Hands-on with the Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera
There's been a lot written about the forthcoming Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera--mostly by those in forums who haven't handled it. As of May, there were just three models in the U.S. I got my hands on one to see how it works.
The Menus
The menu system on the Pocket Cinema Camera is simple and intuitive. There are not a lot of settings to get into because there are not a lot of settings beyond those one might find on a consumer or prosumer DSLR.
This is a purpose-built camera that shoots in two different formats: CinemaDNG and ProRes. That's it. The concept is to capture as much as possible from the sensor and preserve it as much as possible, so there are no color adjustments, no LUTs, no gamma, KNEE, gain, and so on. Set your ISO and your lens and go shoot (Figure 7, below).
Figure 7. Zebra stripes on the Pocket Cinema Camera
This means that there are not pages and pages of menu settings to delve through. There's a single screen of menu settings that you walk through using the four-way navigation on the camera itself. You can easily change what you need to change without having to hunt for anything.
Audio
I wasn’t able to take away any footage from the Pocket Cinema Camera so I wasn’t able to test the audio, but I hope the audio portion of this camera proves as high quality as the video, because I like to record audio in camera, and attaching yet more gear to such a small camera may end up being more cumbersome than it’s worth.
The version of the camera I handled offered little audio control, and no metering or adjustability while recording. So recording audio separately may still be the wisest thing to do for now.
Pricing
At $999, this camera is poised to steal buyers away from DSLRs. Even though many Canon EOS cameras can now access RAW by using third-party software on their cameras, it is not the same as a purpose-built tool.
That said, the need for true RAW recording is not as great as you may think. It's a nice buzzword, but it means much larger files and more work in post than shooting ProRes, which delivers similar quality with a much more efficient codec and workflow.
Conversely, the S16mm-sized sensor most definitely does not give you the same look as an APS-C or full-frame sensor. Those looking for the shallow depth of field and milky goodness associated with DSLRs will likely still gravitate to the larger-sensor cameras.
The focus peaking on the Pocket Cinema Camera clearly demonstrated that any shallow depth of field you have when zoomed in basically vanishes when zoomed out. The active image gathering area of the Pocket Cinema Camera is smaller than micro four-thirds. The actual active sensor area is a super 16 millimeter-sized portion of the micro four-thirds chip. But for less than the price of a good DSLR, the Pocket Cinema Camera is able to record both cinema DNG files or ProRes video clips with high-bit depth for excellent gradeability in post.
I have a particular interest in the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera because the price for this amazing little piece of gear is exactly the price I paid for my Panasonic GH2 DSLR. Now, admittedly, I also got a lens, and a tilt/swivel screen, and I am able to shoot beautiful still photographs, with a built in flash, but the Pocket Cinema Camera will produce a video that far exceeds the quality of the video from the GH2, especially with regard to gradeability and the color depth of the captured footage. These are limiting factors of most DSLRs, and especially those that use heavily compressed longGOP codecs.
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