One more Pocket Camera, please!

I think about all the use I've gotten out of the Pocket cameras that'd I've owned and I still really enjoy them.

I think BMD has shown that rehousing the 12k LF sensor in multiple bodies (and variations, like the 17k) has been such a huge leap in quality. What I would LOVE to see is one more--well, maybe two--Pocket-style body run/design.

1. Pocket 9k Pro
- Cut/cropped version of the 12k LF sensor in s35 (either 16x9 or 3:2)
- Matching with the Cine 12k LF sensor line in DR/Color
- Internal NDs (if possible)
- Same ultra-bright screen
- PL or EF Mount, to accommodate ND filters

2. Pocket Mini 4k
- Cut/cropped version of the Ursa Mini Pro 12k sensor in s16 mode
- Matching color with the 12k LF
- 14 stops of DR
- L Mount
- Smaller form-factor, somewhere between the Pocket OG and the Pocket 4k
- NP-F Battery
- Small but bright screen

Don't know if any of that is possible, but MAN, since they announced the Pyxis 12k, it would be awesome to see that tech trickle down into even smaller bodies, if possible!

… Don't know if any of that is possible…

I think your first suggestion would sell very well if it’s possible, but the design flaw might be the heat management in those relatively small bodies if the 9K retained all the characteristics of the Pyxis 12K sensor with windowed 9K. I really am enthusiastic about 9K to create 8K and 4K deliverables, but BMD might go for the 8K as a window of the Pyxis 12K sensor if that provided less heat.

We will see on Pixys 12k the heat dissipation strategy, then we will think in a pocket body where heat is not ever at best of dissipation.
More dense sensor mean also more heat and more diffraction.
I would like to see an 8k wwwrgb, it’s enough for me, be cause I more interest to color rendition of newer sensor than a resolution.


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2. Pocket Mini 4k
- Cut/cropped version of the Ursa Mini Pro 12k sensor in s16 mode
- Matching color with the 12k LF
- 14 stops of DR
- L Mount
- Smaller form-factor, somewhere between the Pocket OG and the Pocket 4k
- NP-F Battery
- Small but bright screen

That would be a fascinating crash cam even if the sensor readout wasn't as fast as the Ursa 12K's. That crop reads at 3.89ms on the Ursa 12K. If it were half that speed that would still be incredibly fast. With a 2K readout mode it would really feel like a successor to the original Pocket.

That might also open up the market for L-mount focal reducers. Those can still be useful for shooting high fps crops on the Pyxis 6K and BMCC6K without losing field of view.

… That might also open up the market for L-mount focal reducers. Those can still be useful for shooting high fps crops on the Pyxis 6K and BMCC6K without losing field of view.

I hadn’t thought about that for the 9K window I prefer.

Their Ultra 0.71x focal reduction is a very close fit. Another potential reason to go with the L-mount camera.

What are your thoughts on that? Do you want to talk to Metabones about a PL lens to L-mount camera via a new Ultra Speedbooster?

Edit
Removed all the references to 12K frames as that’s irrelevant; effectiveness of the focal reducer depends upon the normal image circle of the lens. So generally lenses with a 46.3mm image circle would work best, but 43.3mm lenses would still reduce to a useful frame for 9K aspect ratios.

I hadn’t thought about that for the 9K window I prefer.

Part of the reason I'm so annoying about those image circle-based crops is because they would pair well will focal reducers and help make up for the crop lol

Their Ultra 0.71x focal reduction is a very close fit. Another potential reason to go with the L-mount camera.

What are your thoughts on that? Do you want to talk to Metabones about a PL lens to L-mount camera via a new Ultra Speedbooster?

I swear the last time I checked there weren't any focal reducers for L mount lenses but now I guess Metabones has them. Unfortunately I was hoping for EF to L mount

Removed all the references to 12K frames as that’s irrelevant; effectiveness of the focal reducer depends upon the normal image circle of the lens. So generally lenses with a 46.3mm image circle would work best, but 43.3mm lenses would still reduce to a useful frame for 9K aspect ratios.

Looks like their 0.71x speed booster still has a 1.05x crop factor on the 6KFF's S35 crop. That would make a 43.3mm image circle reduce to about 31.941mm so it's more like a 0.738x speed booster. That's just 3% smaller than the Cine 12K's 3:2 9K crop; probably noticeable but a lot better than the 6.5% that the name of the product suggests lol

I didn’t realize Metabones had a table for an L-mount SpeedBooster. Their table is fine, but I think image circle on the lens is the key. My SLR Magic APO primes have an image circle of 46.3 mm as do some other lenses. That is what is reduced of course by 0.71x.

I use the Lens Toolkit f8 to compare cameras and lenses but f8 doesn’t have the Pyxis 12K camera yet so I compared the Cine 12K to the Pyxis 6K.

With a 50mm lens on the Cine 12K and the Metabones Ultra SpeedBooster, I get the same image on the Cine 12K as the Pyxis 6K with a 32mm lens. So the 12288 photosites are reduced to 8724 photosites. I can work with that with the windowed 9K camera setting. Of course it’s better to actually have all this hardware to be certain, but it is a way to get the full-frame FOV while recording some of the 9K windowed frames.

Because those numbers may be based on a 43.3mm image circle, on a 46.3mm image circle I might actually get coverage of 9328 photosites horizontally. That would mean all 9K frames would be covered full-frame except 9K 3:2.

Not sure until f8 is updated.

Because those numbers may be based on a 43.3mm image circle, on a 46.3mm image circle I might actually get coverage of 9328 photosites horizontally. That would mean all 9K frames would be covered full-frame except 9K 3:2.

If my math is correct then wouldn't the 46.3mm image circle get reduced to 34.17mm? The 9K 3:2 crop only needs 32.79mm to be fully covered. Even lenses with a 43.3mm image circle shouldn't have the worst vignetting.

For reference, here's what a lens with a 30mm image circle would look like on the 9K 3:2 sensor area.



Now try to consider that 30mm is 6.1% smaller than the image circle that speed booster would create with a 43.3mm lens. That would remove most of the vignette. Sorry for using a cemetery photo, it's the only image I had with that lens with the aperture nearly closed

Yes, you’re right I just have to stop thinking of photosites when the Speedbooster Ultra is all about image circle.

46.5 x 0.71 =33.015mm so that’s good news.

For those using lenses that cover 43.5 image circle, it’s not such good news:
43.5 x 0.71 =30.885mm.

When I purchased the SLR Magic APO T2.1 PL primes so many years ago, I never thought I’d be using them on a 9K camera as an effectively T1.5 lens.

More cinematic than 3:2 aspect ratio, I have the SLR Magic 1.33x-65 Anamorphot adapter so I can add that and adapt the Pyxis 9K 9408x6264 3:2 aspect ratio to a 2:1 aspect ratio. In post that could be a timeline frame about 9408x4698 pixels reframed as 8K or downscaled to 4K deliverables. Optionally, one could desqueeze the X-axis to 12554x6264 but that’s not an approach I’d use as I always squeeze the Y-axis to restore square pixels and preserve detail.

Combining the SLR Magic APO with the SpeedBooster Ultra and the Anamorphot adapter would certainly give the image a distinctive character.

Yes, you’re right I just have to stop thinking of photosites when the Speedbooster Ultra is all about image circle.

46.5 x 0.71 =33.015mm so that’s good news.

For those using lenses that cover 43.5 image circle, it’s not such good news:
43.5 x 0.71 =30.885mm.

I wouldn't take the 0.71x multiplier at face value though. I just realized the chart I posted before assumes the 46.3mm image circle (IC) of a Zeiss CP.2, not the 43.3mm as I had assumed. If you take 0.71 at face value then that should reduce down to 32.873mm. That would be a 1.08x crop factor and not 1.05x like the table is showing.

If we take the IC of that crop and multiply by the crop factor...

30.42 * 1.05 = 31.941mm

..then divide that by the CP.2 IC.

31.941 / 46.3 = 0.689x

If we divide it by a typical 43.3mm IC...

31.941 / 43.3 = 0.738x

I calculated the crop IC in different ways to see if they determined that differently and I actually can't find any way that they could have gotten those numbers with a 0.71 multiplier. After multiplying the output IC by the reciprocal of 0.71 (1.408), I determined that the input IC would need to be closer to 45mm for 0.71x to work.

Of course the elephant in the room is that we know that table is wrong to some degree because the 4K DCI and S35 crops don't have anywhere near the same image circle. Whatever the crop factor is for S35, the 4K DCI crop would be 1.106x that.

Here's my take on a next gen pocket camera...

I believe Blackmagic's iOS/Android based camera app does in part serve as a pre-cursor / testing ground for an eventual smartphone like form factor Pocket Camera, much closer in spirit to the OG Pocket Camera and not the bulkier Pocket Camera line we're accustomed to today.

But I believe in order for Blackmagic to pull that off, they'll need to do something radically different than they currently do; which is develop and use an ASIC and not FPGA. They'll need to "harden" the BRAW processing and bake it into hardware to bring down the power consumption and heat. Or they decide to use an off the shelf ASIC, maybe something from Qualcomm and they port their BRAW processing to that platform.

Some interesting tid btis in this interview: @10:42-11:48

60-80 Watts of power for the PYXIS 12K...and note how the power consumption doesn't significantly change as they scale the resolution... so I think that sensor is off the table for the kind of form factor we'd all want. Whether this sensor can bet "cut" or "sliced" into a smaller chip and thereby reducing it's system requirements...maybe?

I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, and it's hard to find info around the OG Pocket Camera these days... But an official Nikon EN-EL20 battery is marked as a 7.4Wh battery. And for those of us that remember shooting the OG Pocket Camera, 45m-1hr was what you could expect off a single battery ( in cases worse ).... So we can ballpark the camera's power draw at 8-10 Watts.

So a hypothetical next gen Pocket Camera should float in the same territory for power draw, Ideally it should aim for much lower closer to 5-7 Watts if we want to have a much better experience than we did with those starved batteries. Of course technology has vastly improved in the 12+ years since the OG Pocket Camera; so we can expect more efficient processors and higher density batteries.

I really can’t be certain if any radical departure is coming, but that’s an interesting perspective. Unfortunately for those of us that begrudgingly prefer Apple to be our first choice supplier for computing and phones, there might be room for a phone factor phone that skips the conventional phone call capability and is really known as a camera that can make VOIP calls. But I’m not sure this will happen as the miniaturization isn’t a walk in the park either.

Yes you can make a movie with a phone if your goal leans more toward drawing attention to the novelty of it, but the way things are currently evolving, making a camera that mimics a phone in the US is going to cost more than making a more conventional consumer camera with 16 stops of dynamic range and great flexibility and post production (performed by AI of course because a thousand people aren’t required anymore to make a movie).

Getting back to serious commentary, it wouldn’t be the first time in history that difficult times have led to innovation that thinks outside the box. We sure need to do something to survive and succeed, to thrive and breed (innovation).

If they do a new Pocket design I think going back to smaller body is the main goal. And, it should function as a Still Camera with a switch to Video.

Look at the Sony Alpha series as an example. The main functionality as a stills camera is there. But then it has a switch and you’re in video mode. The EVF is built in. The fully articulating LCD that is in the A7IV is great for both the stills and video. It’s fine that it’s small because I most of the time use the EVF. I use the flip out screen for when positioning the camera in a way that is a challenge for me to look through the EVF.

Now autofocus is a big part of all this. But I do switch to manual when I need to. Having the Zoom button on camera is key for when using the EVF, but it also doubles for the LCD. The dials and buttons are all a part of the still photography experience. And, I want the new Pocket to be primarily built around that.

I want the 12K Full Frame sensor. I want to be able to do stills with it. For video I’m fine with limitations like only 30 FPS max. Thus you can do 24, 25, and 30 for realtime video. No slow motion. For stills there is no need to go above 30 FPS with this camera.

I’d love to have a camera like this. The true DSLR killer. Granted it should be Mirrorless. L Mount only. CFExpress Type B and SD card slots. SD for stills is fine. CFExpress for video when you need it. You can still do stills for CFExpress.

That’s my thoughts.


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I think about all the use I've gotten out of the Pocket cameras that'd I've owned and I still really enjoy them.

I think BMD has shown that rehousing the 12k LF sensor in multiple bodies (and variations, like the 17k) has been such a huge leap in quality. What I would LOVE to see is one more--well, maybe two--Pocket-style body run/design.

1. Pocket 9k Pro
- Cut/cropped version of the 12k LF sensor in s35 (either 16x9 or 3:2)
- Matching with the Cine 12k LF sensor line in DR/Color
- Internal NDs (if possible)
- Same ultra-bright screen
- PL or EF Mount, to accommodate ND filters

2. Pocket Mini 4k
- Cut/cropped version of the Ursa Mini Pro 12k sensor in s16 mode
- Matching color with the 12k LF
- 14 stops of DR
- L Mount
- Smaller form-factor, somewhere between the Pocket OG and the Pocket 4k
- NP-F Battery
- Small but bright screen

Don't know if any of that is possible, but MAN, since they announced the Pyxis 12k, it would be awesome to see that tech trickle down into even smaller bodies, if possible!

A pocket camera similar to the original pocket maybe somewhat larger, with an AF-tracking capable 6k sensor, and a full frame would be great for many users. a mini brick-type form

Ric Marty

If they do a new Pocket design I think going back to smaller body is the main goal. And, it should function as a Still Camera with a switch to Video… For stills there is no need to go above 30 FPS with this camera.

I’d love to have a camera like this. The true DSLR killer... L Mount only. CFExpress Type B and SD card slots. SD for stills is fine. CFExpress for video when you need it…

Tim, I expect a DSLR killer stills camera must go beyond a 1/60 sec shutter; 1/60 sec is often all you need, but many times you want it several times faster if you think it would be a killer camera. Keep it at 1/60 sec if that’s needed but drop the expectation this would be a killer. It would still be very appealing with Gen 5 colour science, HDR without bracketing exposure, gobs of pixels for high resolution, and so on.

I'd love a P4K G2 with 32-bit Float and two CFExpress Type B slots.

If they do a new Pocket design I think going back to smaller body is the main goal. And, it should function as a Still Camera with a switch to Video… For stills there is no need to go above 30 FPS with this camera.

I’d love to have a camera like this. The true DSLR killer... L Mount only. CFExpress Type B and SD card slots. SD for stills is fine. CFExpress for video when you need it…

Tim, I expect a DSLR killer stills camera must go beyond a 1/60 sec shutter; 1/60 sec is often all you need, but many times you want it several times faster if you think it would be a killer camera. Keep it at 1/60 sec if that’s needed but drop the expectation this would be a killer. It would still be very appealing with Gen 5 colour science, HDR without bracketing exposure, gobs of pixels for high resolution, and so on.

Sorry, was on a shoot. And, was doing stills with my Sony A7IV while doing the video with another brand camera for a client.

I'm saying that the video only needs to go to 30 FPS. Sure that may mean 1/60 when doing 180° Shutter Angle. But for the Stills it should still be able to hit 1/8000 sec just like the Sony A7IV and the Canon R6ii. This is why I hate the whole video using shutter speed BS. Use Shutter Angle as it is superior for video. Shutter Speed is for Stills.

This is also why I'm asking for a Blackmagic Stills Camera. But I want it to function as a new Pocket Camera. It can be a hybrid. But I want that wonderful 12K sensor in a Stills Camera. I want to shoot still like I do with the A7IV with a Blackmagic Camera. If it does baseline video while being a Hybrid then fine by me.

And, video can always do 15° Shutter Angle, which is much faster than 1/60. 11.2° is 1/960 when at 30 FPS. When the URSA Cine is set to Shutter Speed it can go to 1/4000 no problem. You have the manually type that in, but it can be done. That is equivalent to 2.7° Shutter Angle.

So, I think enabling Shutter Speed on the Pocket in Stills Mode should be able to reach 1/8000 sec. And, there should be the usual Stills Burst modes. Single Shot, Low Speed Continuous, Mid Speed Continuous, High Speed Continuous, and the Ultra High Speed Continuous. There should be Self-Timer modes, and HDR Bracketing Modes. It should be a full fledged stills camera.

That's what I want. The amazing 12K sensor in a stills camera. I'll leave Sony in a heartbeat for it. I may not use the Pocket much for video. But I'll use it all the time for stills.

Thanks for the clarification, Tim.

Thanks for the clarification, Tim.

Sure thing!

By the way, I'm planning on a new Self Portrait with the URSA Cine. This one I will be doing on 35mm film like the last one I did. But instead of me by myself, I'll be posing with the URSA Cine. And, I'll use Kodak Portra 160 this time instead of Kodak PhotoImage 100.

I'm in the midst of planning out the shoot.

Looking forward to it!

I really like the idea of using the 12K sensor for photography.
How did Blackmagic manage to pack almost 100MP inside a full-frame sensor? That's truly pushing into medium format territory! In the full-frame range, I can only recall a few cameras reaching around 60MP.

I'm curious about the technical compromises.

I really like the idea of using the 12K sensor for photography.
How did Blackmagic manage to pack almost 100MP inside a full-frame sensor? That's truly pushing into medium format territory! In the full-frame range, I can only recall a few cameras reaching around 60MP.

I'm curious about the technical compromises.

Just remember that most other companies are using Bayer Pattern Sensors. Blackmagic is using an RGBW Sensor. Thus why they get 12K.

Just remember that most other companies are using Bayer Pattern Sensors. Blackmagic is using an RGBW Sensor. Thus why they get 12K.

That doesn't have anything to do with the RGBW CFA though. Yea, the clear pixels help make up for any diminished dynamic range from the small pixel size but the sensor behind it still works the same as any other sensor. In fact, spatially encoding four channels into one diminishing some of the effective spatial resolution that you get from using a 12K sensor.