Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

[DBounce]

1 hour ago, Anaconda_ said:

I'm pretty sure anything mentioned on their website, is what the camera will be able to do. 

Anything not on their website is a rumour anyway.

Grant Pettyd noted that the camera is ready, they just need to secure a manufacturer for the body and shipping it out.

It needs UHSii cards, and whoever filmed the clip had to do it on the sly. That alone opens up lots of possibilities and reasons quality of for the footage that's now online. 

Looks like you are new to BMD and their promises... http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2016/03/blackmagic-cancels-global-shutter-mode.html

[mercer]

Yes, BM has had a few issues in the past but even if they give us 75% that they promised, this camera should be the best camera on the market under $3000.

[jonpais]

@DBounce But I thought the camera was basically finished already. Anyhow, I'm not sure why anyone would start worrying about them not delivering what they promise. It's still months away. Drawing conclusions from whatever unofficial footage there is online seems highly unusual to me, to say the least. May be best to ask Grant personally why the footage looks jerky to you. I'm certain he'd be more than happy to respond.

[BTM_Pix]

8 minutes ago, jonpais said:

Anyhow, I'm not sure why anyone would start worrying about them not delivering what they promise. 

There is a nine page thread on BMCUser about firmware requests that people want.

Nine pages.

Six months before its even come out.

We're positively like a Zen Buddhist commune in here by comparison

[RWR]

"even if they give us 75% that they promised, this camera should be the best"

So it begins. It kinda depends on what's in the 25%

[mercer]

15 minutes ago, RWR said:

"even if they give us 75% that they promised, this camera should be the best"

So it begins. It kinda depends on what's in the 25%

For starters, could you quote me entirely?

In my opinion, they could get rid of the dual iso and the 4K Raw and for the price it still should be the best camera under $3000.

It doesn’t much matter to me anyway, right now. I’m not buying one for at least a year.

I expect a lot of hiccups along the way, including the Sept 3rd shipping date to be moved back. I also expect some sort of issues that will be addressed either by firmware updates or through returns.

For those reasons alone, I don’t want to be an early adopter.

But I also believe a good 25% of the early adopters will end up selling their camera when they realize it’s not as easy as shooting with IBIS or the lowlight isn’t as good as their a7sii or GH5s... so I’ll swoop in then for some Open Box or used deals.

[DBounce]

1 hour ago, mercer said:

For starters, could you quote me entirely?

In my opinion, they could get rid of the dual iso and the 4K Raw and for the price it still should be the best camera under $3000.

It doesn’t much matter to me anyway, right now. I’m not buying one for at least a year.

I expect a lot of hiccups along the way, including the Sept 3rd shipping date to be moved back. I also expect some sort of issues that will be addressed either by firmware updates or through returns.

For those reasons alone, I don’t want to be an early adopter.

But I also believe a good 25% of the early adopters will end up selling their camera when they realize it’s not as easy as shooting with IBIS or the lowlight isn’t as good as their a7sii or GH5s... so I’ll swoop in then for some Open Box or used deals.

I don’t think 4K raw will go away. Raw is pretty much unprocessed, so should have the least overhead. But higher frame rates might go. As might 12 bit. I think dual iso will make the cut... that is unless they switch to a different sensor. 

Usually I take well known manufacturers at their word. But BMD has over promised and under delivered many times in the past.

 

[Savannah Miller]

1 hour ago, DBounce said:

I don’t think 4K raw will go away. Raw is pretty much unprocessed, so should have the least overhead. But higher frame rates might go. As might 12 bit. I think dual iso will make the cut... that is unless they switch to a different sensor. 

Usually I take well known manufacturers at their word. But BMD has over promised and under delivered many times in the past.

 

Umm that is a hard NO.  Why do you hate BMD so much?  The guy that filmed it clearly stated he pulled it out of his RX100 mark V to use.  He said it was a very slow SD card but that was all that he had.  He actually got an email from BMD to remove his download link because they are releasing test footage very soon and review models have already been sent out.  So no, this is just the case of poor sd card and not camera performance.  12-bit is not any more difficult than 10-bit beyond the data rate which isn't camera intensive.  Higher frame rates aren't difficult as the GH5, GH5s can easily handle those in a smaller body with limited cooling.  Blackmagic has lots of cooling.

Switching to a new sensor is not easy and it's not like they can do that very easily.  You make it sound like its easy to remove/add features in 5 months before the camera is supposed to release and production needs to begin.  The only feature blackmagic has announced that has ever been removed from a camera was the Global shutter feature of the 4.6k sensor.  They had it working but it had too many problems.  The Turret for the larger URSA is also not likely happening due to the costs and issues with manufacturing it, but it totally does work and there are images released.

[Kisaha]

The latest moves from BM shows that they have learned from their mistakes and they are moving to the right direction in all fronts.

The fact that they are searching now how to manufacture the camera is not very optimistic for early September delivery.

It's not a simple thing to manufacture a camera, it takes a lot of components to be bought from different sources and a lot of logistics. It may take them a little more, but in the end I believe they will deliver.

@mercer maybe gave me a couple of good reasons to wait a little bit longer and not pre-order! Of,course open box buys are very rare in Europe, and the price is already very low, I wouldn't mind a brand new one, but I wouldn't like to be a beta tester.

[RWR]

Savannah, Dbounce is not focusing on the leaked footage in his quote. It's not "hate" to be cautious, realistic in terms of deliverable product...ESPECIALLY with a new sensor implementation and manufacturing issues in flux. But maybe using a sensor already used by competitors will make for a solid roll-out. Petty himself seemed to feel the announcement might be premature. We shall see.

 

[DBounce]

37 minutes ago, Savannah Miller said:

Umm that is a hard NO.  Why do you hate BMD so much?  The guy that filmed it clearly stated he pulled it out of his RX100 mark V to use.  He said it was a very slow SD card but that was all that he had.  He actually got an email from BMD to remove his download link because they are releasing test footage very soon and review models have already been sent out.  So no, this is just the case of poor sd card and not camera performance.  12-bit is not any more difficult than 10-bit beyond the data rate which isn't camera intensive.  Higher frame rates aren't difficult as the GH5, GH5s can easily handle those in a smaller body with limited cooling.  Blackmagic has lots of cooling.

Switching to a new sensor is not easy and it's not like they can do that very easily.  You make it sound like its easy to remove/add features in 5 months before the camera is supposed to release and production needs to begin.  The only feature blackmagic has announced that has ever been removed from a camera was the Global shutter feature of the 4.6k sensor.  They had it working but it had too many problems.  The Turret for the larger URSA is also not likely happening due to the costs and issues with manufacturing it, but it totally does work and there are images released.

I don’t hate BMD... but I also don’t take everything they say as gospel.

For the record I hope this new camera crushes everything including Arri and Red. But I hoped that for the GH5 also... and the Sony’s etc... I own stock in none of these companies 

[cantsin]

46 minutes ago, DBounce said:

I don’t hate BMD... but I also don’t take everything they say as gospel.

For the record I hope this new camera crushes everything including Arri and Red. 

It won't. I even predict that some owners of the old Pocket and the BMCC might be partly disappointed because DR is one stop less, and highlight roll-off seems to be clearly harsher if the test footage gives any solid indication. This may very likely be the price to pay for 4K sensor pixels on an MFT sensor. (If the new camera would have the same pixel pitch as the old Pocket and the BMCC, it would have only 2.9K sensor resolution.)

[Savannah Miller]

One thing that's interesting is blackmagic has the best DR when using the fairchild dual-gain sensors.  But they're too hot to make a 4K pocket version because of cooling issues.  Sony A7III claims 15 stops of dynamic range and it clearly has a LOT of dynamic range in a small package.  If they added better color science, raw, prores, etc. they could have a camera that could dominate the pocket 4K in image quality.

[Emanuel]

If...

You said it all ; )

DR seems to be nothing :X when color science pops up to play too (E ;-)

27 minutes ago, Savannah Miller said:

Sony A7III claims 15 stops of dynamic range and it clearly has a LOT of dynamic range in a small package.  If they added better color science, raw, prores, etc. they could have a camera that could dominate the pocket 4K in image quality.

 

[Jim Giberti]

2 hours ago, cantsin said:

2 hours ago, cantsin said:

 highlight roll-off seems to be clearly harsher if the test footage gives any solid indication. 

There is no test footage. There's nothing to base that assumption on.

 

[Savannah Miller]

54 minutes ago, Jim Giberti said:

 

Yeah there were clearly leaked shots with likely almost final color science.  Not good enough for you?

[hijodeibn]

8 hours ago, mercer said:

For starters, could you quote me entirely?

In my opinion, they could get rid of the dual iso and the 4K Raw and for the price it still should be the best camera under $3000.

It doesn’t much matter to me anyway, right now. I’m not buying one for at least a year.

I expect a lot of hiccups along the way, including the Sept 3rd shipping date to be moved back. I also expect some sort of issues that will be addressed either by firmware updates or through returns.

For those reasons alone, I don’t want to be an early adopter.

But I also believe a good 25% of the early adopters will end up selling their camera when they realize it’s not as easy as shooting with IBIS or the lowlight isn’t as good as their a7sii or GH5s... so I’ll swoop in then for some Open Box or used deals.

I also don't want to be a white albino rat (early adopter) for the 4k pocket.....and probably during the the next months Canon make a move a give us a surprise with DPAF.....that will be amazing!!!

[Toby Cork]

I spent serious cash building a Pocket rig for serious pro use and it was a nightmare - a buggy mess in the end, with terrible support for the many hardware and software issues. But if you want to shoot five minutes of pretty broll of cityscapes? Works great. I also bought a BM4K and had FPN and many other issues. The URSA is a great camera, but there’s no way I’d trust BM again.

[Axel]

7 hours ago, cantsin said:

... some owners of the old Pocket and the BMCC might be partly disappointed because DR is one stop less, and highlight roll-off seems to be clearly harsher if the test footage gives any solid indication.

I noticed that. Without being an expert, could this have to do with what in Sonys custom PP setting is influenced by "knee" (the point where the gamma curve starts to "fade out") and "slope" (the steepness of he curve from there)? Something that's baked in. As it is now in ProRes. They could address it with a new "PP". But see below.

10 hours ago, DBounce said:

I think dual iso will make the cut...

I've never - anywhere - seen compressed video that has so little noise even in completely underexposed parts. The NAB pre-production model that the brave thief used to record the 4 minute clip on was set to  ISO 800 ("variable framerate"?):

File size                                : 11.2 GiB

Duration                                 : 4 min 9 s

Overall bit rate                         : 384 Mb/s

com.blackmagic-design.camera.uuid        : fdee50bc-5896-477b-be85-b1a07a8382c5

com.blackmagic-design.camera.projectFPS  : 24

com.apple.proapps.shootingRate           : 50

com.blackmagic-design.camera.cameraType  : Blackmagic URSA Pocket

com.blackmagic-design.camera.shutterAngl : 190°

com.blackmagic-design.camera.iso         : 800

com.blackmagic-design.camera.whiteBalanc : 5450

com.blackmagic-design.camera.whiteBalanc : -20

com.apple.proapps.customgamma            : com.blackmagic-design.camera.filmlog

com.blackmagic-design.camera.look.LUTNam : Blackmagic 4K Film to Video.cube

com.blackmagic-design.camera.guides.aspe : 2.35:1

com.blackmagic-design.camera.guides.safe : 45

com.blackmagic-design.camera.firmware    : 5.5

(...)

com.blackmagic-design.camera.colorScienc : Blackmagic URSA Pocket, Color Science Gen 4

(...)

Format profile                           : 422 HQ

Codec ID                                 : apch

Duration                                 : 4 min 9 s

Bit rate mode                            : Constant

Bit rate                                 : 369 Mb/s

Width                                    : 3 840 pixels

Height                                   : 2 160 pixels

Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9

Frame rate mode                          : Variable

Frame rate                               : 12.507 FPS

Minimum frame rate                       : 3.429 FPS

Maximum frame rate                       : 24.000 FPS

Color space                              : YUV

Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:2

Scan type                                : Progressive

Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 3.554

Stream size                              : 10.7 GiB (96%)

Writing library                          : bmd0

Language                                 : English

Encoded date                             : UTC 2018-04-12 01:43:44

Tagged date                              : UTC 2018-04-12 01:43:44

Color primaries                          : BT.709

Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709

Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709

matrix_coefficients_Original             : BT.709

 I think I vaguely remember that the upper native ISO was 3200 (where clean shadows and some harshly blown out highlights would be expected, if the A7s' native ISO of 3200 is anything to go by). What was the lower native ISO? 800?

Please also note that on the official Blackmagic site, they list 4k 60p as ...

Quote

 

Frame Rates

Maximum sensor frame rate dependent on resolution and codec selected. Project frame rates of 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60 fps supported.
Off-speed frame rates up to 60 fps in 4K DCI, 120 fps in HD windowed.

 

An error?

3 hours ago, hijodeibn said:

I also don't want to be a white albino rat (early adopter) for the 4k pocket.....and probably during the the next months Canon make a move a give us a surprise with DPAF.....that will be amazing!!!

You are in an entirely separate universe. The, er, native virtues of BM cameras have nothing to do with intelligent AF or things like that. That's why all BM cameras, no matter how cumbersome they are in terms of usage (ever lifted the classic URSA?), remain classics.

If you are tuned into the BM user mindset, you witness parallel efforts of Son, Pan, Can with serenity. So they found another smart gimmick to free you from the burden of having  to do something manually? Damn amazing indeed!

[Tone1k]

3 hours ago, Toby Cork said:

I spent serious cash building a Pocket rig for serious pro use and it was a nightmare - a buggy mess in the end, with terrible support for the many hardware and software issues. But if you want to shoot five minutes of pretty broll of cityscapes? Works great. I also bought a BM4K and had FPN and many other issues. The URSA is a great camera, but there’s no way I’d trust BM again.

Your loss, I'm using the UMP on high end jobs where we would have previously used a Red Epic/ Alexa mini and it has been a joy. The 4k pocket is like a 3rd generation camera from BM, I think they have learnt a lot since the first gen pocket and production cameras. But hey, this is all speculation on a product that is six months out from being a reality. Silly talk really.