Blackmagic Update - 14th September 2023 19:00 CET

[bjohn]

On 9/17/2023 at 7:51 AM, TomTheDP said:

Perfect camera for vintage glass. You get the full 35mm field of view plus L mount. I am guessing it has the same dynamic range and capabilities as the S1H, which is fantastic, nearing RED Raptor quality. Only downside is the sucky rolling shutter.

Actually this is going to be a great Super 16 camera as well. It has a Super 16 crop with rolling shutter that's half that of the original Pocket and not much behind the Ursa 12K in Super 16 crop. I'm planning to get one and use my Angénieux Super 16 zoom on it and was thinking of picking up a couple of other Super 16 lenses.

For full-frame or Super35 crop I can use pretty much every lens I own except the MFT-mount ones. Vintage Canon and Leica rangefinder lenses, Nikon-mount lenses, Minolta SR-mount lenses, they can all be easily adapted to L-mount.

Also worth noting that, though not advertised anywhere or mentioned in the tech specs, this camera records gyro data so you can do stabilization in post. And that is also a great way of eliminating/reducing any rolling shutter artifacts.

[BTM_Pix]

2 hours ago, Anaconda_ said:

 

I think it's more about licensing ProRes. If the camera uses Braw, it doesn't cost them anything. And I'm pretty sure h264/5 are free to use. 

 

Atomos charge $99 to activate h265 in the Ninja which is a bit of a gouge as if there is a notional licensing fee it certainly won’t be a big as that!

Don’t know what the deal is with BM not offering ProRes in anything over 4K in any of their cameras so at least by not including it all they’ve saved themselves being asked about that anomaly again!

[kye]

10 hours ago, Django said:

I understand why no ProRes RAW but no ProRes doesn't make sense to me. They include ProRes in all their other cameras. 

Sounds to me like good old cripple hammer not to cannibalise Pocket 6K Pro sales. 

Its a pretty big miss for this new camera as you don't always wanna shoot in RAW. For both storage space and workflow reasons. They added h264 proxies for the first time but HD only I think. 

The phrase cripple hammer does seem appropriate!

6 hours ago, Django said:

Oh I hear you and if the camera allowed Braw & 10-bit h265 4K/6K that would be great for fast turnaround projects and efficient storage .. but its Braw & 8-bit h264 1080p. So no middle codec. Reminds me of my C200 that had Canon RAW & 8-bit 4K. Not very flexible and this isn't even 4K proxy. Little weird in 2023.

Yeah, it's designed for cloud proxy files and little else.  You wouldn't want to deliver anything from those files - even to social media.

4 hours ago, bjohn said:

Also worth noting that, though not advertised anywhere or mentioned in the tech specs, this camera records gyro data so you can do stabilization in post. And that is also a great way of eliminating/reducing any rolling shutter artifacts.

What would you use for eliminating RS?

4 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Atomos charge $99 to activate h265 in the Ninja which is a bit of a gouge as if there is a notional licensing fee it certainly won’t be a big as that!

Don’t know what the deal is with BM not offering ProRes in anything over 4K in any of their cameras so at least by not including it all they’ve saved themselves being asked about that anomaly again!

I never realised that they capped Prores at 4K.

It sort of makes sense to me from the perspective that you might shoot 4K prores for a 4K project (it's downsampled from the entire sensor right?) but if you wanted anything about that it's probably to get maximum quality for a feature or for VFX, in which case you might switch to RAW anyway.

Another question, if it's RAW-only, does that mean that each lower resolution has a greater crop?  So, if you want to shoot in DCI4K for example, you couldn't have that as the same crop factor as the 6K modes?  Because that would really suck!

[bjohn]

33 minutes ago, kye said:

What would you use for eliminating RS?

This might be the first time I've ever quoted a post on Reddit, but this one is actually useful:

 

 

[kye]

40 minutes ago, bjohn said:

This might be the first time I've ever quoted a post on Reddit, but this one is actually useful:

 

 

Ah, interesting.

With the right combination on metadata and gyro data it should be able to be corrected almost perfectly in post. It's encouraging to hear that this is done in Resolve.  

Resolve is often quite aloof in how it deals with things at the lower-end.  It obviously supports all the high-end cameras and is used by very serious people for high profile work, but often it doesn't support things at the lower-end.  I would have thought that gyro stabilisation might be too low to be fully implemented like this.

40 minutes ago, bjohn said:

Poozon wrote:

"Regarding IBIS: I am grateful that Blackmagic does not add this feature. I have not heard of anybody using IBIS for video. I would not buy a video camera with IBIS.

LOL..   speaking about being aloof and out of touch...

Sadly, the folks that operate with bigger budgets and with higher-end equipment are still human, and often arrogant and looking to get an ego boost by insulting others.  I see this on a semi-regular basis unfortunately.

[MrSMW]

Poozon wrote:

Regarding IBIS: I am grateful that Blackmagic does not add this feature. I have not heard of anybody using IBIS for video. I would not buy a video camera with IBIS.
 

Poozon needs to get out more…but it’s his choice to not buy a camera with IBIS.

[kye]

7 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

Poozon wrote:

Regarding IBIS: I am grateful that Blackmagic does not add this feature. I have not heard of anybody using IBIS for video. I would not buy a video camera with IBIS.
 

Poozon needs to get out more…but it’s his choice to not buy a camera with IBIS.

I think the single biggest cause of all the angst online, regarding basically any product at all, is that people cannot imagine how different other people are from themselves.  The second biggest issue is that most people then equate being different with being worse, like if someone else doesn't do the same thing in the same way as them then that makes them less somehow.

I've asked colourists for advice on grading a particular shot that had a wedding in it and got replies as dismissive as "if this is just a wedding video I'd just WB it and move on".  I've seen DoPs dismiss people because they shot their feature on a "video camera" when it was a Canon C-series or a Sony FS series camera.  I've seen audio people say that using in-camera audio recording was worse than simply having no sound.

Pettiness knows no bounds!

[MrSMW]

Yes it’s quite ‘hilarious’ how so many view both wedding photography and videography as not being any kind of high brow art form.

Yes, there’s a bunch of shit out there and the entry level is near zero, but we have to wear more hats on a job than any other genre of photo/video that exists.

In real time with no second chance.

And there are some folks doing some extraordinary stuff.

Same as it’s ever been.

[BTM_Pix]

3 hours ago, kye said:

I've asked colourists for advice on grading a particular shot that had a wedding in it and got replies as dismissive as "if this is just a wedding video I'd just WB it and move on".

To be fair, the Godfather was a right fucking mess before he stamped his White Balance skill on it.

 

[Emanuel]

LOL man, you're a funny guy... : ) This forum is another one when you're absent from here, never forget it when you're away, OK? ; ) The proof is only to see how many posts pop up these days now instead.

[Chrille]

On 9/14/2023 at 3:10 PM, Chrille said:

wishlhlist: pocketcamera with a good formfactor and no rolling shutter - don't care wether m43 or apsc...

At least in the case of form factor my wish came true... Missing that SD card slot though...

 

[Django]

6K Open Gate handheld :

FF BRAW looking great in this footage!

[kye]

12 hours ago, Django said:

6K Open Gate handheld :

FF BRAW looking great in this footage!

I've seen quite a few videos from the BMCC6K now, and they all seem to shoot and edit in 3:2, which I find quite strange....   CAN doesn't mean SHOULD!

This one is an 8K YT upload:

 

[Emanuel]

What a camera! WOW Looks like paintings! To me, these Blackmagic guys have delivered Jannard's promise, their offer is INCREDIBLE, so just my kudos to them! :- )

[MrSMW]

I follow Florian (Of Two Lands) and his stuff is always good but this latest one looks, to use the modern parlance, 🔥

[MrSMW]

I am not going to, so purely hypothetically, never had a BM camera but always fancied one just like I have a Sigma FP or FP-L.

What has always put me off has been the lack of IBIS which is near essential for my needs, but I have seriously considered both with the Lumix 24-105mm f4 which has OIS.

I think if I was not a hybrid shooter, I’d at least have given the Sigma a go as I love the concept and results coming out of that little thing, but the latest BM I think ticks even more boxes.

Especially the results coming from it and as someone who doesn’t and won’t rig out their cameras, love the rear screen.

I like things that are a little left field and these things are, both BM and Sigma and if I was a pure video guy, I’d be all over one or the other as quirks aside, they allow for some amazing value for money output.

But as a relatively sensible hybrid guy, I can’t go down either rabbit hole other than hypothetically 🤓

[seanzzxx]

MrSMW, one of my colleagues uses the Pocket 6K Pro stripped down handheld all the time because he really likes the form factor. Works fine for him without IBIS. Me personally I have to add at least a vmount to get it stable but then you really do not need IBIS for it.

[kye]

I find that there is deceptively little screen time from the BM cameras that is not either mounted to something (tripod, shoulder-rig, gimbal, etc) or slow-motion footage.  

The hand-held normal-speed footage I do see always feels drunk/drugged to the extent that I wouldn't use it in my work, and it's borderline in the work I see it in - you can feel that they cut away quickly from those shots in the edit, there is no lingering.  Even the slow-motion shots are sometimes strained.

Personally, I find the overtones of vertigo that this movement adds to the edits to easily overpower the wonderful image these cameras have.  As such, I view the non-paid works of Florian and Matteo as mostly artistic camera tests.  Matteo posts paid work on his channel, normally ads for wineries, and these are much more professional, and feature very little off-putting un-stabilised footage.

All this, despite using stabilised lenses and these things weighing a significant amount even without a "proper" rig.  I have no idea why this is the case, the Komodo material I have seen didn't strike me like this, although maybe I haven't watched enough of that to notice.

[Django]

Don't forget the Pocket/BMCC6K cameras all have gyro data that result in solid stabilisation capabilities when used in tandem with Davinci. I've been pretty impressed with that "surprise" feature launched about a year ago. And now with FF 6K open gate, the crop applied shouldn't even be that noticeable. 

On 10/14/2023 at 4:24 AM, kye said:

I've seen quite a few videos from the BMCC6K now, and they all seem to shoot and edit in 3:2, which I find quite strange....   CAN doesn't mean SHOULD!

 

All the footage so far is test footage from early access users so it makes sense it is all shot & delivered in full sensor highest resolution 3:2 open gate. Its kind of the stand out feature of this new camera too so not surprised one bit they are putting that forward. I know I'd pretty much be shooting 3:2 open gate exclusively with such a camera for all the reframing capabilities it allows.

[Happy Daze]

BMCC6K arrived a couple of days ago. My first day test.