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2K BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera, active m43, $995
  • 4493 Replies sorted by
  • @_gl You know what yeah I FRICKIN am.. I am sick and tired of people bashing this camera and acting like BMD are a bunch of jerks ripping people off!!! JB obviously knows what hes doing...CLEARLY he is a cinematographer with the skills to pay the bills.... SO YEAH If you have an IS lens like the 12-35mm THEN YEAH you can shoot handheld... is the LCD amazing---no. Is the camera going to literally fit in your pocket with an IS lens on ....no... Does this make BMD A bunch of jerks for offering a PRO RES 4:2:2 10bit cam for under 1000 buck with 13 stops of DR and infinte lens options? I shouldnt have to defend it ppl with a brain should see the value in that...if not go back to ugly 4:2:0 and quit trying to acting smart by bashing my comments.

    -Funny the MAIN image I see when I load their page is this... looks like a cinema rig to me.

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  • And those images, showing that you do not need an external monitor for high level work, are the problem. It simply is not true. And we owned a BMPCC so we tested it. And if you have to go full rig then why not use a 2.5k BMCC?

  • Blooming is fixed. Black dot is fixed. There will be plenty of loupes and hoods for this camera in the future, in the meantime I will make my own. The only other real problem that could use a fix is sound, but I'm really glad I didn't cancel my preorder. This camera has some really gorgeous images coming out of it and I won't have any trouble using it for run and gun or guerrilla style shooting. This camera is revolutionary and it looks like BMD is listening and trying to work out the bugs. Now if I could only get that April 8 preorder to come through!

  • To me, there's a lot of overanalyzing it. To me, the GH2 with a small lens on it is like a pocket cam compared to the other cameras I use like RED, Alexa, etc. The idea is not that it is a tiny little camera you can throw in your pocket, it's more about packing a lot of power into a smaller form factor that gives you the option of going bare bones in it's basic form factor or dressing it up with accessories when needed. Will everyone like it bare bones? No. Will others never shoot with a full rig? Perhaps. Again, GH2 is same deal. At this price point, there are compromises. Look at the camera Arri just announced. Documentary style camera. Pick up and shoot. Looks really nice, well thought out. Not going to cost $1000. But it will be a camera that talented people will use to make great images with fewer compromises, making the camera more of an extension of themselves.

    As I said, Black Magic should deliver what they promised in their marketing. I have no problem with saying that. But if they don't, I simply move on. No time or energy to waste on a camera's shortcomings.

  • @philiplipetz - VERY valid point.... I mulled this over allot actually. Money...is main reason- I just cant afford an addition $1500 for the other camera and hard drives (which i hear you have to be very careful about brand/capacity) Otherwise id call B&H and switch it likely.

  • But the media costs on the BMPCC are actually higher per GB of storage, much higher.

  • 8 64GB Sandisk Extreme Pro SDHC cards, giving 512GB of recommended storage for a BMPCC, costs $1040. A Sandisk Extreme 480GB SSD for the BMCC costs $450. Most people have two 480GB SSDs. And you do not have change cards all the time. And at this storage level the difference in total cost of ownership between the BMPCC and the BMCC vanishes.

  • @philiplipetz true if you have to buy the cards... I already have the cards though from my Gh2 set up. So my cost there is nil. So yeah i get what youre saying its just a matter of what my current investment already is...plus I have 3 really great active mount lenses so id have to go through the sell them all headache.

    However, believe me if I had 1500 bucks Id get the 2.5k The Davinci alone makes it a steal.

  • Kinotehnik's brand new LCDVF BM - SOON

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  • Kudos to BM for being quick about addressing these issues.

  • Not my footage, but it is good to see that some shots are using the "video" mode rather than the "film" mode, and are giving a nice output too.

  • Pocket Cam's Video Gamma for ProRes AND Video viewing mode, in my opinion, is better than the 2.5K camera.

    I hope they can port the looks over to the 2.5K camera, and if possible at all, match the color of the 2.5K to the Pocket Camera, not the other way around.

    I don't think it's possible, but I'm going to ask.

  • @philiplipetz Eight 64GB cards give you storage for five hours of ProResHQ footage - not sure if everyone needs that. (Don't forget that the footage recorded by the Pocket has lower bit rates than those of the bigger BMC cameras.) Besides, you can now buy Sony 64GB 95MB/s cards for 60 Euro a piece, and they flawlessly work in the camera. That's less than half of the costs that you calculated.

  • On the topic of SD cards transcend just released a 128GB SDXC card that can do 90MB/s Read and Write. Seems like a good match for the BMPCC and is nearly the same price as the Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB but with double that storage. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1003464-REG/transcend_ts128gsdxc10u1_128gb_sdxc_uhs_1_card_600x.html

  • For RAW you'll need the reliability and card size, so I get where that cost comes in. Less than four 64gb cards wouldn't cut it for me, that's going to total more than 400.00, I've got [around] four times that amount of space shooting uncompressed CinemaDNG with the 2.5K, in the form of four 240GB Sandisk SSDs.

    If you only plan to shoot ProRes, however, the cost isn't that big of a deal. You can survive on three 32gb Sandisk cards and a laptop just fine.

    Will likely try to break this down in comparison to the 2.5K camera in more detail now that I have a Pocket Camera, so far though I don't see why people are arguing about the "pocket" designation: you either want to use IS glass, get a 3M glare protector, a bunch of batteries and use it without a rig or you're like me and never saw it as a literal pocket camera from the get-go.

    For my preference, it belongs in a Viewfactor cage, external battery power mounted to said cage, a handle, and likely a TVLogic. At that point, it's still only as large as the actual 2.5K body, and yes, with a monitor and the right battery.

    For me, that's fine, it's something that I wouldn't mind literally carrying around with me to just play with or using on location.

    The smallest the 2.5K camera can go for someone like myself would be a TVLogic and a handle, and maybe a similar battery, and that's definitely larger than a Pocket Camera near-to-fully setup.

    Just my opinion, though.

  • High levels of Trolling is happenin' around here. It's so funny that the haters are sleeping at the keyboard to be on the top of this thread. Yo haters, name a camera that even you can use it's LCD in the exteriors under the bright day lights - Hmmm perhaps Scarlet !? Nah , how about 5D mark IV, forget that shit ! You need larger media because the camera produces kickass high bitrate data - SONY 120GB are around $100 and soon 1TB cards will be here . Battery runs out, I'd through in half a dozen of them in the bag for the longer days of shoot at $20 a piece. One could name cameras with price range of $10,000 ~ $80,000 with the same problems ( now that the orbs are taken care of ).

    Thank you BlackMagic for making this awesome camera available and giving it away at less than $1K. Haters could go and ... play with whatever camera they like.

    " ... we hate that which we often fear. " ( Will. Shakespeare )

  • As a pretty avid and obvious supported of BMD, their products, and especially these cameras, half-a-dozen batteries at twenty dollars a piece (more like 25.00 for the Nikon batteries, which are probably the safest bet right now) sounds easy...

    Until you consider the three chargers that you need to charge them, the eye that you have to keep on those three charges to make sure that you switch so that you have power later on, organizing six batteries and three chargers (making sure you label or place discharged/used batteries separate from charged batteries), replacing the lithium batteries soon because they can't hold a charge due to rapid, repeated discharge and charge cycles.

    Although you wouldn't have to replace the chargers, one charger for every two batteries adds an additional per charger 30.00 to the bill.

    Realistically, for an entire day of shooting only on those batteries, you want eight (8), as they discharge in about an hour or sooner. I've noticed that the hotter the camera gets, the quicker the batteries discharge as well. Slightly faster, but still noticeable. Perhaps once you're using IS, HDMI out, Audio input, or anything external that reduces battery life as well.

    You can actually save some battery time by reducing the brightness of the LCD screen, but I am curious what the HDMI out offset would do for that.

    Anyway, my point is, it's easier said than done, not just for this camera but for any camera that's worth shooting. There are some legitimate concerns, but they are also problems that can be solved through research, not complaining.

    Again, just me thoughts on it all.

    As an aside, I have no idea why I would choose any other DSLR over the Pocket Camera at this point in time, outside of sensor size. You can get close enough to 1080/60P by shooting 30, conforming to 24, then using Resolve 10's Optical Flow retiming, so that's off of the list.

    Maybe other functionality? Just thinking.

  • @Kholi

    I can see not needing or caring about 60p, but I also have a hard time imagining any interpolation of 30-60p getting anywhere close to the real deal. I haven't used Optical Flow retiming so perhaps it's extraordinary... but Twixtor falls apart badly unless there's scenes that cater to it. High speed shots with limbs flailing (ie: sports, animals) fail quite badly even with modest interpolations.

  • No, you're right. It's more like 48P and I've only tested with moderate motion, nothing crazy.

    I should have taken more time to express that opinion better. Also, have been shooting with the Miro lately so everything under 200fps looks about the same these days. XD

    Sorry about that.

  • All the so called " issues " mentioned by naysayers about BMPCC will be wiped off the discussion forums as soon as the " BM-POCKET-CC " is put in the context. The context that this " great little giant " was designed to function for. I know of many FULL-DAY shoots extend to even 16 hours but the actual camera(s) roll is never exceeds to those kinds of numbers. In fact in many normal 12 hours shoot, cameras would not be " ON " more than four- five hours and camera roll usually remain half that amount. That's for film and big budget digital.

    So, if you need to have your camera ON and rolling for eight hours of shooting day - BMPocketCC will complain to you in many ways.

  • @kholi I don't know what your shooting scenarios are, but it really sounds like you want a traditional video camera (more a pocket ENG than a pocket cinema) for whole days out shooting. And in such scenarios, the resulting file sizes (8 hours of ProRes footage = 0.5 TB data) are just a hassle, and you're better off with a camera that produces nice out-of-the-box 8bit HD video, with no need to denoise, grade and sharpen in post. If you have the money, then a C100/C300 would be the right tool, if you're on a budget, then the GH2/3. Seriously, I'd use my own GH2 for such purposes rather than the Pocket.

    Otherwise, you can just feed the camera with the provided power adaptor if you shoot indoors and under controlled situations, or you use higher capacity external batteries - the camera accepts almost anything up to 18 volts.

  • Dude nobody has 8 hours of footage a day. Except reality and trust me, Kholi knows what he's doing and what he needs. :)

  • Has someone announced some kind of battery grip for the BMCPC? this would be very useful. Maybe a battery grip with some XLR audio inputs on it, like the A-Box from Wooden Camera but with a battery holder, i know maybe it sound crazy; but how knows it maybe possible. Zacuto already announced its luxury viewfinder.

  • I've been on absolute mammoth shoots where we shot 17-24 pages a day, and not shot more than 4 hours of footage. Unless you are shooting docs or reality TV you're not gonna shoot more than 4 hours a day.

    @matthere if I wasn't already sold on the cam, that footage would have done it... beautiful stuff, I think it may replace my GH2 as a b-cam