Pocket Firmware updates desperately needed

Dear Forum users--

If anyone knows of a better place/email to send this, please let me know. I'm sure we can all agree that we as users MUST HAVE THESE UPDATES ALREADY!

Dear Blackmagic--

Your Pocket camera is terrific and there is no reason to not be able to use this in a professional environment. In it's current state users have to work around things that should be easily solved with some more thought put into the next firmware update. I'm sure there are tons of good things that fellow user could add to this list but these are ESSENTIAL and featured in nearly every single professional camera on the market. I'd love to take advantage of raw, compact size, 14 stops and the many other great features you're offering and targeting to the pro market, but only if I can use the rest of the camera the way a pro camera needs to be.

Please, please, please offer these BASIC features in your next update:
-White balance increments of 100K at most. The current jumps are WAY too large.
-Green/magenta tint
-Audio meters
-Format SD card from the camera
-Upside down viewing/operating mode (flip screen and keys)
-Quicker access to ISO, WB, & shutter (at least could re order and put these at the top of the menu so I don't have to scroll so much every time)
-Ability to import looks or LUTs instead of just film & video display/recording modes

Thanks, looking forward to being able to use this as a professional tool and not as just a toy.

Let me tell you how BM would respond if they wanted to (which they don't):

-White balance increments of 100K at most. The current jumps are WAY too large.
White balance adjustments are what you do in POST
-Green/magenta tint
Tint adjustments are what you do in POST
-Audio meters
You're supposed to record sound with an external recorder because our recorder is crap- on purpose.
-Format SD card from the camera
That would require RAM space for software we don't have in the camera
-Upside down viewing/operating mode (flip screen and keys)
This is a cinema camera. Does your RED monitor flip upside down? Didn't think so.
-Quicker access to ISO, WB, & shutter (at least could re order and put these at the top of the menu so I don't have to scroll so much every time)
Ummm... We're working on the 4k right now, and don't have time to fix that. lol
-Ability to import looks or LUTs instead of just film & video display/recording modes
You can't be serious. Go buy a Canon.


Lol. That's my guess what they'd say.

-Ability to import looks or LUTs instead of just film & video display/recording modes
You can't be serious. Go buy a Canon.

Lol. That's my guess what they'd say.

This response made my day. Haha! Obviously none of the issues or limited features have stopped anyone from creating georgeous images. I don't record sound in camera at all, but I do wonder how one should know what the proper level is for an incoming source? As far as formatting in the field, I don't think that's as big of a deal as it's made out to be.

This kind of post shows up every week or so it seems. "We want it all" alas. Realistically they're going to prioritize based on internal resources, demand, ease of implementation. We need think about what mission critical vs just desirable.

Personally my very short list would be (and relative to other posts):

Mission Critical to me
• Audio Meters:
Even as guide track, the audio must be a reasonable volume without distortion. So this isn't even about "you can record audio elsewhere and the preamps are mediocre." Sometimes you have to use camera internal audio. Sometimes you must be absolutely sure the audio is good even as a guide track. Every video camera consumer or professional, has audio meters.

• Time remaining on the media:
It's just way to risky to blow a shot because the media runs out while recording. Even the media low warning isn't enough because one may start a take before that beings and run through it.

The above two are my only "mission critical" features because they are potential points of failure with no means to work around. An unusable guide track (or primary audio in some cases) and the lack of time remaining are major problems.

Features not mission critical:
• Formatting the cards in camera is nice but generally that's something that has risks during a shoot. I'm fine with checking and formatting cards before I leave the office.
• organizing menu for commonly changed features which not a must would certainly be a good convenience.
• white balance both more increments and even more radically a white balance button would help. Granted these cameras are really designed for you to handle that in post but it can make the post workflow faster.
• histogram. Maybe I'm in dangerous territory for asking this much but when ETTR one really also needs to see what you're doing to the data in the "shadows" I believe. Sometimes, even with the wide dynamic range, protecting the highlights sacrifices (compresses the range of data) available in the shadows. This is also why some are concerned with the camera "does something crazy" like stop down to f22 to protect highlights especially with active MFT lenses and turning on the camera.

Can't please everyone...

Out of all those things all I care about is audio meters and a histogram.

Why bother asking, they are not interested in what their clients want.