Used BMPCC 4K, now what?

I just bought a used BMPCC 4K on eBay with a couple batteries and cables, but nothing else. I have been scouring the forums to find what lenses and other items I will need, but I'm finding more geared around the 6K and E/EF lenses or people doing different things than I am.

Do I get one good MFT lens, or a couple of inexpensive ones, maybe used to play around with to start or do I get a metabones speed adapter to work with my existing NIKON lenses?

My background is mostly GoPro and old handicams and camcorders and an entry level Nikon D5600(I think) and the original Nikon N1 mirrorless. I bought this because I'm going to start weekend hobby to do what I call "adventure filming". I do a lot of water activities both from a boat and starting on the shore, snorkel, scuba, paddleboard, etc., also hiking, camping and a little off-roading. My goal is to film other families doing activities for the day and provide them with a finished video clip, whether it be historical site seeing, horseback or in/on the water and I wanted something a little better quality than a GoPro or a cellphone for some of the non-water shots, I'm not trying to do full on action filming here, but more of a vacation videographer to free up the family so Mom and Dad get back in the shot. Might use it for other stuff down the road, but that is my goal for now. I've already been using Davinci Resolve and for the price of the mirrorless and DSLR camera's out there I didn't really like the options and the price seemed right, a lot cheaper than the body only cameras I was looking at.

So my thought is start with a 50mm 1.8 to get me started and figure out manual focus, from what I'm reading AF is kind of a waste of time or used to get you in the ball park or tripod shot with minimal movement.

Being that I'm in the sun a lot I probably need to get a monitor and or shade, I've got an old black pearl monitor from FPV stuff with a nice shade that does well and has HDMI input, but it's black and white, might play with that just for the focusing part. Probably need a Gimbal/Stabilizer for my kind of work down the road.

A few of my Nikon lenses are DX. I've got a 50mm, 28mm 70-300 VR(don't remember if it's DX or not) and a sigma 10-20mm an 18-200 VR DX and a couple other kit lenses 18-55 55-200. Being that these are photo lenses should I just got with starting an MFT collection instead of shelling out for an expensive adapter? It seems a lot of people are for getting adapters and a other lenses, not necessarily Nikon, but if I'm going to start from scratch why not just MFTs?


Is there anything else I am not considering for what I am trying to do? I'm not going to say I don't have a budget, more of a "if it makes sense i'll pay good money for it" I don't want to be throwing out 1800 bucks for my first lens when 100 bucks will do.

That’s pretty ambitious and challenging. You’ll likely need a 10mm lens or something very close to that. The Tokina Cinema ATX 11-20mm T2.9 may be a good place to start, but you might want a smaller lens. There are a few threads here similar to your needs. Lots of recent suggestions.

Life might be simpler with a prime lens but your use case would benefit from a zoom. Once again the Olympus 12-100mm may work well for you.

Sigma 18-35 F1.8 Art + Viltrox EF-M1 (was very cheap and its reasonable quality) works well for me. But then again I do share lenses with my other cams.

If you already have a bunch of lenses, maybe a Viltrox NF-M1 adapter or even the passive one would be a good cheap start.

If you are doing manual exposure and focus, you can adapt nearly any old lens that has ever projected a decent image. There are purely mechanical adapters from China for nearly every mount to MFT. Their quality is so-so, but they are cheap enough to try another one if you caught a lemon.

You can even adapt classic S-16 lenses, if the image circle is not too small. Normally beyond 25mm it's OK.

But have a look at other vintage lenses too. The main problem will be missing wide-angle.

Thank you all. Looking at the pricing of stuff and not knowing exactly yet I am ordering the adapter first and get a feel for the existing lenses I have and make judgement on focal lengths before I invest in a 2K lens, I know the value of good glass, but I want to make sure I am getting the right one for what I want to be doing. I found a local-ish camera shop that does rentals as well, might rent one for the weekend to get a feel for what I like.

That's the right thing to do before investing!
Any dollar spent for rent can save you a hundred times more if you were going in the wrong direction.

I got a cheap adapter to use my Nikon glass on my BMPCC4K but it wouldn't focus past 50 feet. So you're looking at several hundred for a good one.

The Panny 12-35 2.8 is a useful MFT lens that can be focused from the BMPCC4K screen by touch. Another option and many used ones available.

I've ended up with several SLR Magic Microprime lenses and a Moza Air2 but that's overkill for your needs. Works wonderful.

Well, and a shoulder mount setup with full shade and ND filters and external monitor that also is the tripod mounting ...

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That’s a crap sample of an adapter. Any cheap adapter made for SLR lenses should focus to infinity, I have used all kinds of vintage lenses on MFT.

I said screw it and bought a set of used Rokinon primes, 24, 35, and 85mm t1.5, for $480 and a 256 Cfast card, they are crazy expensive, even used! So now I'm gonna sit back wait for it to get here and see if I can find some 10/12 bit test footage out there to practice grading in the mean time. So far I'm at roughly 1600 and that's cheaper than the mirrorless I was looking at with one lens, that's a good amount to throw at something and if it don't work pretty sure I'd get most of my money back if I sold it. Was looking at waterproof housings, it will never cease to amaze me that a good housing is 4X the price of the camera.

Thank you all for the advice.

Was looking at waterproof housings, it will never cease to amaze me that a good housing is 4X the price of the camera.

Thank you all for the advice.

Wait till you find out the price for a really nice tripod .

For most people new to high quality images, still or video, they focus on the camera. Clearly assuming that is the biggest both Q and cost determinant.

But ... tis not so!

Good glass, that works the way you need it to *and* gives the feel you want plus matches your other glass ... ain't cheap. And you need several of them.

Glass quality and "feel", is perhaps more important than the body in use, for a lot of shooting circumstances.

Then there's "legs" ... tripods, gimbal, shoulder mounts ... matte boxes, ND filters, external monitor, and external batteries and recording devices/media ... microphones ... cords ... cases ...

The camera body was nearly the cheapest thing on the list.

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For most people new to high quality images, still or video, they focus on the camera. Clearly assuming that is the biggest both Q and cost determinant.

But ... tis not so!

Good glass, that works the way you need it to *and* gives the feel you want plus matches your other glass ... ain't cheap. And you need several of them.

Glass quality and "feel", is perhaps more important than the body in use, for a lot of shooting circumstances.

Then there's "legs" ... tripods, gimbal, shoulder mounts ... matte boxes, ND filters, external monitor, and external batteries and recording devices/media ... microphones ... cords ... cases ...

The camera body was nearly the cheapest thing on the list.

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I could not agree more, this is why I am starting with a used entry model, I learned from photography it's all about glass, lenses will last decades if taken care of, cameras will last years, but the tech behind them won't. I've got some decent accessories from photography to get me started, but moving on to video where all I did was cheap camcorders and GoPros I'm pretty sure I'm opening up pandoras box, and my wallet, to a whole new world.

I think you have the wrong camera for run-n-gun video.