Raw has arrived for Pocket Cam

[Jeff Troiano]

Blackmagic has released a new firmware for the Pocket Camera. It adds lossless CinemaDNG Raw. I'm downloading as I type this.

[Jay Bratcher]

I'm surprised there is not more response...

Personally, I am pretty happy with the upgrade. My 64 GB 80 mb/sec cards seem to be holding up to the codec so far, but I have not shot more than about a minute of footage at a time. I really like the editing options though - the raw footage is so much easier to work with than the ProRes 422. Hoping to do some more testing over the next couple of days, and if all works well, I will shoot a band with raw on Friday :)

[Jeff Troiano]

Yeah, was very happy when Adobe added support for raw footage inside premiere. Now I don't have to create proxies to edit.

[Jeff Troiano]

Found this.

ProRes vs 12-bit RAW - BMPCC on Vimeo

[Bill Bruner]

And this:

First raw video from Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera on Vimeo

[Bill Bruner]

Originally Posted by Jay Bratcher

I'm surprised there is not more response...

It's still an 8 bit world :)

[Prech Marton]

With strange color moire :(

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Jay Bratcher

I'm surprised there is not more response...

Everybody is busy shooting in their living room trying to get a video up with the title "first" or "prores vs raw" or "test" :) In my Vimeo account I am following some channels from the pocket cam and the panasonic gh3, I"m still waiting for a video that will blow my socks of with the pocket cam while I have seen plenty from an 8 bit gh3 camera that made me say "wow". Lets see if the raw implementation will make a change.

[John McCully]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

Lets see if the raw implementation will make a change.

Don't hold your breath. It's a bald man trying to find a comb! Still a pig of a device to work with, for me that is. Nice image both ProRes and RAW (I downloaded the new firmware and shot a few clips outdoors) but nothing to write home about. It’s back in its box, for now.

To be fair I have no doubt there are folks who will thoroughly enjoy working with RAW in DaVinci Resolve with that in itself being the reward. Good for them I say and far be it from me to poo poo their desire. For me being out and about shooting is where the action is and the rewards of working in post are much lessor. I'm happy to let the on-board processor do the bulk of the grunt and just fine-tune at the keyboard.

To each their own.

[Noa Put]

Well, actually I have seen some pocketcam videos that looked really good, not jaw dropping good like I have seen from it's larger brother but good, only percentagewise what's being posted it's just a realy small part that looks good and a very large part that sometimes looks worse then what my 550d would produce. I think with "raw" we"ll see even more footage that's as flat as a pancake due to lack of any colour, it's all hidden in there but seems so hard to get out. I still would like to use one for a day, and if possible shoot in raw to see what I could do with it.

[Mark Rosenzweig]

I think this video begins to show the capabilities of the BMPC in RAW (not mine):

A Moment in Zion on Vimeo

These shots show the dynamic range, resolution, and have (gasp!) color.

[Jay Bratcher]

I'm not sure what qualifies for jaw dropping footage. I've seen a pretty good short that was shot on the BMPCC, but certainly nothing posted so far in this thread qualifies as jaw dropping.

In my experience, nice images are the result of lighting - that was why Francis Ford Coppola stated that the footage from the GH2 was so film-like in the second Zacuto shootout. Yeah, it's a camera capable of producing nice images, but the team that shot with that camera knew what they were up against, and consequently put a lot of effort into lighting to get the best results. Each team chose the lighting for their shoot - so in some regards, it was not a fair comparison of the cameras - rather, it was a fair test of how well each team knew their camera, and could light the set accordingly.

Anyway - the impressive footage will come. It's a tricky little beast - there is no in-camera processing to control blown highlights or boost midtones. Blacks are not crushed, you get no options for contrast or saturation, and the camera makes no adjustments for you. That is not necessarily a good thing - I am very capable of screwing up shots, even with a camera that is more forgiving :) My first attempt is mediocre at best - this is not the camera for shooting bands in a poorly lit barroom. I still see potential though - it's just going to take more effort on my part to get the most of the camera.

Heh - I started posting this just before Mark's post - that is actually quite a bit better than the other footage in this thread :)

[John McCully]

Yes, I too have seen nice footage, some of my recent shoots included (he modestly said), but it takes a lot to drop my jaw these days. I don’t find it ‘hard’ to get the colour out, just a bit tedious. The ‘flat as a pancake’ thing is not so much the camera, and not even the camera operator, but rather the person at the keyboard doing the post work. Not everyone is a capable colorist, me included, and to do justice to the footage delivered by the Pocket, and its bigger brother, one needs some skills in that department, and time, lots of time to really get it better than perfect. In my opinion it obeys the law of diminishing returns; the last infinitesimal improvement take a disproportional amount of effort to secure.

However, to repeat myself I find the image nice to very nice, ProRes and RAW, and perhaps RAW is slightly nicer. And when an inexpensive EVF arrives on the scene, as it likely shall, converting a pig into almost a little gem then I might pull it out of the closet, yet again.

[Mark Rosenzweig]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

Well, actually I have seen some pocketcam videos that looked really good, not jaw dropping good like I have seen from it's larger brother but good, only percentagewise what's being posted it's just a realy small part that looks good and a very large part that sometimes looks worse then what my 550d would produce. I think with "raw" we"ll see even more footage that's as flat as a pancake due to lack of any colour, it's all hidden in there but seems so hard to get out. I still would like to use one for a day, and if possible shoot in raw to see what I could do with it.

I agree that most of the posted BMPC videos from Pro Res have been downright embarrassing. But I don't agree that now with RAW getting the color out is harder. In fact, I think the problem is in the Pro Res log stuff. Getting color out of RAW dngs is completely different, and should be the same as getting color out of any RAW file still file, which many people have been doing for years; this is exactly the same.

I have experience with Canon EOS M RAW still and video files (Magic Lantern) using Lightroom to pull out the color, and the results are fine (accurate to real life), just like processing the still RAWs. I could not for the life of me, however, get the original BMPC Pro Res files I downloaded to give me colors that resembled anything on this earth (using Vegas Pro).

I will be trying out the BMPC exclusively using RAW.

[Jay Bratcher]

Ha - I just watched the one that Bill posted - that was very good too! I'm partial though - I've only been to Detroit once, and spent a week in that part of town on business. Had a blast despite all the warnings I received about going to Detroit :)