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Tag: bmpc

13 April 2015

Blackmagic at NAB: Mini to Micro, Down to the Details

Written by Paul Moon

Seeming like they skipped a year, Blackmagic Design stole the show at NAB 2015, which kicked off today with their press conference (and a few strung spoiler banners the night before), announcing new cameras that aim to be as revolutionary as their Pocket Cinema Camera and their flagship wedge thingie you couldn’t hand-hold. Countless blog posts/Tweets/Facebook posts have reported on the basic specs already; and now, away from that frenzy of the convention floor, it’s time to process it all. In no particular order, this write-up tries to fill the gaps (not wasting your time with what’s already been said, at the usual bigger sources).

micro-cinema-connectionsTHERE’S NO DISPLAY ON THE MICRO CAMERAS
Gotta start with this: I hope everyone realizes, the Micro cams do not have any integrated display! I’ve seen a ton of coverage today, but the issue never came up (as an “obvious” matter, yet still). It’s no small thing, because the Micro Cinema and Studio cameras are getting launched with presumptions about you: that you’ve already got an external monitor to hook in, and/or you’ve got a switcher/wireless transmitter to feed the camera signal somewhere else for monitoring/recording. The Micro Cinema Camera records internally to SD card media, while the Micro Studio Camera doesn’t — yet the lowest common denominator is that you still need a monitor/viewfinder: to pull focus, frame your shot, adjust exposure, etc. How will this play out during a shoot? Well, I’ve got an Atomos Shogun, and I could see myself temporarily plugging it into the Micro Cinema Camera to get everything set at a B-camera location, then re-mount the Shogun onto my A-camera before everything starts rolling. Or, I could pair the Shogun with the Micro Studio Camera on a brushless motorized gimbal stabilizer. But I could also see myself being in too much of a hurry for all that, and resorting to my trusty old Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera which is an all-in-one solution. It depends. But these new Micro cams aren’t out-of-the-box ready for shooting, that’s for sure.

BMMCC SensorIT’S UNCLEAR HOW THE NEW MICRO SENSORS WILL PERFORM
Blackmagic has conversationally alluded to the Micro Cinema sensor being a little better than the Pocket Cinema sensor. The big difference is adding global shutter, which eliminates a jello effect during shaky motion, at frame rates up to 30p. But the old and new sensors are spec’ed at the same dynamic range of 13 stops, which implies that low-light sensitivity won’t be much improved. And when we’re talking about the Micro Studio sensor, since it shoots in Ultra-HD, you’ve gotta think there are compromises by jamming more resolution into a sensor that’s just one-half millimeter wider than the Pocket/Micro Cinema Camera’s Super 16mm sensor. As I understand things, Blackmagic has previously offered 4K resolution in a Super 35mm sensor size (the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K, and the original URSA), and could only manage a natural ISO of 400 — after that, the rest is noise. Ultra-HD squeezed into the Micro sensor will be even less low-light sensitive at a natural ISO of merely 200. And what about aliasing artifacts when down-sampling to 1080p? Am I missing something?

URSA Mini Rig

BLACKMAGIC IS GETTING EXPENSIVE, AND YOU’VE GOTTA “RED-UP” TO GET THE URSA MINI ROLLING
When I say RED-up, most of you know what I mean. After all their testosterone about starting an indie revolution, RED cameras cost more than double the body price (not even talking about lenses yet) when you factor in media costs, batteries, necessary adapters, proprietary accessories and so on. The RED-ification of Blackmagic is underway with this sorta pricey URSA Mini, though you’ll still hear their talking point that it’s “modular.” Firstly, unlike, say, the PXW-FS7, you have to buy a $1.5k viewfinder to fulfill the whole point of the URSA Mini’s form factor — not so on the Sony. As for getting power (which is kinda necessary), you get nothing out-of-the-box other than a DC power input. If you want to mount a VLock battery, you’re out another hundred bucks. Next, just to mount the camera on your shoulder, you’ll need to buy a shoulder kit for four hundred bucks — and while you get a top handle too, there’s no mention of the extender that Blackmagic themselves said is included, necessary to finish off shoulder mounting with the original handgrip in its right place. We’re up to $7k at a minimum (you want that new 4.6k sensor, thinking of the negative reviews on last year’s 400 ISO URSA 4k sensor being re-purposed for the cheapest Mini now); and that’s before getting overpriced, mandatory CFast 2.0 cards which cost about $1k for 256gb of media (pretty limited space for high-bitrate UHD capture). From my perspective, it’s $10k for a minimum shooting package. Sure, that’s cheaper than what Canon and RED offer, but it ain’t no indie revolution. Blackmagic is getting expensive.

LENSES ON THE EF-MOUNT URSA MINI WILL BE COMPROMISED
Blackmagic went with the Canon EF lens mount on their new URSA Mini (PL too, if you’re in that rare elite class of five-digit lenses), rather than Micro Four Thirds. Filmmaking “professionals” are trigger-happy with the notion that auto-focus is evil, but sometimes it helps in a pinch (documentary running-and-gunning, flying on gimbals, etc.). Blackmagic has never accommodated auto-focus, and probably never will — the URSA Mini is no exception. Also, most Canon EF-mount lenses require electronic aperture control (or bust), and while that’s in the URSA Mini specs, it’s no sure thing. Lens incompatibilities with non-Canon bodies are notorious (ask Metabones), and no one ever mentions the image stabilization factor which doesn’t go away just because you mount a camera on your shoulder: and, to the extent a Canon lens actually offers I.S., compatibility with the URSA Mini is a lens-by-lens question. I would have preferred an active Micro Four Thirds mount, like Blackmagic uses on their Pocket and Micro Cinema Cameras, but those lenses aren’t big enough to cover the URSA Mini’s Super 35mm sensor. And hell will freeze over before anyone other than Sony uses E-mount. Basically, we can expect to see lots of shaky footage with shallow focus hunting on the URSA Mini, because of this lens format compromise.

CONCLUSION (FOR NOW)
Does this all sound negative? Embarrassed disclosure: I leapt today the first chance I could, and pre-ordered all three. I see myself deprecating my beloved low-light workhorse A-cam at last, the Sony NEX-FS100, with this new URSA Mini whenever it arrives (not holding my breath for July). And, adding a second camera location with a matching look, I’ll plunk down a Micro Cinema Camera (maybe pairing it with the auxiliary new Video Assist monitor). And when I’m Steadicam-ing around with my CAME-TV 7800 gimbal, I’ll mount a Micro Studio Camera there for UHD capture, with my Atomos Shogun strapped to the top bar as usual for monitoring and recording. That said, all these issues bum me out. It was a good day for NAB razzle-dazzle, an OK day for indie filmmakers, and a bad day for bank accounts.

PRE-ORDER ROUND-UP
Blackmagic URSA Mini 4.6k Cinema Camera (EF-mount) ($4,995 delivered end of July 2015)
Blackmagic URSA Mini 4k Cinema Camera (EF-mount) ($2,995 delivered end of July 2015)
Blackmagic URSA Viewfinder
Blackmagic URSA Mini Shoulder Kit
Blackmagic URSA Mini V-Lock Battery Plate

Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera ($995 delivered mid-July 2015)
Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K ($1295 delivered mid-July 2015)

Blackmagic Video Assist monitor/recorder ($495 delivered mid-July 2015)

BLACKMAGIC CINEMA CAMERA USER GROUP
You’re welcomed as always to join the User Group at Vimeo, on Facebook, on Twitter, and rounded up here at this site. Thanks for continuing to share your footage and interacting with this community.

April 13, 2015 Blackmagic Cinema Cameras, FocusPulling Original blackmagic, blackmagic micro cinema camera, blackmagic micro studio camera, blackmagic ursa, blackmagic ursa mini, bm4k, bmcc, bmmcc, bmmsc, bmpc, bmpcc, ursa, ursa mini 4 Comments
24 December 2014

HIGHSTEP | Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera on Filmpower Nebula 4000 Lite Stabilizer

Written by Paul Moon

HIGHSTEP is an encounter on the beach with rock climbers honing their craft and hanging out with friends. I was home for the holidays in Orange County, off to the tidal basin at Corona del Mar with my nephew to try out the new Filmpower Nebula 4000 Lite 3-axis brushless motorized gimbal stabilizer. Always on the lookout for character subjects, I ran into these climbers, and their friendly enthusiasm was the real thing. This video owes completely to their casual kindness: it was serendipitous to meet them, and to come up with this unplanned film within an hour on December 22, 2014.

No less, I caught some beautiful light flares from the setting sun that you just can’t stage. And I thought the stabilizer brought a revolutionary new capability to this sort of simplified backpack shoot, for total elegance of movement equivalent to large-scale productions that require hours of setup time with dolly tracks and jibs. That’s the essence of this small camera revolution: it’s been only a year since we got 10-bit 4:2:2 RAW capture in a film log color space at such a tiny profile in the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera (BMPCC). It’s the perfect match for the Nebula 4000: flying past online nerd fights (you wouldn’t believe) over firmware tuning and PID settings, it’s buttery smooth right out of the flight case after just a few minutes of physical balancing. I could have pushed the weight limits, mounting a Panasonic GH4, but then would have needed to hook up a heavy Atomos Shogun for capturing video quality equivalent to the BMPCC, defeating the purpose of the Nebula 4000’s miniature freedom of movement.

I am grateful to Moby for permission to use his cerebral tune “Look Back In,” while Silent Partner rounds things out with their aggressive “Armadillo.” Thanks to my nephew Aaron Richter for assisting on camera and pulling together the music. Thanks also to Filmpower for creating the Nebula 4000 Lite. And mostly, thanks to the climbers in this film for their inspiration.

For a quick look behind-the-scenes from this shoot, here’s the photo album from Flickr:

December 24, 2014 Blackmagic Cinema Cameras, FocusPulling Original Video 3-axis gimbal, blackmagic, blackmagic pocket, bmpc, bmpcc, brushless, cliff, climbers, climbing, corona del mar, filmpower, highstep, nebula 4000, nebula 4000 lite, stabilizer 1 Comment
12 December 2014

Moonicam: When a Snorricam Says No to GoPro

Written by Paul Moon

Although you can mount a GoPro on a helmet and turn it around to point at your face, the video quality on a GoPro is inadequate for anything serious. Not that this is serious.

But I just worked on a shoot that needed to play game at multiplexes, and big screens need clarity. What you’ll see in this video is a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera and Rokinon 7.5mm prime lens (while my surrounding how-to is shot on a Panasonic GH4). The articulating arm that I mention is a Kamerar 11-inch Tough Friction Arm. It stays out of the frame, but there’s no getting rid of the helmet without aiming the camera severely downward. So, point: SnorriCam, though it wasn’t a problem for this skateboarding shoot with helmets anyway.

I was surprised by the image stabilization of my own head, without having the benefit of any gimbal or active lens (and without me being some kind of half-fowl mutation, thinking of that viral clip shown here of SmarterEveryDay’s “chicken-powered steadicam”). To get the shots I was brought in for, I got tempted to go down the SnorriCam route that starts off this video; but my scene didn’t call for stability that’s locked onto the torso – instead, the head. I’m pretty stoked at how the gizmo worked out. Yet this commentary ends with a reflection on how Hollywood is a helluva lot different from indie filmmaking, and I’ll be writing more about that later at the blog.

Big thanks to the friendly experts at the under-wraps studio production, especially Julio Macat, A.S.C., Max Macat and Jeremy Hays. And of course, Dad. Music is “A Freak” by Moby, licensed via mobygratis.com.

[NOTE: If you make one of these, proceed carefully, at your own risk. You are responsible for taking extra precautions on account of the additional mass created by any head-mounted rig.]

December 12, 2014 Blackmagic Cinema Cameras, FocusPulling Original Video articulating arm, blackmagic, blackmagic pocket, bmpc, bmpcc, diy, gh4, gopro, helmet, helmet cam, helmet camera, kamerar, moonicam, pov, rokinon, snoricam, snorricam Leave a Comment
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