Serious Noise - Firmware Related - BMPCC 6k Pro

I can pretty much confirm that there is a serious noise issue that is firmware related at least regarding the Pocket 6k Pro running the latest firmware, Blackmagic Camera Setup 8.4. The issue is gone if the firmware is downgraded to firmware 7.9.1.

I own a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6k Pro and have used it extensively for the last few years.

Last week, I went on a job after I had recently upgraded to the latest firmware (Blackmagic Camera Setup 8.4).
I had to shoot a lot of footage using the second Base ISO of 3200. The footage came back incredibly noisy and borderline unusable.

I had shot plenty of times in similar situations with similar settings and never had an issue before. ISO 3200 was always a bit noisier than ISO 400 but always reasonably clean and perfectly usable.

Before the job I had performed a sensor calibration at room temperature as usually do.

I did some tests, plugging in a SmallHD monitor and applying maximum peaking (which in this monitor is applied as a kind of sharpening in the image) and even after a sensor calibration, with a black cap in front of the lens, the image at 3200 ISO is pure noise.

After that, I downgraded my camera to firmware 7.9.1, calibrated the sensor and the noise is gone. The same black cap test with the SmallHD monitor shows up clean and the footage is clean too.

With firmware 7.9.1, 3200 ISO is clean (as it was before) and there isn't an issue anymore. I can't confirm what firmware Blackmagic Camera Setup 8.4 installs on the BMPCC 6K Pro as I didn't take note before downgrading. I believe it's firmware 8.1.1 but I'll have to test.

I have seen other posts of people regarding noise and I imagine this may be the underlying issue.
Has any one else had a similar experience?

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Theo, thank you so much for your post! This is a lifesaver.
I've been working with both the 4K and the Ursa Mini Pro 4.6 for a couple of years now and I love them.
Recently I added the 6K Pro to my collection after reading a lot of promising reviews.
After I started working with it, I noticed someting was off right away: the noisy footage.
I ran through my menu but couldn't find anything wrong with all of the settings, since they were identical to my other Blackmagic camera's. I did some testing with all of them; same settings, same lense and the 4k and the Ursa came out much better.

Since nearly all user reviews were highly positive, I was worried that I've might been sold a camera with a sensor fault or something. Then I stumbled upon your post and I downgraded my firmware. Hallelujah!

Thank you again for sharing this with the world. I truly appreciate it.

Since nearly all user reviews were highly positive, I was worried that I've might been sold a camera with a sensor fault or something. Then I stumbled upon your post and I downgraded my firmware. Hallelujah!

Thank you again for sharing this with the world. I truly appreciate it.

I’m very glad this helped you! I’m not quite sure how to get Blackmagic’s attention to it. They just rolled out a new beta firmware that doesn’t address the issue and it’s only targeted at other cameras so I’m not sure if they are even aware of the issue.

I do hope it gets sorted soon and that other people don’t have an experience such as yours, specially if they didn’t use the camera before and wouldn’t know better, you where curious enough to look and check but other people may not be so lucky.

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Interesting. The Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6k Full Frame has really poor low light performance and noise at 3200 according to all the early reviews I have seen... I wonder if that too is firmware related, as the poor performance is counter intuitive.

Interesting. The Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6k Full Frame has really poor low light performance and noise at 3200 according to all the early reviews I have seen... I wonder if that too is firmware related, as the poor performance is counter intuitive.

OP talk about Pocket6k, it told that use it from years.
cinema camera 6k ff is a sensor like Ursa, should work with light, stop

[Kristian Lam]

Hi,

Happy to look into this and have PMed the OP for more details last week. Haven't heard back with details.