Comparing 3 BM Cameras: Cinema, 4K Production, Pocket Camera

Hi Everyone

I've been out shooting and comparing the 3 Blackmagic Cameras: BM Cinema Camera 2.5K, Blackmagic Production Camera 4K, and Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera.

The burning question for me has been: how well do these cameras cut together? Do they match, or do they have wildly different looks? In the video piece below this question is answered by visually comparing the 3 cameras to see the results.

http://www.moviemachine.tv

http://www.moviemachine.tv/video/compar ... 104343347/

Enjoy the movie!

Cheers - catch you all soon,

Rick

____
Rick Young - Producer/Director
Editor - Movie Machine
http://www.moviemachine.tv

Thanks Rick for the review. I thought the 4k and 2.5k cameras could cut well together. For some reason the Pocket Camera looked a bit heavier on the contrast versus the other 2. I own both the 2.5k and the 4k. I had been interested in getting the pocket camera for it's conceal-ability. Not sure if I like that look. Great job again.

I was a bit surprised, I always assumed that the Pocket and 2.5k would cut well together, but the Pocket seems to have considerably less dynamic range than the other two and appears very contrasty.

The 2.5k vs. the 4K seems warmer, but that can probably be addressed with some tweak on the color temperature settings.

I also spotted some artifacting on the 4K images, particularly in the shadows, but it's hard to tell with online video compression.

I still feel like the best bang for the buck might be the 2.5K camera. The image is clean with a good amount of dynamic range and better low light capability with a slightly better battery life. If Blackmagic would manage compressed CDNG on the 2.5K camera, I think it'd be the winner for most shooting on a budget situations.

Lens choice and exposure control (ND) could also have affected the results.

Rick can you share what lenses were on each camera and how exposure was controlled?

I found it strange that on some shots - especially with skin tones the BMCC seemed to have less DR than the BMPC4k?

I found it strange that on some shots - especially with skin tones the BMCC seemed to have less DR than the BMPC4k?

Yh I found that interesting too. I think I preferred the BMPC4k on most of the shots.

In my opinion, I find the bmpc4k's image a lot more versatile than the BMCC. Sometimes I don't want a grainy/filmic image, sometimes I want sharp/contrasty image for work like editorials/music videos etc


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Very interesting, thank you for the comparison.

As aspect ratio i would point out that BMPC in RAW is 4000x2160 so near to DCI 4K 1:85 ( 3996 x 2160).

I have only the BMPC and i plan to intercut with URSA in near future as they have the same sensor even if probably the URSA will have less noise because is liquid cooled.

Andrea

I found it strange that on some shots - especially with skin tones the BMCC seemed to have less DR than the BMPC4k?

+1, strange and from tech specs seemingly impossible

wow on my monitor the extra dynamic range on the 2.5k was obvious, and I thought the other two looked crunchy. I was surprised at how bad the 4k cam looked. I was watching on my MacBook Pro Screen, but is has been recently calibrated with the Xrite system.

One thing is I do keep the brightness down a bit on the screen, not all the way cranked up, and I feel like I can see things better that way, and it's in accordance with the XRite profiler and ambient lighting conditions.

SOmetimes things look really good with the brightness all the way up and fall apart at lower brightness.

As an audio guy I learned many years ago to mix at lower listening levels. Things always sound good when they are louder, but sometimes things break apart and dont work at lower volumes that sound goo when they are loud.

Maybe that has something to do with it?

Kyle, I was watching this video on calibrated monitors in a room with standardized ambient lights.

Kyle, I was watching this video on calibrated monitors in a room with standardized ambient lights.

Robert, I keep my monitors at 50% brightness generally including this decent iPad screen. How do you set brightness for the calibrated monitors you use?

Rick Lang
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In most of the shots I preferred the Cinema 2.5K.

Here's a crossmix between BMCC and BMPCC in a live setting with a _VERY_ wide dynamic range. I shot it this wednesday with three cameras in one take and cut/color graded it today using Premiere and SpeedGrade.

The audio was a mix between a mono send of the front of house mix, a pair of Microtech Gefell M296 mics and the X/Y mics of the H6, which was the main recorder.

http://www.livingsound.se/densistakonserten.mp4

6,8 GB but it's an entire concert of Swedish folk music with some political messages against racism, that lasts an hour.

I have all three cameras and I feel like there was something a bit off on this test. I get far better results on my 4k personally.


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Hi

Sorry for slow reply. A lot of travelling!

Main lenses which were used:

Nikon 17 - 35mm F2.8
Nikon 28 - 70mm F2.8
Nikon 80 - 200mm F2.8

These are all D lenses and have manual aperture rings.

I also used an ND8 filter for shooting in bright situations.

Same lenses with same filter was used on each of the cameras. Meaning I would shoot on one camera, then change the same lens to the next camera, grab the shot, and then put the same lens on the third camera for the final shot.

For the shots of the sunset at the end of the piece I used Canon 100 - 400mm.

Sometimes differences in lighting as a result of changing conditions and the time it would take to change lenses..

Cheers - catch you soon,

Rick

Lens choice and exposure control (ND) could also have affected the results.

Rick can you share what lenses were on each camera and how exposure was controlled?