Personal View site logo
2K BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera, active m43, $995
  • 4493 Replies sorted by
  • One point that people don't talk about is that with this camera you can shoot in a much more practical way in low light because you can use the lens wide open. It is very very hard to nail focus as from 2.8 with a full frame camera, more so at night unless you are using a wide lens. While with this camera you will be able shoot at much wider aperture.

  • Another aspect is this: you can find faster lenses in S-16 than in APS-C/S-35 in the wider angles.

  • http://instagram.com/p/ZoTz37t76N/

    Looks like the peripherals are starting to roll out

  • @mrbill

    That's Wooden Camera's DSLR cage. It's been out for a while now.

  • That's a chunky cage ! the pocket cam's form factor can be retained with a couple of grips and camera skimming cage easily.

  • Looks pretty small to me. I'm sure it could be smaller that's not too bad at all. I'd imagine a few more pounds added to that thing will help handheld work out a lot.

  • Ever seen the Owle for the iPhone? Something similar to that but with more bells and whistles is the type of cage the BMPCC needs.

  • I can't wait to see the Tilta rig when it come out ;-)

  • I’ve got my money down on a ‘pocket’ and finally went out this morning and got a Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-1 SD card – so it’s finally time to hack my GH2.

    The question I have is which GH2 hack is most likely going to give me the best match to an “out of pocket” experience?

    Also would anyone one care to offer an opinion as to whether or not an Arri Zeiss Vario Sonnar 10-100 F2.8 T* (with damper) is going to achieve full coverage to the “corner pockets”.

  • If Arri has not approved that one for S-16, it's not going to cover below 25mm, just like the Angenieux 12-120. It's quite difficult – if not impossible – to find a decent zoom lens covering the BMPCC under 25mm. If you need a zoom, go for the 12-35mm Panny, it's far cheaper than a good S-16 zoom. Or get a vintage zoom like the 18-90 Schneider plus some primes like Zeiss Tevidon, they cover.

    For the nicest comparable hack try MoonT5.

  • Does anybody know if this camera corrects the lens distortions? All Panasonic's wide-angle lenses (primes and zooms) have quite heavy barrel distortions (especially the 12-35) towards the wide end. With nearly 6% barrel, the image would look bit similar like fish-eye.

    Therefore, metabones adapter might be more useful option for wide angle shots with the BMPC.

  • @tetakpatak

    It does not correct the Panasonic lens distortion. Look at JB's latest BMPCC video. He shot most of that with Panasonic lenses and it looked great!

  • Depends very much on the scene if the distortion is disturbing or not.

    Even without correction, these lenses are far from fisheye, but very wide angles can look strange when there are people close to the edges, for example. More obvious in motion than in stills, BTW.

  • Doesn't it defeat the purpose of a pocket cam to need/use a cage?

  • Yes no cage needed to shoot kittens and kids around the house.

  • @Jay_T Is it a pocket cam or a super 16 production system?

  • What's wrong with people. Even the GoPro has cages people make for them to add protection and more handling options. The BPC is so small that even if you added a small custom fit cage it would still be super small.

    The darn thing is only 5" across, 1.5" thick and 2.5" high. A form fitted handle with some extra 1/4-20 holes and maybe a collapsible set of Short 15mm rods like the Edelkrone Pocket Rig won't make it too much larger, but much more flexible.

    Of course then you can build it up to bigger rig easily as well. Total convenience. You can go ultra lite with no additions and a pancake or add a few bits to make it a bit more flexible. It's not an either or proposition. It's all of the above.

  • ....YEAH....(my2c) :)

  • this camera will be used for everything, no need to ever "limit" a tool.

    a man building a birdhouse may only need 3 tools, a man building a skyscraper is going to need those same 3 tools and 100 more.

  • Probably the bmpc is also so light it's better to add extra weight ;-)

  • I might be having a brain fart, which is highly likely, but as I was brushing my teeth this morning, for some reason I had a thought. Now we all were talking about using the Tokina 11-16 and one of the speed boosters on this camera and agreed that it would be a perfect fit, in terms of performance, not size right. Well I might be wrong but I haven't seen any boosters that have the control needed to change the iris on the Tokina. I see it for native mft glass, but not this. If this is true, well...that isn't good. Has anyone even brought this up?

  • No, you are correct. No way to change iris while mounted to current speed boosters. Will need electronic version expected sometime in future.

  • In a pinch you can change the aperture on a Canon DSLR and then pop it off. Not ideal but if you're using a speedbooster, maybe you'd want to keep the Tokina on f2.8 most of the time anyway.