Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

[JordanWright]

@jack86 BM support is incredibly helpful and fast. I recommend giving them a call and they will take care of you, Ive had 2 RMA's 1 was a fix and the 2nd was a replacement camera.Both completed in 2-3 working days from collection to delivery back to me (UK)

[Yannick Willox]

So I've got two rented bmpcc4k, I'm off for a concert shoot this afternoon/evening.

Some remarks:

1. my Panasonic 4/3 to m4/3 adapter works, but autofocus (on the old 4/3 12-50 phase detect AF panaleica lens) does not. Not a big deal, it would take approx. 47 seconds to focus anyway, and the manual focus tools are great. The physical aperture ring also does not function, but camera control does. Fine.

2. my cheap m4/3 12-32mm kit lens and my panaleica 12-60mm work great, stabilisation and all. Looks quite steady when handheld, of course not as good as the dual ibis but anyway. The nice thing is, the OIS of the old 4/3 panaleica lens still works.

3. the camera's are quiet, but not noiseless ! I can clearly hear them in my studio from 1m. During a classical shoot, I would not go near the main mic in a silent hall. Not within 2m.

4. the menu is a breaze. It took about 0 seconds to start changing settings. Also (and this is very important to me): no hidden/buried settings.

5. I do not know if it is possible to move the AF box. That is the only thing unclear.

 

[BTM_Pix]

54 minutes ago, Yannick Willox said:

 

5. I do not know if it is possible to move the AF box. That is the only thing unclear.

 

Only by touch.

Once you've moved the box it will retain that position during subsequent presses of the physical AF button on the camera until you move it again.

[Emanuel]

Every time I put my hands on it, I am still praising this thing. I've simply stopped to have pleasure to shoot with anything else : -)

[Emanuel]

@webrunner5 you love to say these cameras are hard to play with, isn't it? ; )

Well, I have 11 Panasonic cameras as of now.

I find all those 'hidden/buried' settings as Yannick @Yannick Willox wrote and alike, the most boring and counterproductive capture-handy-tool a shooter can shoot with.

Glad I see, it is not only me used to and coming from film realm where ISO / shutter / aperture were practically the only variables I would need to have in mind to focus myself on framing and the whole remainder. I still recall when WB had popped up side by side with the video advent in my life.

 

These silly modern cameras are a perfect PITA to the art and craft instead : P

 

BMD has recovered to me and many other lucky users the happiness of shooting once again, back to what really matters.

BTW, have you ever played with WB settings on P4K? ; ) Give it a try, not hard to follow my remark here. That effectively counts to the excellence of your outcome, skin tones and so on.

Blackmagic is more than a camera manufacturer, they are part of your crew (E : -)

[webrunner5]

25 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

@webrunner5 you love to say these cameras are hard to play with, isn't it? ; )

These silly modern cameras are a perfect PITA to the art and craft instead; BMD has recovered to me and many other lucky users the happiness of shooting once again back to what really matters.

I have never said they are not a good, well maybe even great camera. It is that I am not into their more modern look, putting up with all the hassle with batteries, SSD's, etc I would rather have a GH5s that looks pretty much like the same output that works right out of the box. Now I have to admit that the new bRaw has a better, older style look to it, But I really don't want a camera like that that I have to have a Frankenstein rig for it. I might as well just buy a canon C100 and be done with it. I am like Mercer, I really don't Need 4K. Anything I shoot is just for the fun of it, not some magical pinnacle I have to reach. I am glad you are happy with it, but I am still not going to buy one.

[Emanuel]

GH5 series is one of my fav cam series ever : ) However, I am astonished with the P4K. A new whole game.

Absolutely.

A breeze to shoot with. A four decades dream to become true to me.

Yet, very easy to shoot with straight out the box. I am not used to any rig there, actually. 1080p outcome is there as well. Not even need to shoot 4K as you wish.

[webrunner5]

 

[leslie]

2 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

I have never said they are not a good, well maybe even great camera. It is that I am not into their more modern look, putting up with all the hassle with batteries, SSD's, etc I would rather have a GH5s that looks pretty much like the same output that works right out of the box. Now I have to admit that the new bRaw has a better, older style look to it, But I really don't want a camera like that that I have to have a Frankenstein rig for it. I might as well just buy a canon C100 and be done with it. I am like Mercer, I really don't Need 4K. Anything I shoot is just for the fun of it, not some magical pinnacle I have to reach. I am glad you are happy with it, but I am still not going to buy one.

stop playing hard to get, turn to the dark side. We have braw and chocolate chip cookies

[webrunner5]

26 minutes ago, leslie said:

stop playing hard to get, turn to the dark side. We have braw and chocolate chip cookies

You have to remember someone my age has paid their dues on hard to handle, heavy as hell, manual everything, on and on cameras both hobby and Pro in my case. And being a sort of a one eyed bastard, and left handed to boot lol, decent AF sort of helps. And not having to  stress out about a lot of stuff that I know makes for a better output, but hell I am running out of time using a light meter to determine exposure etc.. I have better things to do, well really not many, but you get the point.

If I carried 7 batteries in my pants pocket I would have maybe a heart attack due to the extra added weight to my already added weight. If I was younger I can wholly see the draw of this camera, but I am more a candidate for the Osmo Pocket lol to be honest. I am in Largo, Florida now, made if without incident thank God, and going to get back to birding. I don't see that camera, the BMPCC 4K a good fit for that. But I can see the long term potential for you guys using it. A fabulous tool for the money now that BMD Raw is out. When they get on the used market cheaper if I live that long than I may give it a hard look..

[AlexTrinder96]

Someone shared this on the FB group. Great alternative to the tilta handgrip that still has no official release date!

 

I see he also created the One Little Remote for the BM Micro.

 

[leslie]

5 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

You have to remember someone my age has paid their dues on hard to handle, heavy as hell, manual everything, on and on cameras both hobby and Pro in my case. And being a sort of a one eyed bastard, and left handed lol, decent AF sort of helps. And not having to  stress out about a lot of stuff that I know makes for a better output, but hell I am running out of time using a light meter to determine exposure etc.. I have better things to do, well really not many, but you get the point.

If I carried 7 batteries in my pants pocket I would have maybe a heart attack due to the extra added weight to my already added weight. If I was younger I can wholly see the draw of this camera, but I am more a candidate for the Osmo Pocket lol to be honest. I am in Largo, Florida now, made if without incident thank God, and going to get back to birding. I don't see that camera, the BMPCC 4K a good fit for that. But I can see the long term potential for you guys using it. a fabulous tool for the money now that BMD Raw is out. When they get on the used market cheaper if I live that long than I may give it a hard look..

hey i'm left handed, you make being left handed sound like an impediment  you should definitely rush out and buy a bmp4k now, it will improve your dexterity !!. Besides that, there is plenty of great footage shot with other cameras and i reckon there will plenty more great footage shot on other cameras. i'm not trying to sell bm cameras because well, there's no commission in it for me.  i do however like stirring the pot every now and then, don't take too much of what i say seriously. If your making birdie movies would not the 2x crop on the p4k get you closer to the action ? i know where your coming from my fitness level sucks as well. I caught some rare bug three years ago which took alot of the fun out of everything, but there are people out there doing it tougher than me so im not complaining.  i think the battery life is ok, certainly not spectacular. I tend to turn it off after i take a shot. it fires up in less then five seconds. maybe if i went to a carnival or a zoo i'd want another battery  or maybe another solution perhaps still considering,  but like anything, you have to work within the limits of what you have got.

[anonim]

It might be a nice occasion to compare results of two generations of BM cameras from the same master's DP signature. For me, very hard to judge...

 

[webrunner5]

1 hour ago, leslie said:

hey i'm left handed, you make being left handed sound like an impediment  you should definitely rush out and buy a bmp4k now, it will improve your dexterity !!. Besides that, there is plenty of great footage shot with other cameras and i reckon there will plenty more great footage shot on other cameras. i'm not trying to sell bm cameras because well, there's no commission in it for me.  i do however like stirring the pot every now and then, don't take too much of what i say seriously. If your making birdie movies would not the 2x crop on the p4k get you closer to the action ? i know where your coming from my fitness level sucks as well. I caught some rare bug three years ago which took alot of the fun out of everything, but there are people out there doing it tougher than me so im not complaining.  i think the battery life is ok, certainly not spectacular. I tend to turn it off after i take a shot. it fires up in less then five seconds. maybe if i went to a carnival or a zoo i'd want another battery  or maybe another solution perhaps still considering,  but like anything, you have to work within the limits of what you have got.

 Well for the time being I am mostly going to be shooting stills with my Nikon D2Xs and the Sigma 150-500mm, Tamron 80-400mm, and a Nikon 18-105mm. It  doesn't have video at all, so one less thing to worry about lol. My iPhone sure won't work that is for sure for birding.. Just about tapped out on money at the moment. Looking to rent or buy something cheap down here to live in. So toys sort of out of the question for a bit. Hard  packing up everything in your life and moving at my age. But new adventures good or bad ahead. At least it is not boring, which it had become.

[deezid]

1 hour ago, anonim said:

It might be a nice occasion to compare results of two generations of BM cameras from the same master's DP signature. For me, very hard to judge...

 

Not that the P4K looks bad, but these sharpening halos (easiliy visible in the thumbnail around the jacket even) make the P4K look way less organic than the original BMCC.

Was shot in either ProRes or Braw. Cdng doesn't show any of these internal processing issues when sharpening in Resolve is set to 0. Still wondering why BMD joined Panasonic, Sony, Canon (since EOS R) etc...

[webrunner5]

Yeah they turned a unique, pure  look into a mainstream look. Crazy long term plan to me? What, is every camera suppose to look like a Canon? It is nice for wedding, portrait stuff, but for filming shorts, indie stuff, nah. That stuff is suppose to have a bite to it, gritty,  right in your face stuff. Not Marie Osmond looking. And that is what to me the PK4 looks like. Pure as the driven snow. WTF.

[thebrothersthre3]

22 minutes ago, deezid said:

Not that the P4K looks bad, but these sharpening halos (easiliy visible in the thumbnail around the jacket even) make the P4K look way less organic than the original BMCC.

Was shot in either ProRes or Braw. Cdng doesn't show any of these internal processing issues when sharpening in Resolve is set to 0. Still wondering why BMD joined Panasonic, Sony, Canon (since EOS R) etc...

You sure its not processing rather than the codec itself? 

 

6 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Yeah they turned a unique, pure  look into a mainstream look. Crazy long term plan to me?

I don't know man 4k RAW at 1k is not a bad plan to me.

[webrunner5]

4 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I don't know man 4k RAW at 1k is not a bad plan to me.

Doesn't seem like may have a clue how to grade it. I will say it looks nicer than ProRes out of the PK4. Maybe people are just going to have to learn it better.

[thebrothersthre3]

56 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Doesn't seem like may have a clue how to grade it. I will say it looks nicer than ProRes out of the PK4. Maybe people are just going to have to learn it better.

True but that goes for pretty much any camera. Most cameras are offering log now and people think that is the way to go. 

[webrunner5]

32 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

True but that goes for pretty much any camera. Most cameras are offering log now and people think that is the way to go. 

Yeah nobody said video is easy. The big problem is it is Very hard to go out and be good at every aspect of video. My main beef is if the audio sucks in the first 20 seconds I am not watching another frame, good or bad. So what good is an Arri Alexa if you don't know shit about Microphones. I can live with goofy video longer than crappy audio.