BMPCC first impressions

I finally got my Black Magic Pocket Cinema Cam today, one of two in Adelaide, Australia. I thought I'd post up some first impressions before I head out tomorrow and shoot some demo footage.

Firstly, I really love this camera. It has a satisfying heft to it, and feels like a good quality unit. The rubbery finish of the majority of the body works really well, and the buttons are nice.

It's really easy to wield with something light like a Panny 14-42 on it, but for any front heavy lenses I'd say some form of rig of stabilisation would be required.

My Sigma 17-50 2.8 EF mount works with the ebay-spec EF to MFT adaptor I bought, focuses A OK, but is pretty awful to hand hold. As above, I'd want rails and a lens support I think, not sure I'd want to hang much more weight off of it.

Focus assist is nice, works well with the L39 Schneider 16mm and the above Sigma 17-50, but a bit disappointing that it doesn't work with the Panny - you get AF, or focus assist. Unlike my EF lenses, there is no AF/MF switch on the Panny so you're stuck in auto. Seems to work well but somewhat disappointing.

What is more frustrating is there appears to be no indicator on the camera for charging. I picked up a couple of extra batteries, guess I need a charger too, since the camera is going to be useless for the task.

My $1.50 eBay 1/4x20-1/4x20 screw works pretty well with my $2 cold shoe so I can mount my Rode Stereo Video Mic no problems.

Sandisk Extreme 128GB seems to work fine with ProRes. Obviously there is no DNG raw yet.

Tomorrow I'll be trying to shoot some demo footage with a variety of lenses, then head down to a camera store to look at MFT lenses, see what a wide looks like on it. Might test some of my other SD cards but I am not hopeful.

Thats crazy that if the lens supports auto focus then you don't get a choice to change this to manual and you are stuck on auto?

I have a Leica 25mm 1.4 Summilux that I used on my GH2 that I hoped to use on my BMPCC. It supports auto focus on the GH2 but it does not have a switch on the lens but that doesn't matter as you can just select af/mf on the GH2 itself.

So am I now to assume that this lens will only be allowed to work in auto focus mode on the BMPCC?...thats my order cancelled if so!

If you press the focus button twice that should give you focus peaking with manual controls on an autofocus lens?

Pressing the focus button once will just give you auto focus. It it is a manual lens pressing the focus button once will only giving you focus peaking as obviously it wont be able to do autofocusing..

thats what it says in the manual...please can you confirm this?..I want to make sure that manual focus is still possible on autofocus lenses.

thanks

Thanks for that. Apparently I wasn't doing the two presses fast enough. Once you press Focus twice in succession you get focus peaking and manual focusing. One more press gives you a quick AF adjustment with peaking.

Nice!

Ryan,

Thanks for the follow up on focus control is AF lenses. Like every person on the Planet with opposing thumbs, I too have ordered the Pocket. In anticipation of its arrival, I bought a Lumix 12-35 which I plan to use along with an adapted Nikkor 28-70. The prospect that the 12-35 would not permit manual focusing would have been disappointing.

Hope you continue to enjoy the Pocket.

Tom

[Kristian Lam]

Hi,

Manual focusing is always available.

Single press 'FOCUS' starts auto focusing

Double press 'FOCUS' turns on peaking, but you don't need peaking for the manual focusing to work.

What EF to MFT adapter you have? Is it possible to use the new Sigma 18-35 f1.8 with BMPCC?

What EF to MFT adapter you have? Is it possible to use the new Sigma 18-35 f1.8 with BMPCC?

I'm hoping to try this out tomorrow of the camera shop has one. I just have a cheap EF to mFT adaptor with manual iris. Seems to do the job much better than expected, but we will see how it goes tomorrow in bright daylight.

Hi,

Manual focusing is always available.

Single press 'FOCUS' starts auto focusing

Double press 'FOCUS' turns on peaking, but you don't need peaking for the manual focusing to work.

Thanks Kristian. Important to note 'double press' rather than 'press twice'. It has to be quick. You're not scrolling through focus modes.

Same here, I first thought it doesn't work when pressing twice.

Plus, if you switch between manual lenses and AF ones, you may need to power cycle the camera.

Come on guys!! Nice graded footage plsssssss!!

Haha getting there, that's my plan for today. Shoot some nice footage and see how it goes.

Love hearing your description of how it feels in the hand. Looking forward to knowing for myself!

Feels great in hand. The heft, combined with the rubbery feel, work very well. Smaller lenses and primes will suit it well, bigger lenses are too heavy for hand held because it makes the camera so front heavy.

Few issues have now presented themselves, none that will prevent me from using it for now but it will be going back.

When focus peaking is turned on, there are now 7 bright green pixels switched permanently on no matter what the subject is. Started with three, and then over the course of 20 minutes four more pixels got stuck on. Hopefully this is just a bad screen and not systematic.

More worrying is turning the camera off at 25% battery and turning it back on to find 4%. Battery meters are ridiculous and completely unreliable. They drop power significantly when the camera is power cycled but seem to hold power in storage???

Will charge overnight and try again tomorrow, but its clear extra batteries won't cut if.

Build quality is also a concern. My top 1/4" hole seems to be at an angle...

I'll call BMD and or dealer Monday with a please explain, not normal behaviour.

I should mention though, it's not all doom and gloom.

I am completely in love with the images this thing produces, even with the basic, crappy Panasonic 14-42. It has exactly the look I was after for some of the documentary work I'm looking to do - nice depth of field, and the picture quality is superb.

The size and form factor makes it much more portable than my 7D, but lack of IS makes it quite wobbly at 42mm.

Fortunately I'm not planning on using this on jobs ever, just personal projects, but at this point I wouldn't be happy relying on it for work, even as a B cam.

Also, having it in my hands makes a cage more likely, but also rails and some form of support for bigger lenses as my EF mount lenses are quite heavy. With the EF, some people were asking about the Sigma 18-35 1.8 working. I see no reason not, since the Sigma 17-50 2.8 EF works fine on the el cheapo adaptor, but that adaptor can only be opened to f2.8, so no more advantages. I'd be waiting for the speedbooster before considering the 1.8.

Fortunately I'm not planning on using this on jobs ever, just personal projects, but at this point I wouldn't be happy relying on it for work, even as a B cam.

Don't like the sound of that...

Few issues have now presented themselves, none that will prevent me from using it for now but it will be going back.

When focus peaking is turned on, there are now 7 bright green pixels switched permanently on no matter what the subject is. Started with three, and then over the course of 20 minutes four more pixels got stuck on. Hopefully this is just a bad screen and not systematic.

More worrying is turning the camera off at 25% battery and turning it back on to find 4%. Battery meters are ridiculous and completely unreliable. They drop power significantly when the camera is power cycled but seem to hold power in storage???

Will charge overnight and try again tomorrow, but its clear extra batteries won't cut if.

Build quality is also a concern. My top 1/4" hole seems to be at an angle...

I'll call BMD and or dealer Monday with a please explain, not normal behaviour.

I'm glad I have decided to get the BMCC instead now, picking it up on Monday! Can't wait!

If you wanted to use it on a job, some form of reliable power would go a long way to sorting the issues. V mount or mains power?

Screen issues can definitely be worked around.

BMCC would be my preference for A cam, but for now this gives me flexibility I just don't have with bigger cameras.

And.... Cancel....

I wouldn't do that. By the time yours turns up all of these issues will no doubt be sorted.

And considering the cost of batteries for every camera, an external power solution isn't the end of the world.

Let Mr. ALLCAPS cancel, it moves every one behind him one step ahead in the queue...

Until now none of the known "little problems" would bother me, except the impossibility to use IS on panasonic lenses without IS switch. I hope BMD can find a way to sort it out, but it's no showstopper at all, it only means you have to be a little more selective about the lenses.

Let Mr. ALLCAPS cancel, it moves every one behind him one step ahead in the queue...

Until now none of the known "little problems" would bother me, except the impossibility to use IS on panasonic lenses without IS switch. I hope BMD can find a way to sort it out, but it's no showstopper at all, it only means you have to be a little more selective about the lenses.

Exactly. I'm not happy with the handheld results with the 14-42, but tripod is fine. So I'm now looking at the two I should have got in the first place, 7-14 f4 and 12-35 f2.8. Both have IS switches which will be much better for handheld.

Here's a weird quirk. If the camera is set to record 25fps, you can only play back footage shot in 25fps in camera.

I changed mine from 30 to 25 fps because flickering fluros were visibly flickering the footage. Once I did that all of my 30fps footage became invisible when I tried to play back in camera, only displaying 25fps footage until I changed it back.

Is this the same in the BMCC? Seems like a strange choice.

Here's a weird quirk. If the camera is set to record 25fps, you can only play back footage shot in 25fps in camera. ...
Is this the same in the BMCC? ...

Yes. To play a clip, the camera must be set to the same format that was used to make the recording.

-

Went lens shopping last night.

Only had a couple of seconds with the Voigtlander 17.5. Was recommended against it unless I got a full set of primes. Not sure that matters if I know the primary use is interviews. Felt nice but was surprised to be told you couldn't declick it. I thought there was a ring to turn the clicks on and off? Was a nice weight too, almost balanced.

Panasonic 12-35 f2.8 seemed the most versatile but least interesting. IS is much better!

I also used the Olympus 7-14 f4 with an Olympus 4/3 - m4/3 adaptor. I loved this lens. Very much a niche lens, but it feels nice and solid in hand, and the Olympus adaptor retains AF and lens control. I didn't notice any distortion in camera but I'll check the footage and see.

Ideally I'd have all three, plus the SLR Magic 12mm and the Voigtlander 25mm, but budget won't allow all at once, and I'm reluctant to invest heavily in all these lenses when I'm looking at a BMP4k in the future.

Went lens shopping last night.

Only had a couple of seconds with the Voigtlander 17.5. Was recommended against it unless I got a full set of primes. Not sure that matters if I know the primary use is interviews. Felt nice but was surprised to be told you couldn't declick it. I thought there was a ring to turn the clicks on and off? Was a nice weight too, almost balanced.

Why was you recommended against it? Its a perfect lens for the BMPC Ryan, and I have one I use on my GH cameras and yes you can use stepless iris.

On the Voigt 17.5 you can turn the aperture to clickless, but not on the 25mm.

On the Voigt 17.5 you can turn the aperture to clickless, but not on the 25mm.

Didn't know that.

The guy had some logic, recommended I didn't buy one prime unless I was going to buy a set. I think I'll get that one anyway. Starting to think the ideal is the Voigtlander 17.5, Panny 12-35 f2.8, Panny 7-14 f4, and the Metabones EF Speedbooster so I can get a set of EF primes that'll work with the BMCC and 4k.

Thank you for posting your journey Ryan, it is really helping me get ready for my units to arrive! Have you posted any footage yet?

Thank you for posting your journey Ryan, it is really helping me get ready for my units to arrive! Have you posted any footage yet?

Glad it's been helpful for someone Joe!

I haven't had a chance to edit anything just yet, but hoping to this weekend. I have got some raw footage up on Copy now, with some things I tested out for people: https://www.copy.com/s/4O3jebxhPke3/Rya ... %20Footage

There's some indoor, some outdoor, and some quick pans to check the jello (probably too extreme to be very worthwhile, since you shouldn't be panning that fast anyway).

This camera is all about learning for me so I've also been doing some reading on resolve so I can hopefully put something half decent out on the weekend. Itching to try time lapse mode too

Took the camera to the Australian football yesterday, the last Adelaide Crows game at our local ground, Football Park/AAMI Stadium.

I figured I'd see what the camera was like for event-style shooting, so using video mode instead of film, and shooting from the crowd. I don't have any ND filters yet, so stopped down instead. I only really have the Panasonic 14-42 still, which doesn't have an IS switch and therefore the 'Mega OIS' doesn't work with the BMPCC.

Firstly, I learnt a lot about the lens, none of it good. At 42mm, f9-10, it is soft. Focus peaking showed all was good but end result is still soft. Also, no IS isn't fun, my hands clearly aren't stable enough to do the camera justice. I'll be selling that lens and upgrading to the 12-35 f2.8 I think. I was surprised at the reach of this lens at 42mm though.

Couple of interesting things with the camera:
[*] Predictably, internal mics suck, but would be good enough for reference audio.
[*] Audio appeared mono in the Premiere timeline, but VLC reports stereo audio? Specifically, 24-bit PCM, 48kHz
[*] I was seeing audio clip. I had internal audio set to 'Mic', all audio levels set at 95%, and wasn't concerned with monitoring for this experiment. Didn't appear to have a limiter to me but happy to provide source footage to others to judge. Easy to fix by turning it down obviously, which is what I'd usually do.
[*] I personally don't like the colouring used in video mode. I would rather shoot in film mode and apply a quick LUT in post, either using some of the Magic Bullet quick looks in Premiere if I was in a hurry or exporting out to Resolve and using Captain Hook's LUT

Happy to put the footage up if people are interested but not sure it's good enough otherwise.

Also one other interesting thing, upgraded to the new firmware and noticed that now when I double click the OK button for expanded focus (thanks Peter and Peter for pointing this out!) it doesn't show metadata entry for a second. Haven't noticed anything else different with the new firmware or any downsides.

Ryan,

If you have some time would you try to reproduce the 'blooming sensor' defect?

It'll be great if you mount the camera on tripod and shoot a bright reflection with different exposures, then apply a quick look and post here some grabs.

It's interesting to see to what extend the effect has to do with over exposure.

Ryan,

If you have some time would you try to reproduce the 'blooming sensor' defect?

It'll be great if you mount the camera on tripod and shoot a bright reflection with different exposures, then apply a quick look and post here some grabs.

It's interesting to see to what extend the effect has to do with over exposure.

I'll give it a crack tomorrow night and see how I go. LED light mounted on top of the camera pointed straight into a mirror should do the trick shouldn't it?

I'll try different ASAs and apertures.

Here you go Aleksandar, some quick tests in my bathroom. Light source is a simple LED on camera light.

Images are PNGs exported out of VLC, then saved as maximum quality JPGs in Photoshop to shrink down below the forums 1MB file size limit.

First shots are all 180 degree shutter angle, constant f6.2 aperture, 3200k white balance, shot at 25fps in film mode.

200asa

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1600asa

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180 degree shutter angle, constant f22 aperture, 3200k white balance, shot at 25fps.

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800asa (JPG compression changed to 'Very High' - 80%)

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1600asa (JPG compression changed to 'Very High' - 80%)

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So I could clearly see the problem in all of the above tests, but it was also clipping with zebras set to 100%. So I started to test different configs to see if I could stop it clipping, and how much this had to do with it.

So I changed the shutter angle down to 90 degrees, 200asa, and dialed the brightness of the light down until it stopped clipping and got this...

no-clip.jpg (179.86 KiB) Viewed 20063 times

So clearly round, but these are round LEDs remember. Hardly conclusive.

Same settings, but dialling the brightness up to about mid way...

slight-clip.jpg (249.05 KiB) Viewed 20063 times

Same again, but full brightness. At this point it was clearly clipping.

full-brightness.jpg (329.98 KiB) Viewed 20063 times

So all I've successfully proved at the moment is the problem exists when it's clipping and blown out. Hardly conclusive. I'm going to try a couple more things tomorrow, might even try some shots of headlights if I get the chance. If anyone has suggestions for other tests please let me know.

Thank you for the test Ryan!

Can you flash with the light directly in the camera?
The glass of the mirror maybe smooths it a bit, so it 's hard to say...

See the "blooming sensor" topic is you can reproduce the effect or not (in the first post there is this test image of the fuji camera).

Do you have any other camera to test if it captures it the same way or not?

See if you can recreate this (and how):



...and maybe take it over to the "blooming sensor" thread?

Thank you for the test Ryan!

Can you flash with the light directly in the camera?
The glass of the mirror maybe smooths it a bit, so it 's hard to say...

See the "blooming sensor" topic is you can reproduce the effect or not (in the first post there is this test image of the fuji camera).

Do you have any other camera to test if it captures it the same way or not?

No worries Aleksandar. I'll give it a try tomorrow with the light on a second tripod or something similar. Then I'll replace the BMPCC with a 7D on the same tripod and see how that goes. I've got an NX5 I can try too if I have to.

You might be right about the mirror but I probably should have cleaned it first... not happening at midnight I'm afraid!

Mr Hood, best I think I could do there is a light source half obscured by a subject's face. Won't be the same lighting other than that, it'll be dark by the time I get home.

I'm more interested in trying a couple of oncoming cars to be honest, but reproducing that example from PB's film would be a good test.

Something that distorts a model's nose or cuts into the side of a person's head seems pretty serious to me. So objects with a definite shape in front of specular highlights should hold their definition when blocking the specular highlight.

Yes Marc, I would think so. However, could internal lens reflections or slight lens flare also contribute to this?

I finally got to use this in a production environment last night, as part of a 5 camera shoot for a band called The Mark Of Cain. Mine was obviously the only BMPCC, the others were a mix of Sony and Panasonic AVCHD or P2 cams.

I have 5 batteries total, started the night with all 5 charged. My mate was mucking around with it, drained about half in his half hour/45 mins during support bands.

Before TMOC went on, I swapped the battery as a precaution. Did some tests under the lighting and drained it a bit, spent about 15 mins, then shot about 45 mins of footage on it before it died.

Irritatingly, battery was about 20-30% when it just switched off, but got good life out of the battery. Those meters need work!!!

New battery in the cam in seconds, and back we went.

Extremely difficult to avoid blown out highlights under these variable lighting conditions but I'm hoping not all of it is ruined by these orbs.

I was getting concerned with heat a couple of times but the camera didnt skip a beat. No problems at all! Loved it!

I'll try and put some footage together tomorrow just of my cam. Some of the shots looked really nice and the 12-35 have good distance and some nice wise shots which allowed the whole band to be in one shot.

Camera goes off for service Monday, then hopefully no more dramas!

I finally got to use this in a production environment last night, as part of a 5 camera shoot for a band called The Mark Of Cain. Mine was obviously the only BMPCC, the others were a mix of Sony and Panasonic AVCHD or P2 cams.

I have 5 batteries total, started the night with all 5 charged. My mate was mucking around with it, drained about half in his half hour/45 mins during support bands.

Before TMOC went on, I swapped the battery as a precaution. Did some tests under the lighting and drained it a bit, spent about 15 mins, then shot about 45 mins of footage on it before it died.

Irritatingly, battery was about 20-30% when it just switched off, but got good life out of the battery. Those meters need work!!!

New battery in the cam in seconds, and back we went.

Extremely difficult to avoid blown out highlights under these variable lighting conditions but I'm hoping not all of it is ruined by these orbs.

I was getting concerned with heat a couple of times but the camera didnt skip a beat. No problems at all! Loved it!

I'll try and put some footage together tomorrow just of my cam. Some of the shots looked really nice and the 12-35 have good distance and some nice wise shots which allowed the whole band to be in one shot.

Camera goes off for service Monday, then hopefully no more dramas!

Thanks Ryan,
wishing you the best on the footage you shot, Please do share what you can, and crossing fingers
that it is orb free!

Cheers

I finally got to use this in a production environment last night, as part of a 5 camera shoot for a band called The Mark Of Cain. Mine was obviously the only BMPCC... Extremely difficult to avoid blown out highlights under these variable lighting conditions but I'm hoping not all of it is ruined by these orbs... Camera goes off for service Monday, then hopefully no more dramas!

If there were a few cameras filming the band with you, perhaps one option is intercutting footage from the other cameras when the orbs spoil your shot or masking only that part of the image with footage from another camera. An opportunity to get creative if you have access to other footage.

Rick Lang
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

I finally got to use this in a production environment last night, as part of a 5 camera shoot for a band called The Mark Of Cain. Mine was obviously the only BMPCC... Extremely difficult to avoid blown out highlights under these variable lighting conditions but I'm hoping not all of it is ruined by these orbs... Camera goes off for service Monday, then hopefully no more dramas!

If there were a few cameras filming the band with you, perhaps one option is intercutting footage from the other cameras when the orbs spoil your shot or masking only that part of the image with footage from another camera. An opportunity to get creative if you have access to other footage.

Rick Lang
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Spot on Rick, that's the plan. I made sure in advance that we had backups - we had two cameras at the back of the room, one getting a wide shot, one getting close ups on the singer, then three of us covering the three band members on or around the stage. So the BMPCC footage wasn't critical.

All the footage is dumped into FCP7 and the two guys who do these edits just do a multi cam edit while our audio guy does the mix from the desk. Here's some we've done previously:

I just love the way this camera feels in hand. It's a great size for handheld work with the 12-35 - sure beats trying to cradle an NX5 on stage!

I'd like to hear how well the Pocket footage intercuts with those other cameras.