Black Magic Pocket Camera

[Arthur Gannis]

Them B4 zooms look enticing, after all they were designed for 2/3 inch 3 CCD sensors on Betacams and such. I read an article that they were optimized for the 3 chip prismatic setup ( RGB) and would not be well suited for flat plane single sensor. I don't know about that as I never tried one on any other cam. Them lenses come a dime a dozen on eBay and were originally in the thousands when they were available back then. I am sure a B4 adapter mount is available but will the lens cover the entire sensor on the pocket cam without vignetting or sharpness issues ? when they say 16mm , I imagine that is the diagonal dimension, therefore a 2/3 inch sensor (s ) is equivalent to 16.914 mm. diagonal. Awful close. Just a mm. If that is the case, perhaps the darkened perimeter can be cropped out. Just wondering.

[Bill Bruner]

Hi Arthur,

With a 2X extender, these lenses do a great job with a flat plane micro 4/3 sensor. Here is an example:

Star Studded Panasonic GH3 with Canon B4 2/3" Lens on Vimeo

Camera:

Panasonic GH3

 

Panasonic GH3

Lens: Canon YJ 18x plus 2X extender

Adapter: B4 to micro 4/3 adapter from Ceico7 on eBay

The lens has a star filter on it, and there was some sharpening in post. I did not shoot this, so please direct questions to Gan Eden Video, and not me :)

Cheers,

Bill
Hybrid Camera Revolution

[Arthur Gannis]

I have read mixed opinions about the 2/3 inch B4 lenses adapted on the MICRO 4/3 rds sensor. Some say it just clears the super 16 sensor, others say it does not. The ones who say it does not are those that have that `Panasonic GH2 sensor. The GH2 sensor is much larger than the super 16 by a large margin. Perhaps they are referring to that. Anyway the 2/3 inch sensor wether measured as 2/3 inch horizontally or diagonally does seem to fit in with the super 16 size as 2/3 inch is in my calculations is 16.93 mm. now if that is measures as horizontally, then it would fit the super 16 sensor's 12mm spec'd horizontal dimension.
Unless either the 2/3 inch is a rough estimation and is actually much smaller. or that super 16 size is larger than 16mm.How really is that super 16 measured, horizontally or diagonally ? regardless, it should fit within the 16.93 dimension of the 2/3 rd optics. Something I'm missing here ?
.

[Arthur Gannis]

17.3 X 13mm is the GH3's sensor. I can easily understand the B4 2/3 image size ( without extender) will NOT cover that.The BM pocket camera's sensor is much smaller at 12mm horizontal dimension, so it will fit, yes, no ??

[Josh Bass]

so guys, what do you think, total cost to have a shootable cam here (couple zoom lenses covering a reasonable range, batteries/power, media, bag, etc.)?

[Note Suwanchote]

Im the person whos crazy enough to use a BMC for weddings

I preordered the BM Pocket and will probably get 2 for my 2 other shooters

the BMC DR + dnxhd/prores + $180 battery lasts for ~7.5 hours.
$280 for 480gb ssd or 2x 240gb lasts about 5-6 hours of footage--maybe a little bit more

I do admit that the videos listed on my vimeo really suck--the BMC ones are spectacular though and yes there are shots you cannot achieve easily on other cameras

for the BMC Pocket I'm venturing to say these are the items needed:
Pocket Cam itself
Spare nikon batteries
EF/Nikon adapters, MFT lenses maybe--definitely if you like IS or AF
Viewfinder
SD cards + spares
Rig if you want
Steadicam if you want

[Arthur Gannis]

A rig with a LANC controller on the handgrip is what I'm after. That controls the zoom and pause/rec function would be awesome. I have an old Sony bracket that came with that grip controller and will just use that handgrip on a modern bracket. The pocket BM does accept LANC. Great. I am awaiting a custom made LED light just for it. Hope when July comes, so does the camera.

[Arthur Gannis]

Can any one confirm if a B4 2/3 inch lens such as a Canon or Fujinon ENG type will cover the super 16 sensor without vignetting and without using a 2X extender/converter ? I am NOT talking about covering the micro 4/3 sensor or the BMCC sensor. I have read mixed opinions on this and would like to know for sure.

[Arthur Gannis]

Thanks everyone. I got it all figured out.
Image sensor format - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Kevin Duffey]

Can someone explain to me why using prores (or even RAW when it comes) is a much harder workflow? If premiere supports prores (and next update DnxHD) directly, why is it harder to work with? Is it the file size? I am working on a "cheap" 8-core AMD 8350 with 32GB 2133 ram, W5000 workstation graphics card, SSD boot and external SSD (using the only 6gps esata dock that gives as fast speeds to external dock mounted drives as if they were internal). I would think that my machine should be plenty powerful enough to edit a large set of prores/dnxhd (and possibly raw) footage?

One thing I am not quite clear on with my workflow.. right now I am stuck with my t2i and it's format, and after editing, I am basically adding more compression when rendering out a file. It still looks "ok" but no where near as nice as the good cameras. I was hoping that I could "assemble" various clips into one clip and save it, without adding any more compression by re-rendering it, to the same format. I take it this isn't possible?

Likewise, with RAW (or pro-res or dnxhd) footage, can I edit the footage and save the edited clips as RAW with no compression added still.. so that I could say give all the clips to someone else to assemble, or myself I could then gather all the edited clips into a new project and assemble? My question being, is there any way to ensure that during the editing process.. until you're ready for the final output? I don't want to keep rendering already compressed footage of any kind, thus adding multiple rendering steps and worsening the quality. I would typically import and edit the clips (sync audio, adjust in/out points, etc) as I shoot footage, say each day, then come back and assemble the story, documentary, etc with the ready to go clips and render just once the final output format.

[Daniel Latimer]

Originally Posted by Kevin Duffey

Can someone explain to me why using prores (or even RAW when it comes) is a much harder workflow? If premiere supports prores (and next update DnxHD) directly, why is it harder to work with? Is it the file size?

From my understanding Prores would not be a huge change in workflow since you're coming from a DSLR workflow. The files will be bigger. The biggest difference is that it will shoot really flat (which you may be doing in your DSLR anyway) and will have to colorgrade everything.

If you utilize raw then your workflow will change. RAW cannot be played in Premiere and even if it could it would take a beast of a machine to play them. It also doesn't bake in information (like white balance) so this while this will give you flexibility in post it will require you to color balance in post.

You'll probably have to convert all of the RAW files to Prores or something more editable. The file size are also huge so you'll need more hard drive space.

Of course there are a lot of benefits and the potential has a lot of upside.

[Jason McDonald]

I've heard that the RAW files may come warpped in a QT container allowing them to be brought into any of the current NLEs. If not, open in Lightroom, edit your first frame, then apply the same edit to all the frames.