BlackMagic Full-Frame 6K pocket cinema camera

Bob Loblaw said:
Sony doesn’t own eND. Panasonic has a new patent for an internal eND for their mirrorless cameras.

https://ymcinema.com/2023/08/24/pana...nic-nd-filter/
Click to expand...

i'm not an engineer, so I could be wrong, but it doesn't appear to be continuously variable ND where the opacity can be adjusted like the dimmer on a light to get just the right fraction of ND necessary to hit the desired exposure. That's how Sony's EVND works. The Panasonic version seems more like a traditional filter wheel with preset densities -- but without the wheel. Yes, it is variable because you can choose different preset densities, but not like Sony' dimmer method, which is super convenient. Am I reading it wrong?
 
eND is really just an LCD screen that is being dimmed.

The downside is that they typically have at least 1 stop as the most open position and get darker from there.

The Panasonic one linked seems to have a mechanical clear filter that moves and is replaced by the eND which presumably starts at 1 stop.

As has been discussed before, eND is very convenient but can have some purity issues in certain situations.

Venice 2 does not have eND for example.
 
Doug Bee said:
eND is really just an LCD screen that is being dimmed
Click to expand...

Yes, that is why it is called "electronic" ND.

Again, I might be wrongly interpreting the Panasonic schematics, but it appears to me that the only "electronic" aspect of the design is that the mechanism to move the filters is activated by servo instead of the operator physically rotating a filter wheel. In my book, that does not make it an "electronic" ND if the opacity cannot be varied between a couple of pre-defined densities. But maybe I'm missing something. Somebody please correct me if the Panasonic is truly electronic.

The Sony EVND starts at 2-stops, which is not ideal, but once you get over that hump the ability to fine-tune the exposure, like turning the dimmer on a light, is invaluable. The problem with traditional ND filter wheels is that one setting is too much and the next isn't enough so you end up having to stop-down the lens to get the right exposure. With EVND you can use any f-stop you want -- once you get above the 2-stop hump. Obviously it would be ideal to have the ND start at 0-stops, but until that is possible I'll take the infinitely variable EVND over regular ND filters any day.

I've owned four Sony cameras with EVND and still own two of them. Once you have used them there is no going back.
 
Tom Roper said:
Talking about legacy cameras anecdotally may not apply but IBIS did not play nice with my GH5 on the gimbal with wide angle lenses. In fact, it ruined some important wedding b-roll with corner wobble. On the other hand, IBIS made for some great shots with normal lenses on the basic hand-held body.
Click to expand...

Doesn't that just have to do with the focal length (and how the camera handles it) rather than being on gimbal?
 
scorsesefan said:
I almost clicked the buy button on the 6k cinema camera, but besides the Arri like look there isn't much more to like about this camera. For instance lack of IS, internal ND, the form factor. With the rolling shutter on this cam I would be afraid to even pan or shoot any action. And then there's the lack of AF. Red is now implementing face tracking AF in their cinema cameras: https://ymcinema.com/2023/09/28/red-v-raptor-goes-face-tracking-auto-focus/?expand_article=1 I just don't get why BM doesn't see the need to implement things that shooters want on their cams...
Click to expand...

I don't think the rolling shutter is that bad. At least comparing it to other cameras I've used with the same readout speed. It will probably rarely be an issue.

And hey at least they're finally using an OLPF!

I don't know if they plan to implement more advanced AF but they just moved to a new lens mount with this release. Maybe they'll be able to work with L mount stuff going forward but I don't know if they would have been able to bring over development they had done with a different mount. AF is complicated. When RED started programming it, they worked on EF and RF mount protocols separately and one at a time.
 
scorsesefan said:
Yes my a7siii is definitely a beast. But even with Sony’s vastly improved color science there’s something cold and video-like about their aesthetic compared to BM and Red. I think it’s the color science but also the motion cadence…
Click to expand...

And/or the crazy amount of noise reduction
 
NorBro said:
yeah, a combination of all of that; cs, dr, motion, RAW, unsharpened, processing, post-production, lighting at times.

we all chased it for years, maybe decades, and some cameras just have that certain look more easily than others.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't necessarily judge the 6K camera by the promotional footage. Brawley shot it and obviously he knows what he's doing and has great lighting, etc. And I think all the set-ups used lens filtration except the nighttime exterior that was testing low-light performance.
 
ahalpert said:
Doesn't that just have to do with the focal length (and how the camera handles it) rather than being on gimbal?
Click to expand...

You're probably right. I never put the GH5 on the gimbal after that. The GH5S doesn't have IBIS. I've used it many times on that gimbal, works great.
 
ahalpert said:
I wouldn't necessarily judge the 6K camera by the promotional footage. Brawley shot it and obviously he knows what he's doing and has great lighting, etc. And I think all the set-ups used lens filtration except the nighttime exterior that was testing low-light performance.
Click to expand...

I think we need to see some "practical" real world footage from this cam. Not seasoned DPs like Brawley shooting under extremely controlled conditions. Once this hits hands in mid-Oct we should see a variety of footage...
 
ahalpert said:
I wouldn't necessarily judge the 6K camera by the promotional footage. Brawley shot it and obviously he knows what he's doing and has great lighting, etc. And I think all the set-ups used lens filtration except the nighttime exterior that was testing low-light performance.
Click to expand...

i actually didn't watch any, all of those words were about how cameras, in general, are judged...p.s. you LOVE JB, lol - where is he these days?
 
Doug Jensen said:
i'm not an engineer, so I could be wrong, but it doesn't appear to be continuously variable ND where the opacity can be adjusted like the dimmer on a light to get just the right fraction of ND necessary to hit the desired exposure. That's how Sony's EVND works. The Panasonic version seems more like a traditional filter wheel with preset densities -- but without the wheel. Yes, it is variable because you can choose different preset densities, but not like Sony' dimmer method, which is super convenient. Am I reading it wrong?
Click to expand...

It shows that it has two filters, and one of those filters is a liquid crystal eND. Liquid crystal eND filters are dimmed by voltage changes, which is similar to what Sony uses. Here is a quote from the patent:

“In the case of the present embodiment, the first optical filter 26 is an electronic ND filter such as a liquid crystal filter whose light transmittance can be changed. The light transmittance of the first optical filter 26 is changed by changing the driving voltage applied to the first optical filter 26. The second optical filter 30 is a filter such as glass, whose light transmittance cannot be changed, that is, the light transmittance is fixed.”
 
NorBro said:
i actually didn't watch any, all of those words were about how cameras, in general, are judged...p.s. you LOVE JB, lol - where is he these days?
Click to expand...

I respect Brawley, and he's a nice guy to boot. Not sure what he's working on these days. On IMDB it looks like he had a miniseries called The Thing About Pam play on NBC recently, among other things. And an upcoming show called Bad Monkey with Vince Vaughn produced for Apple TV+ although who knows how the strikes have affected that. I chat with him occasionally on Facebook but I don't use Facebook anymore so I really only sign in to ask his opinion of something.

I saw this article about the BM 6K camera tests on Newsshooter based on a dialogue with Brawley: https://www.newsshooter.com/2023/09...me-camera-test-footage-available-to-download/

At one point, Brawley is quoted saying

With this shot I used the Zeiss Supreme naked with no filtering whatsoever. When you are trying to shoot in low light, it’s not simply a matter of shooting wide open. What you really want is high contrast between the darkness and the lights that are on in the frame.
Click to expand...

Sort of implies that his other shots use filtration, and I remember him talking about his fondness for Black Frost among others on The Great.

On another shot he says

This shot was actually quite late at night. And so I had Jessica Clark-Nash with me, who actually lit this scene ahead of me while I was still working inside.
Click to expand...

Just a reminder that a talented and experienced team is shooting these camera tests. It's not that the tests are uninformative but sometimes our camera test evaluations are influenced by lighting and lens choices, etc.

Of course, we're all quite familiar with BM cameras and how they look in a variety of settings and with different people using them. I would think the only notable difference with the new one is the addition of the OLPF.
 
I watched a few clips in the last hour or so and...it's a Blackmagic camera. Looks really great, per usual, no surprise.

But I can't imagine anyone being able to tell the difference between the newest one and the oldest one (Pocket) when comparing fresh & delicious apples to apples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtMmzqoFiRI
 
Bob Loblaw said:
It shows that it has two filters, and one of those filters is a liquid crystal eND. Liquid crystal eND filters are dimmed by voltage changes, which is similar to what Sony uses. Here is a quote from the patent:

“In the case of the present embodiment, the first optical filter 26 is an electronic ND filter such as a liquid crystal filter whose light transmittance can be changed. The light transmittance of the first optical filter 26 is changed by changing the driving voltage applied to the first optical filter 26. The second optical filter 30 is a filter such as glass, whose light transmittance cannot be changed, that is, the light transmittance is fixed.”
Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification. Sounds like the Panasonic system is some sort of hybrid between fixed and variable. I wonder if you'll be able to roll sleamlessly between 2 - 7 stops with no breaks.
 
Bob Loblaw said:
It shows that it has two filters, and one of those filters is a liquid crystal eND. Liquid crystal eND filters are dimmed by voltage changes, which is similar to what Sony uses. Here is a quote from the patent:

“In the case of the present embodiment, the first optical filter 26 is an electronic ND filter such as a liquid crystal filter whose light transmittance can be changed. The light transmittance of the first optical filter 26 is changed by changing the driving voltage applied to the first optical filter 26. The second optical filter 30 is a filter such as glass, whose light transmittance cannot be changed, that is, the light transmittance is fixed.”
Click to expand...

Thinking out loud, a polarizer will filter waves in accordance with geometric orientation of the oscillation. Two polarizers in series (i.e. variable ND type filter) have no effect at 0 degrees yet block 100% at 90 degrees. In between 0 and 90 are passed traverse waves of fractional wave lengths, hence light quantity is reduced but the colors are filtered unequally as shorter fractional wavelengths are more blue. Since incident light travels with random orientations, the reductions are not treated as equals. This is the consequence of variable ND.

LCDs shutter light with rod shaped molecules that can be aligned in a direction by electric current. Put in front of a fixed 90 degree filter you get an electrically variable ND with the same problem of unequal treatment of random, incident light and color shifts.

But...

If you modulated (pulsed) full current for a fixed 90 degree orientation of the crystals instead of varying the current linearly for some lesser angle in between, then as long as the modulation frequency duty cycle was higher than the pixel readout speed, you could reduce light quantity equally without prejudice, thus solving the problem with linear variable ND filters. From a manufacturing standpoint, how close you can get to making such a design have the benefits of an ideal, perfect filter would be the consideration for whether it makes it into a Venice or an FX6.
 
Not for you slinging around Times Square! lol, j/k

But RS rarely matters for interviews, holding the camera in place, slow movements, etc.

You likely wouldn't be filming sports with it, whipping back and forth.
 
scorsesefan said:
The RS is really pronounced on the 6K FF. It's a torture test, but really not too usable? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O39tprfi078
Click to expand...

So, my Sony a7iv has a RS measured at 26.8ms by cined: https://www.cined.com/sony-a7-iv-lab-test-rolling-shutter-dynamic-range-and-latitude/

I don't frequently notice it, although I'm usually doing slow movements with it and usually on a gimbal, tripod, or slider. If I examine the footage carefully I think I can detect the influence of a slow rolling shutter but not in a way that a viewer will see.

So, I'm not crazy about the a7iv readout speed but it's certainly usable. And the 4k60 crop is obviously fine.

The BM 6k FF can shoot 36fps in 3:2 6k open gate, so the roling shutter must be 27.8 ms or faster in that mode.

If I were to buy this camera, the mode I would most commonly use is 6k 17:9 which can shoot up to 48fps and therefore has a rolling shutter of 20.8ms or faster in that mode.

So, while these are not impressive numbers, I think it's a totally usable camera. My feeling is 30+ms is a no-go for me. I'd like to have <25ms and obviously the faster the better. I think it sort of depends on how many whip pans you do. The biggest problem of course is handheld jitters. If you bump the camera then rolling shutter is going to be apparent right quick.
 
BTW just as an aside, it would be awesome if Sony let the a7iv shoot 36fps in FF. The readout speed is fast enough for it. They just can't be bothered to program it in. But I often shoot 30fps in s&q mode if I want to stay FF but slow it down even just the little it permits. 36fps would be preferable
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top