too stuck on their organization chain. It is necessary to listen everyone. That's what I'd much appreciate to see from their own : -)

Even because there's no other Pocket 4K out there. With RAW acquisition as for instance amongst other Goodies?! Where...? ; -)

[TurboRat]

4 hours ago, jonpais said:

@Yannick Willox The grade is pretty awful. I've never seen such bad skin tones with the GH5 in all my life.

With shooting with the GH5 and usual mft lenses, I noticed you have to really have to add contrast and saturation go make it work, unlike shooting with a lens like the Sigma 18-35 which immediately gives contrasty images.