Shooting HD with the Blackmagic Pocket 4k

I am an independent filmmaker and producer ; I shot my first documentary feature, released in 2017, with the BMPCC, and I'm now about to shoot my second feature. I'm eagerly waiting for the Pocket 4k to be shipped, but I'm actually planning to use it NOT to shoot 4K, but HD instead.
Here's the reasoning : 4k is not mandatory yet for a theater release, nor for a TV sale, and the upgrade to 4K means a huge step up in media capacity AND transfer speed, as well as disk space, computing power, etc. It's the same issue as the 16mm vs 35mm dilemma, and we know a lot of very good movies have been shot on 16mm, especially when it comes to documentary filmmaking.
And here's the advantages : first, I get access to Blackmagic raw, which is a huge step up in image quality, I have a mini-XLR input with phantom power, a MUCH more reliable power input (the BMPCC flimsy minijack was SO fragile), native double ISO, etc. Then, I can use exactly the same workflow I'm already comfortable with, same media (ol' good SD cards), same lenses (since it seems the 0.58 Speedbooster is supposed to work on the Pocket 4K when shooting 2K, right?), and I get to keep the old BMPCC as a backup. As for the lenses, this is not exactly true, since the crop factor of the Pocket 4K seems to be 4x, so my lenses get less wide, but one solution to this problem might be the Olympus 7-14 2.8 zoom, which becomes a 28-56 - and a very sharp lens since the softness issue in the corners disappears thanks to the window mode.
So, it seems to me that using the Pocket 4K to shoot HD gives me the best of the two worlds, and the new camera solves all the problems that came with the first BMPCC.
Does this make sense to anyone? Any remarks or suggestions?

Will be interesting to observe the workflow when BRAW hits the camera but seems you’ve answered your own question. I think it’s a wise and pragmatic approach. All the best on your new project.

I'd suggest shooting 4k braw and downconverting to HD in the edit. You'd have a better HD picture that way.

With regard to crop factor, that’s only true if you shoot in HD windowed mode. The camera can also record in HD using the whole sensor at up to 60fps in non-windowed mode, doing the down-conversion in-camera. So you should be able to get a wider FOV than the old BMPCC using the same lenses.

Just note that you can't shoot RAW *and* use the entire sensor *and* record at 1080P.

You would either need to crop, or shoot ProRes.

Once BRAW is released, I would seriously consider shooting at 4K and editing at 1080P. The quality is incredible and the requirements don't increase that much.

Enrico, the Metabones SpeedBooster for BMPCC 0.58x will not work on the BMPCC4K if you want coverage of the full mFT sensor. It was designed to throw an image circle on a much smaller sensor area. Of course it likely will cover HD, but I don’t think anyone has shown us examples yet.


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