Where To Buy Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k
Our Verdict
We've seldom reviewed a product that has so many positives, from value for money correct through to features. In turn, while the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K is definitely not perfect, with stunning 4K capture and a comprehensive array of connections, its pros heavily outweigh its cons.
For
- Huge, sharp screen
- Comprehensive connections
- Excellent 4K video capture
Against
- Weak battery life
- Inconsistent battery meter
- No articulating screen
TechRadar Verdict
Nosotros've seldom reviewed a production that has and so many positives, from value for money right through to features. In plow, while the Blackmagic Pocket Movie theatre Photographic camera 4K is definitely not perfect, with stunning 4K capture and a comprehensive assortment of connections, its pros heavily outweigh its cons.
Pros
- +
Huge, sharp screen
- +
Comprehensive connections
- +
Excellent 4K video capture
Cons
- -
Weak battery life
- -
Inconsistent battery meter
- -
No articulating screen
The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K shook things up when it was announced earlier this year thank you to a competitive price and a comprehensive characteristic set.
After testing it for over a week for location based shoots and a studio based commercial, does the reality live up to the hype?
On paper, yeah information technology does. Delivering a huge amount of film-making clout in a packet that undercuts the rest, this Micro Four Thirds camera packs a huge five-inch affect screen, external SSD recording capabilities and shoots pin sharp 4K raw footage.
Following on from the original Blackmagic Pocket Movie house Camera, despite being far from perfect, it still ended up beingness used as function of blockbuster productions like Avengers: Age of Ultron cheers to the excellent bang for buck information technology delivered.
This time round, there's more bang, less cadet and a generation of eager YouTubers and video enthusiasts looking for a premium, nonetheless value-centric 4K pick, and this could exist just the ticket.
Price and availability
The Blackmagic Pocket Movie theatre Camera should be bachelor globally at present, and will fix you back around £1,034 in the Great britain, $i,295 and AU$1,815 in Commonwealth of australia. Stock bug are rearing their heads though, and then if y'all're unable to option one up right now, availability should improve throughout the residue of 2018 and the outset few months of 2019.
Blueprint
This bulbous camera looks playful and, truth be told, a touch dated, but the combi-polycarbonate/fibreglass torso feels well weighted and solid in the hand. Its bulbous shape also ensures it is comfy to hold and not besides athwart, with easy to access buttons, a dial, some assuming air vents and a huge, huge screen on the dorsum vying for your attention.
The grip is ribbed and has a secure tactility, with a new improved dual microphone gear up-up to the right of it. There'south also a front end-mounted record button and an LED light also. the Pocket Movie theater Camera 4K has a standard tripod thread mount at the base with an additional mount where the hot shoe might be on a stills photographic camera, perfect for an external monitor or LED calorie-free.
At the base is a slightly flimsy bombardment door which is removable so the potential for tertiary party bombardment grips is a reality, while to the left you've got a dual bill of fare slot which feels a flake more than sturdy. The camera takes SD and CFast cards, with the CFast cards required for the highest quality raw 4K video.
On the right are all the ports, and nosotros hateful all the ports.
Ports
Easily the best kitted out camera for the price when it comes to connectivity, the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K has a total sized HDMI port, which is significantly more secure than the flimsy mini or micro HDMIs of quondam.
There's also a USB-C port, supporting data transfer and slow charging. A point to note - this won't keep the camera alive while shooting, simply supplement the battery power to ease the load.
If you want to film plugged in, you'll need to go for a DC connector that plugs into the lockable 2-pin port. This volition set up y'all dorsum around $65 (£49), and as nosotros will encompass when nosotros talk about battery life, will exist a worthwhile investment.
Speaking of optional extras, you tin besides pick up a mini XLR to XLR adaptor for roughly $30 (£25), which plugs into the mini XLR port to give you audio capabilities usually reserved for pro-form shooters like the Canon C100.
The two final ports are three.5mm jacks, one existence a mic in and one an audio out, and then you can easily monitor levels.
Not quite a port, merely the Pocket Picture palace Camera 4K also has totally revised on-lath mics, and they aren't terrible - an impressive accolade for any shooter this size, giving you excellent reference audio - though the fan racket can be heard when things estrus up.
Screen
If the all-time thing about the Pocket Picture palace Camera 4K's torso are the ports, the 2d all-time matter has got to be the screen, or is it the other fashion circular?
Clocking in at five-inches and with a resolution of 1920 x 1080, the LCD display is about as precipitous as an iPhone X's screen and thankfully, it bright likewise, helping out in sunny conditions.
Bigger than anything you'll get from a competing device from Catechism, Nikon, Panasonic or Sony, for video, it's a approval to have a 16:9 attribute ratio brandish. That it'southward so large and optimised for video means you lot can check your focus with reliable accuracy while simultaneously framing up without blackness borders, potentially saving you buying a monitor to hook up to it.
We found when we relied on the display exclusively when setting exposure, nosotros had a tendency to overexpose slightly, and then if you lot're anything like us, underexposing by half a stop should save your highlights.
Despite this, the screen doesn't expect done out per se and its bear upon interface is comprehensive and responsive. Sounds skillful and then far, just there is one major drawback - information technology doesn't articulate, not even a little.
This definitely feels like the biggest omission here, as with a flip out screen, the Pocket Picture palace Camera 4K would take been the ultimate advanced YouTube photographic camera. Fifty-fifty for traditional videographers, when hand-belongings the camera, at that place'south a conflict betwixt being able to encounter the screen and securing the steadiest shooting position possible.
As for the user interface, it's responsive and highly customizable, giving you a huge amount of control over everything from firing upwards focus peaking to shutter bending, audio input control, zebra levels, histograms and more. There'southward a steep learning curve, especially if y'all're coming from a simpler system, but after over a week with the camera, it started to feel more similar a Swiss Ground forces Knife and less like a Rubik's Cube.
For more in-depth information, nosotros'd actually recommend you bank check out the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K'due south motion-picture show heavy user guide that deep dives into specifics.
Buttons
The chief topside buttons include a record button and a 4K stills capture push button along with quick admission to ISO, shutter bending and white rest. Three handy customizable function buttons are also in easy reach equally too is the ability switch.
On the back, to the right of the screen are other key part buttons, such as Iris, Focus, High Frame Rate, Zoom, Card and Playback.
Glass
The Micro Four Thirds mount organisation means that the Pocket Movie theatre Camera 4K supports an excellent range of drinking glass at launch. If you plan on shooting any handheld video, make certain you lot opt for stabilisation in the lens, every bit it's absent from the body, and results should be stunning. We used the 12-35mm lens for the most part, benefiting from the versatility of some zoom coupled with a very helpful wide aperture.
Focus
We know, we know, when y'all're shooting video, a true professional person never uses continuous autofocus. But, nosotros're not true professional person videographers, we're video journalists and on some occasions, needs must.
In turn, if your needs must rely on continuous autofocus, like us, and so the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K won't deliver that - Catechism is all the same ahead of the pack hither.
Despite no continuous autofocus, there is autofocus on board, and it works with either a single tap of the screen, merely like a smartphone, or past striking the focus button on the back of the camera. In good lite, it works great, in bad light or when focusing on night objects, it'due south more hitting and miss.
What'southward also interesting is that the manual electronic focus on MFT lenses requires a very long turn of the focus band by dissimilarity to, for example, the GH5. It can feel inconsistent and potentially hamper you lot from getting that pan-focus you desire, particularly if you're winging information technology without whatever supporting accessories.
What'due south missing?
With no in-trunk stabilisation, the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K offers a similar proposition to the GH5s, giving videographers maximum control over their set-up. For tripod or gimbal users, this won't be a problem, but handheld users rocking older glass will definitely want to carry this in mind.
Additionally, there'southward no ND filter in the body as institute on the likes of the significantly pricier Canon EOS R and C100. This is a big deal for video, owing to the restrictions effectually manipulating shutter speed, then former school ND filters or a quick swap adaptor for your favourite lenses will be the fashion to go if you shoot outdoors oft.
Dual ISO
The Pocket Cinema Camera 4K isn't the commencement camera to feature dual native ISO, just it implements the feature to keen outcome. With native ranges at 400 and 3200, when recording in low light, you're better off ramping upward the ISO to 3200 equally opposed to 2400, for example.
This is a double edged sword - on the one hand, information technology perfectly matches the limits video places on exposure control by contrast to photography. On the other, information technology means you actually need to know your camera to go the most out of it.
Particularly in our showtime few days with the device, after years of shooting on other systems, we found information technology incredibly counterintuitive to really bump up the ISO in order to get the better racket handling.
When we remembered though, it worked really well, specially when shooting in ProRes or RAW, as the range in these modes is excellent, giving us tons of room to manoeuvre in post and pull out detail from shadows.
Video quality
In fact, across the board, video quality was seriously impressive for the price.
4K video was beautifully sharp, but gratis from visible over-sharpening. With no noticeable artifacting to speak of, the results were among the best we've seen on whatever sub-£two,000/$2,000 photographic camera.
We tried shooting RAW and the range of detail we could pull out was fifty-fifty better than ProRes, but the file sizes and additions to processing time meant for our needs, it wasn't worth it despite the tangible benefits.
The fundamental noticeable departure in our feel was that the RAW video nosotros captured was better at managing the highlights than ProRes, so we ended up exposing downwardly a fleck more than we usually would.
Colors are predictably filmic and flat. This means anyone looking for an 'out of the camera, onto YouTube workflow', this probably isn't it, even though you do have a number of recording formats that aid out with this. Meanwhile, if yous're looking to flex your mail processing muscles and make the footage await exactly like you want it to, you accept maximum flexibility.
Battery
Using Canon LP-E6 batteries, information technology shouldn't be too costly to pick up a few extra for shoots - and boy volition y'all need them. The quoted 50-minutes of battery life out of a single accuse was very optimistic, with existent globe results closer to 35-40 mins.
This isn't surprising, not simply does the Pocket Cinema Photographic camera accept a giant screen to power, it's besides got a air vents to keep things cool - and even then, it gets hot.
With such massive power drains, if you're doing whatever studio based piece of work, nosotros'd recommend stumping upwards for a 2-pivot DC connector. As for on location shoots, packing in backlog of ten batteries wouldn't be a bad idea.
In addition, and probably the most unforgivable thing about the Pocket Movie theatre Camera 4K - information technology can die without alert. You tin exist on a shoot, happily filming with what looks similar a quarter of the bombardment meter full, just to have the camera power down and take the footage yous were capturing with it. This should be addressable in a software update, and we really hope Blackmagic is able to practise something about it.
Some other consideration, especially for anyone coming from systems with more than aggressive compression like Catechism's photography line is storage. We were lucky enough to be using lighting fast, very bonny Angelbird storage in the form of a 256GB CFast carte, a 64GB SD bill of fare and a 512GB SSD for USB-C recording, and information technology worked flawlessly with the Pocket Movie house Camera 4K, making brusque piece of work of getting the files off the photographic camera and onto a calculator.
All that kit costs around $1,035 ($800), a reasonable amount for a pro or fifty-fifty an enthusiast, just not for someone on a budget.
With 4K CinemaDNG RAW recording at 272 MB/south and ProRes 422HQ recording at 117.88MB/s, you will want a lot of storage media, even for short projects. Getting specific, a 256GB menu will capture 14 minutes of 30fps raw footage.
DaVinci Resolve
What's unique nigh Blackmagic is that the company makes hardware and industry recognised video editing software, with DaVinci Resolve, an industry favourite tool delivering an feel that rivals Premiere Pro, and beats information technology for many filmmakers.
Shipping with a license for DaVinci Resolve Studio, a $299 (£239) slice of software that gives you 4K editing makes the Pocket Cinema Camera incredibly highly-seasoned to amateur enthusiasts and commencement time film camera buyers.
That means that if you accept a computer, a lens and storage media, you tin option upwards the Pocket Cinema Photographic camera 4K and not accept to spend a penny more to become creating stunning 4K content - that'south actually unique to this production, democratising pro-class video like never before.
Verdict
There'south no getting around it, the BlackMagic Pocket Cinema photographic camera isn't perfect - it doesn't accept an articulating screen, the bombardment meter isn't always reliable and battery life isn't neat generally. While that all matters though, information technology'due south as well very piece of cake to cut it a lot of slack.
The value for money this film camera delivers is unrivalled. Despite not articulating, the huge xvi:9 screen puts information technology head and shoulders above other MFT shooters from a video-axial operational indicate of view. The range of connections on-lath is also class-leading, and the fact there'due south a dual card slot trumps much pricier cameras similar the EOS R.
With the UI being so moving-picture show-focused, an excellent option of glass available from launch, decent on-lath audio recording capabilities and of course, the sweetener to the tune of $299 worth of software - a license for DaVinci Resolve Studio, it really is a souvenir that keeps on giving.
Finally, and most importantly, the primal quality of its 4K video takes on much pricier cameras and, when you know how to work it, handles dissonance meliorate than some total frame sensors as well, thanks to its the dual native ISOs.
So, without being an apologist for its flaws, they are overshadowed by more pros than we would ever have expected from a $ane,295 / £ane,034 pro-grade moving-picture show camera.
- Best 4K camera: 10 peak cameras to shoot movies with
Source: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/blackmagic-pocket-cinema-camera-4k
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