90s looks but is packed with the latest tech
The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K shook things up as it was declared earlier this year set.
After analyzing it for more than a week for location based shoots along with a studio does the reality live up to the hype?
On paper, yes it will. Delivering a large amount of film-making clout at a package that undercuts the rest, this Micro Four Thirds camera packs a huge 5-inch touch screen, external SSD recording capacities and shoots pin sharp 4K raw footage.
- Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K in Amazon for US$1,745
Following on from the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera that was first, despite being far from perfect, it still was used as part of productions like Avengers: Age of Ultron thanks to this superb bang for buck it delivered.
This time around, there is more bang, less buck and a creation of YouTubers and video enthusiasts looking for a superior, nevertheless 4K option, and this might be just the ticket.
Cost and availability
The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera will put you back about # 1,034 in AU$ 1,815 in Australia, $ 1,295 and the UK, and ought to be available globally today. Stock problems are rearing their heads, however, so if you are not able to pick one accessibility should improve throughout the rest of 2018 and the first month or two of 2019.
Design
The body feels powerful in the hand and weighted, a touch dated, although this bulbous camera looks lively and, truth be told. Its bulbous shape also ensures it is more comfortable to hold and not overly angular, using easy to access buttons, a dialup, some daring air vents and a big, huge screen on the rear vying for your attention.
The grip is ribbed and has a tactility , with a new dual mike set-up to the right of it. There’s also an LED light and a listing button too. That the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K has a standard thread mount in the bottom with an additional mount at which the hot shoe may be on a camera, perfect for an external screen or LED light.
At the base is a somewhat flimsy battery door which is removable so the prospect of third party battery grips is a reality, while on the left you’ve got a dual card slot which feels a little more sturdy. The camera takes SD and CFast cardsnecessary for the maximum quality 4K video.
On the right are all the ports, and also we mean all the vents .
Ports
Easily the best kitted out camera for the cost when it comes to connectivity, the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K has a full sized HDMI port, which is more secure than the flimsy mini or micro HDMIs of older.
There’s also charging that is slow data transfer and a port. A point to notice – that won’t keep the camera alive while shooting supplement the battery power to facilitate the load.
If you would like to picture plugged in, you’ll need to go to get a DC connector that plugs to the port that is 2-pin that is lockable. This can set you back around $65 (#49), and as we will cover when we talk about battery life, is going to be a rewarding investment.
Speaking of optional extras, you might also get a miniature XLR to XLR adaptor for approximately $30 (#25), which plugs into the mini XLR port to give you audio capabilities generally reserved for pro-grade shooters such as the Canon C100.
Both final ports are 3.5millimeter jacks, one being a mic in and one out an audio, so it is easy to monitor levels.
Not quite a interface, but the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K additionally has completely revised on-board mics, and they aren’t horrible – an impressive accolade for any shooter this dimension, giving you outstanding reference audio – although the fan noise could be heard when things warm up.
Screen
If the best thing about the body of the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K would be the vents, the greatest thing has to be the display, or can it be the other way round?
Clocking in at 5-inches and using a resolution of 1920 x 1080, the LCD screen is about as eloquent as a iPhone X’s screen and mercifully, it glowing too, helping out in bright conditions.
Larger than anything you’re going to get from a device from Nikon, Canon, Panasonic or Sony it’s a boon. That it’s so large and optimised for video means that you may check your attention with reliable accuracy while simultaneously framing up without black borders, possibly saving you purchasing a track to hook it up.
We found when we depended on the display exclusively when placing vulnerability, we had a inclination to overexpose slightly, so if you’re anything like usunderexposing by half a halt ought to save your highlights.
Despite this, the screen does not look washed per se and its own signature interface is comprehensive and responsive. Sounds good so far, however there is one drawback – it doesn’t articulate, not even a bit.
This feels like the omission here, as with a flip out screen, the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K could have become the ultimate YouTube camera that was advanced. Even for conventional videographers, when hand-holding the camera, there is a conflict between having the ability to see the screen and securing the steadiest shooting place possible.
In terms of the user interface, it’s responsive and extremely customizable, giving you a huge amount of control over everything from firing up focus peaking to shutter angle, audio input controller, zebra degrees, histograms and more. There is a steep learning curve, especially if you’re coming from a simpler system, but after over a week with the camera, then it started to feel much more like a Swiss Army Knife and less like a Rubik’s Cube.
For more in-depth info, we’d really suggest that you take a look at the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K’s picture heavy user manual that deep dives into particulars.
Buttons
The main topside buttons include a 4K stills and a button catch button to ISO, shutter angle and white balance. As too is the power button, three function buttons are also in easy reach.
On the trunk, towards the right of the display are other crucial purpose switches, including Iris, Focus, High Frame Rate, Zoom, Menu and Playback.
Glass
The Micro Four Thirds mount program usually means that the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K supports an excellent range of glass at launching. If you intend on shooting any handheld video, be sure to opt for stabilisation from the lens, as it’s absent in the body, and results should be magnificent. We utilized the 12-35mm lens for the most part, profiting from the flexibility of some zoom coupled with a rather helpful wide aperture.
Concentrate
We know when you’re shooting on video, a true professional never uses continuous autofocus. However, we’re not videographers that are authentic, we are journalists that are video and on some occasions, needs must.
In turn, if your wants must rely on autofocus, like us, then that won’t be delivered by the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K – Canon remains ahead of the pack here.
Despite no continuous autofocus, there is autofocus on board, and it works with a single tap of the display, exactly like a smartphoneor by hitting the attention button on the rear of the camera. In good lighting, it works great, in bad light or when focusing on dark things, it is more hit and miss.
What’s also fascinating is that the manual electronic concentrate on MFT lenses necessitates a lengthy twist of the focus ring compared to, as an example, the GH5. It may feel inconsistent and possibly hamper you from becoming that pan-focus you want, particularly if you’re winging it without any supporting accessories.
What’s missing?
Without a in-body stabilisation, the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K delivers a similar proposition to the GH5s, providing videographers maximum control over their setup. For tripod or gimbal users, this won’t be a problem, but handheld users rocking mature glass will surely wish to keep this in your mind.
Furthermore, there’s no ND filter from the human anatomy as according to the likes of this considerably pricier Canon EOS R and C100. This is a big deal for video, due to the constraints about manipulating camera speed, therefore old school ND filters or a fast swap adaptor to your favourite lenses will be the thing to do if you shoot outdoors frequently.
Double ISO
The Pocket Cinema Camera 4K isn’t the camera to feature double native ISO, but it also implements the feature to great effect. With native ranges at 400 and 3200, when recording in low light, you are better off ramping up the ISO to 3200 as opposed to 2400, for example.
That is a double edged sword – on the 1 hand, it perfectly matches with the constraints video puts on exposure control by contrast to photography. On the flip side , it means you really need to know your camera to get the maximum from it.
Especially in our first few days with the device, after years of shooting other programs, we discovered it incredibly counterintuitive to actually bump up the ISO to be able to get the better sound handling.
When we remembered though, it worked extremely well, especially when shooting in ProRes or RAW, since the scope in these modes is excellent, giving us tons of room to manoeuvre in post and pull out detail from shadows.
Video quality
In fact, across the board, movie quality has been seriously impressive for the price.
4K movie was superbly sharp, but free of observable over-sharpening. With no noticeable artifacting to talk of, the outcomes were amongst the best we’ve seen on any sub-#2,000/$2,000 camera.
We tried shooting RAW and also the range of detail we could pull out was even better than ProRes, but the file sizes and additions to processing time intended for our requirements, it was not worthwhile despite the tangible benefits.
The primary noticeable gap in our experience was that the RAW movie we captured was better at handling the highlights compared to ProRes, so we ended up exposing down a bit more than we ordinarily would.
Colours are filmic and horizontal. This means anyone looking for an’from this camera, onto YouTube workflow’, this probably is not it, despite the fact that you have a number of recording formats which help out with this. Meanwhile, if you’re looking to flex your post processing muscles and make the footage look just like you need it to, you have maximum versatility.
Battery
Using Canon LP-E6 batteries, it should not be too pricey to pick up a couple of extra for shoots – and boy will you need them. The quoted 50-minutes of battery life from one charge was quite optimistic, with real world results closer to 35-40 mins.
This isn’t surprising, but not only does the Pocket Cinema Camera possess a giant display to power, it has also got a air vents to keep things cool – and even soit gets hot.
With such enormous power drains, if you’re doing any studio based work, we’d advocate stumping up for a 2-pin DC connector. As for on location shoots, packing in excess of ten batteries would not be a bad idea.
In addition, and possibly the most unforgivable thing about the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K – it could die without warning. You can be on a take, with what looks like a quarter of the battery meter simply to have the camera down power and choose the footage you captured with it, thankfully filming. This should be addressable in a software upgrade, and we hope Blackmagic can do something about it.
Storage media
Another consideration, particularly for anybody coming from systems with more aggressive compression such as the photography lineup of Canon is storage. We had been fortunate enough to be using light quickly, very attractive Angelbird storage in the form of a 256GB CFast card, a 64GB SD card plus a 512GB SSD to get USB-C recording, and it worked flawlessly using all the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, making short work of getting the files off the camera and onto a computer.
All that kit costs around $1,035 ($800), a reasonable amount for a pro or an enthusiast, but not for someone on a budget.
Together with 4K CinemaDNG RAW recording 272 MB/s and ProRes 422HQ recording at 117.88MB/s, you are going to want a lot of storage media, even for brief jobs. Obtaining specific, a 256GB card may catch 14 minutes of footage that is 30fps.
DaVinci Resolve
What’s unique about Blackmagic is that the company makes hardware and industry recognised editing software, together with DaVinci Resolve, an industry favorite tool providing an experience that rivals Premiere Pro, and beats on it for several filmmakers.
Shipping with a license for DaVinci Resolve Studio, a $299 (#239) piece of software that gives you 4K editing makes the Pocket Cinema Camera incredibly appealing to amateur enthusiasts and first time film camera buyers.
Meaning that if you’ve got a pc, a lens and storage network, you can grab the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and not have to spend a cent more to get creating gorgeous 4K content – that’s really unique to this product, democratising pro-grade video like never before.
Verdict
There is no getting around it, the BlackMagic Pocket Cinema camera is not perfect – it does not have an display, the battery meter isn’t always trustworthy and battery life is not great. While all things though, it is also quite simple to cut a lot of guilt to it.
The value for money this film camera delivers is unrivalled. Regardless of not articulating, the 16:9 display that is huge puts it head and shoulders over other MFT shooters from a perspective. The selection of connections on-board is, and also the fact there’s a card slot trumps much pricier cameras such as the EOS R.
Together with the UI being film-focused, an excellent choice of glass available from launching, decent on-board sound recording capabilities and of course, the sweetener into the tune of $299 worth of software – a permit for DaVinci Resolve Studio, it actually is a gift that keeps on giving.
Ultimately, and above all, the quality of its 4K video handles sound better than a full frame sensors too, as a result of its double ISOs that are native also, when you know how to work it, requires on cameras.
Without being an apologist for its defects, more pros overshadow them than we would ever have expected from a $1,295 / 1,034 pro-grade movie camera.
