Blackmagic Micro Cinema Super Guide and Why It Still Matters

[kye]

6 hours ago, inde said:

@Kye, how do you deal with moire? I've not seen any in the posts you've shown in this thread but I'm not very good at finding it. Do you have an OLPF? Using a weak promist style filter has some people say it helps and others have said (JB) the frequencies are not fine enough to be affected. If all it takes is a promist when someone wants to wear fine fabric or a suit and tie wouldn't that be great?

Yeah, you need an OLPF like @Sven said, my Tiffen 1/8 BPM filter didn't get rid of it.  The people I see online get the Rawlight ones, but they're expensive and fog up over time and need replacing.  I see it on an occasional shot here or there, but if it ruins the odd shot for me it's no big deal so I haven't bothered.

[kye]

Hongdae.

Choosing stills is different than choosing shots for an edit because the movement really makes things completely different, so I've ended up with much cleaner and more minimal stills.

In reality, every street and alleyway in every direction looked like this virtually as far as the eye could see:

[Emanuel]

What version @kye?

G2 or the previous one?

 

The more I use their cameras, the more I appreciate this brand.

- EAG :- )

[kye]

6 hours ago, Emanuel said:

What version @kye?

G2 or the previous one?

 

The more I use their cameras, the more I appreciate this brand.

- EAG :- )

OG BMMCC + 12-35mm F2.8 lens + IR/UV filter + vND + monitor + wrist-strap and that's it. 🙂 

[kye]

Last set of stills from Seoul. We took a walk through backstreets and alleyways down to the river, stumbling across a tiny neighbourhood railway crossing...

[PannySVHS]

Lovely last set and compositions! @kyeWouldn't mind to have these framed on my walls. Did you film prores or raw? Looking fabulous!

Somehow I feel that I like the image from my og pocket even better than with my m2k. I filmed with the micro last week and it felt not quiet as beautiful as the footage i got with the p2k a couple weeks ago. That's related to daylight scenes though. Darn, it seems I belong to that group of 0.1% of people who see that difference. Welcome to this forum as @BTM_Pix would say!:)

My M2K has the rawlite oplf/ir cut, whereas my pocket doesn't. It didn't bother me as I didn't have to film finest patterns or akward shirts.

An og pocket with good battery, no overheating 1080p 50p would be my favorite personal camera. Go, BM Design!:)

[MrSMW]

Is that level of haze/smog a regular thing in Seoul?

If so, makes it a very cinematic city to work in!

[bjohn]

Here's a little clip from a balfolk dance last weekend, shot on BMMCC with the Sigma 18-35 and speedbooster.

 

[kye]

On 8/28/2024 at 8:00 PM, MrSMW said:

Is that level of haze/smog a regular thing in Seoul?

If so, makes it a very cinematic city to work in!

Nope, normally it's worse.

We didn't get a single Public Safety Alert talking about air quality...  in two weeks!  

Maybe because it was rainy season and humid as hell.  August gets about a third of their annual rainfall.  Maybe the Chinese farmers aren't burning off this time of year, who knows.

[kye]

On 8/28/2024 at 4:47 PM, PannySVHS said:

Lovely last set and compositions! @kyeWouldn't mind to have these framed on my walls. Did you film prores or raw? Looking fabulous!

Somehow I feel that I like the image from my og pocket even better than with my m2k. I filmed with the micro last week and it felt not quiet as beautiful as the footage i got with the p2k a couple weeks ago. That's related to daylight scenes though. Darn, it seems I belong to that group of 0.1% of people who see that difference. Welcome to this forum as @BTM_Pix would say!:)

My M2K has the rawlite oplf/ir cut, whereas my pocket doesn't. It didn't bother me as I didn't have to film finest patterns or akward shirts.

An og pocket with good battery, no overheating 1080p 50p would be my favorite personal camera. Go, BM Design!:)

Damn, I thought I replied to your post already.

This was all Prores.  I did some tests when I first got it and found grading the Prores in post was just as flexible as the RAW, but it was easier for me in some ways, so I decided not to complicate the trip by also switching to RAW as well.

I also have a vague memory that the RAW files corrupt if the camera runs out of battery while recording, but the Prores didn't, which isn't the way around you'd expect but it's what I experienced, so this sort of eliminates that too.

[BTM_Pix]

For anyone with a BMMCC (and a 3D printer) looking for the Digital Bolex ergonomics this might be right up your street.

 

[bjohn]

Here's one on the original Pocket with the new Laowa T1 18mm cine lens, shot handheld with a Zacuto Marauder Mini for stabilization.

 

[bjohn]

Here's my first cut at the "souvenir" video for the dance weekend I filmed last month on the BMMCC (with a few small bits  shot on the OG BMPCC as well). Much of this was at or over the limit of what these cameras can handle in terms of low light, and I had to do quite a bit of denoising (and still need to denoise one clip of dancers near the end). The denoising added some undesirable sharpness, which I'll fix in the next round, but overall I'm fairly happy with how this turned out, at least for the musicians and for the dancers who were in the light. The ones of dancers in the darker part of the hall were a lot less successful (I couldn't even see if I was in focus for some of those, it was very dim and focus peaking didn't even work). Mostly shot with Sigma 18-35 on a speedbooster plus a few shots with the new Laowa T1 cine 18mm lens; some of the outdoor shots were with the SLR Magic 18mm T2.1 cine.
 

 

[bjohn]

More low-light video with the BMMCC. Sigma 18-35 with speedbooster. I did some light denoising on this; there's certainly still noise in the footage of the dancers but that level of noise doesn't bother me.

 

[bjohn]

Working on these videos, where I'm panning from reasonably well-lit musicians to dancers who are basically in the dark, makes me realize that I need to make the effort to keyframe my colour grades. I've been too lazy but with Resolve's auto-keyframing it shouldn't be much work. In this last one I posted, there's too much contrast and saturation on the musicians because I boosted it for the dancers.

[mercer]

It's so cool that people are still using this camera. Unfortunately, I have to part ways with mine. The kit is listed on eBay if anyone is interested. FYI, I sold my last BMMCC to Kye and that's the one he's been using. 

[PannySVHS]

Oh no, why are you selling it? On the other hand it's so cool that you sold your other set to kye. @mercer Btw, I find the results from my Bmpcc even nicer than what I got out of my Micro with the rawlite oplf-ircut filter.

@bjohn Thank you for sharing. The pink led is really putting the micro to the test. No mercy.:)

[mercer]

2 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

Oh no, why are you selling it? On the other hand it's so cool that you sold your other set to kye. @mercer Btw, I find the results from my Bmpcc even nicer than what I got out of my Micro with the rawlite oplf-ircut filter.

@bjohn Thank you for sharing. The pink led is really putting the micro to the test. No mercy.:)

I have way too much gear. More than I can use. And I need some extra cash, so the least used gear has to go. I'm selling some lenses too. Great camera, though. Wish I could keep it. Tested it for a few minutes the other day when I was taking photos of it and I slapped on my Cosmicar 12.5mm f/1.4 lens. The footage of my cat looked great. The crappy part is that I won't have a camera to use my c-mounts with. 

[PannySVHS]

I got the Fuji variante of the 12.5 F1.4 because of your recommendation. @mercer Had so much fun with it.

I've been using my og pocket a good deal this summer. Used it with a 25mm Zeiss Cmount lens. Great character lens and fun focal length, fiddely focussing ring due to being so small and gnarly. Did you also sell your Sigma FP? That one should be a good home for your Cmount lenses. 3x crop does the job.

What do you keep? I also need to let some of my stuff go. Not sure about the micro yet. What kind is the monitor hinge in the set which you sold to kye? Maybe i need to get one myself for my Ikan and enjoy the ergonomy a bit more.

[mercer]

16 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

I got the Fuji variante because you recommended it to me. I've been using my og pocket a good deal this summer. Used it with a 25mm Zeiss Cmount lens. Great character lens and fun focal length, fiddely focussing ring due to being so small and gnarly. Did you also sell your Sigma FP? That one should be a good home for your Cmount lenses. 3x crop does the job.

What do you keep? I also need to let some of my stuff go. Not sure about the micro yet. What ist the monitor hinge on the set which kye bought from you? Maybe i need to get one myself for my Ikan and enjoy the ergonomy a bit more.

I have the 10mm Zeiss c-mount. I have the mount adapter but haven't changed it out yet. Always liked the look of them from what I've seen online. Still have the Fuji c-mounts as well.

Still have the FP but I don't think there's a 3x crop with it... just the S35. The FP-L may have that crop, though.

Right now I'm planning on keeping the 5D3 and the FP and a small set of lenses for each. I have an idea for my c-mounts that I may dive into in a few months.

I sold that to @kye about 4 or 5 years ago, so I don't remember what the monitor mount was. I didn't have a cage for that one, I don't think, so it was probably just a two sided 1/4-20... one to screw into the camera and one to screw into the monitor. The one I'm selling now is a full rig with a cage, Metabones Speedbooster (Nikon F), side handle, monitor (Focus 5) and hinge mount. It also has the NPF Bridge adapter so you can use Sony NP batteries with it instead of the Canon. I think they're near impossible to find now? The whole set up is pretty compact.