BMD 6K Pocket Cinema Camera

Tom Roper said:
At his time my manual focus ring is smooth, but I have no illusions about it. I sold my EF 24-105L F/4.0 IS first generation Canon lens years ago. Hated how the lens barrel extended downward under its own weight, the barrel distortion at 24mm, the softness at 105mm, the build quality was great. Would not be wide enough for S-35 even if I had it.

I have a Sigma 50mm HSM DG F/1.4 prime that has the crunchy focus ring. I need to send it for service.
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Everytime I rent a cine lens and shoot with it a few days, going back to the EF S 17-55 f/2.8 IS manual focusing is painful. Even my 1970s Nikon Ais have beautifully smooth cine like focusing with just the right amount of smoothness and dampening to make it easy. My only Canon still lens that has halfway decent feeling MF is the EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II. All of the others are a hot mess. This focus by wire stuff sucks, it takes something that used to be relatively easy (manually focusing a broadcast B4 or cine lens) and turns it into an exercise in futility and not being able to hit a fine focus mark to save your life, overshoot, undershot, overshoot, give up, turn on AF.
 
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Regarding the flange distance being the same on EF and EFS, was I wrong for thinking the mirror interferes with EFS lens put on EF body? If I break a mirror trying this it would bring bad luck. :happy: I know the image circle is too small, just curious.

In unrelated news, my P6K overheated and shut down after about 22 minutes when set on a table. It disrupts airflow on the bottom, was very warm. Profile was 6K 2.40:1 aspect @ 60fps, BRAW constant bitrate 5:1 compression.
 
Focal flange distance is the distance from the sensor plane to the mount plane and it's definitely the same in EF and EF-S. Now, about the mirror issues, I've never heard of any cases but won't rule them out either.
I've used both EF lenses in APS-C EF bodies and EF-S lenses (the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8) on full frame EF bodies. But I can't be sure there are no issues with specific lenses I have not tried.
 
Hey Puredrifting,What is your take on image quality of the Fuji XT3 which I do love, in comparison to say the prores of the bmpcc 6k over the image of the xt3?
 
reem12 said:
Hey Puredrifting,What is your take on image quality of the Fuji XT3 which I do love, in comparison to say the prores of the bmpcc 6k over the image of the xt3?
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Based upon what I've shot, they look pretty different. The BMD PCC 6K seems to have a smooth, neutral quality to its colors and image, more so in Prores than the 6K RAW.
The Fuji has more detail in the image, probably a bit less DR. The Fuji color science looks pretty different to my eye. As far as a purchase though, I would look at other factors like:

1. The Fuji is considerably smaller and lighter
2. The BMD is larger, heavier, and the form factor makes one handed gimbal use a mess
3. The Fuji, especially before the 3.0 FW fiasco, has much better AF capability, the BMD is pretty much a MF camera, even though you can use the slow one touch to gain original focus, but as soon as your subject or camera moves, MF.
4. Both cameras have terrible battery life, both cameras do much better with the battery grips. Both battery grips noticeably increase size, weight and bulk.
5. The Fuji is undoubtedly more robustly constructed. It feels as if I dropped my XT-3, it would get scratched, but keep on going. The BMD feels as if you dropped it, it would shatter. Simple, don't drop it but if you do...
6. The Fuji is an outstanding, world class still camera. The BMD, not so much.

I can objectively say, if the BMD form factor weren't so weirdly wide, I would like it more. With the EF 24-105mm f/4.0 IS II, it is not a small and light camera, it's quite a handful. As a small cine type camera, if you are going to shoot tripod or possibly handheld, the BMD is a player. As far as a gimbal camera, not good, the weight and balance is off and MF for gimbal use wouldnt work for me. As an all around more versatile camera, the XT-3 hands down. Also looking at value equation, I bought the XT-3 for $1,399.00, the BMD is almost double that, basically to gain RAW, 6K and Prores. I like shooting in-camera RAW but 6K is a nuisance in 2019 as far as I'm concerned and my Fuji H.265 ends up in Prores once
it's ingested into FCP X so yes, it's a bit more rendering time.

I really like both cameras, but they are so different. If you rig out a PCC6K with cage, monitor, mic, side and top handles, battery grip, etc. as a cinema camera, it's no longer small and light, but it is very capable. I agree with the other reviewers, it really is a cinema camera, terrible for VLogging, usable but not ideal for event, documentary, etc. Really quite impressive for shooting commercials, music videos, small indie film type projects though when you have a focus puller. The BMD RAW images are very nice, a dream to work with in Resolve, the XLR in is handy, it's simple, menus are the best in the business.
 
Tom Roper said:
Regarding the flange distance being the same on EF and EFS, was I wrong for thinking the mirror interferes with EFS lens put on EF body? If I break a mirror trying this it would bring bad luck. :happy: I know the image circle is too small, just curious.
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A EF-S lens is designed so it cannot be attached to a Canon EF mount camera. Supposedly the ‘S’ stands for ‘short back focus’, & the rear element of the lens extends deeper into the throat, which is useful when designing wide-angle lenses, especially zooms. AFAIK only Canon manufactures EF-S lenses.

EF-S often gets conflated with APS-C lenses. While a EF-S lens is a type of APS-C lens, a APS-C lenses with a EF mount is not a EF-S lens, & can be attached to a EF mount camera

On another note: APS-C lenses can be attached to a SpeedBooster, but unless they’re modified, EF-S lenses cannot.
 
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EF-S lenses can be used on non-Canon EF mounts.

It's only the Canon (made by Canon) full-frame EF mounts that they cannot be used on.
 
Thanks for clarifying that. Thought I’d covered it by writing ‘Canon EF mount camera’, but see where that could be missed.
 
NorBro said:
EF-S lenses can be used on non-Canon EF mounts.

It's only the Canon (made by Canon) full-frame EF mounts that they cannot be used on.
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:lipsrseal

I thought EFS could work on a full-frame EF mount if you used the mirror lock up function, but never tried this.
 
You can also modify EF-S lenses to mount them and some will not hit the mirror...it depends on the lens.

In their original state they actually won't even mount to the made-by Canon EF mounts because they have a tab that's blocking the mounting. (At least that's how it used to be. I don't know if they changed.)
 
Cameras like the BM’s and the Z’s are almost cheap enough to make them impossible not to own. Really great starter cameras and Bcams.
 
Firmware version 6.6 for the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and 6K has been released: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/readme/87b4fe06fa204273a05c69a28ba09d3b

The changes for the Pocket 6K are relatively modest:

  • Added support for Blackmagic Pocket Battery Grip.
  • Added support for language localization.
  • Added support for built-in camera horizon tool.
  • Added support for pinch to zoom up to 8x magnification.
  • Added USB PTP control support.
  • Added ability to type in customized frame guide ratios.
  • Improved auto focus performance.

Presumably this means that they will finally start shipping the Battery Grip which was first announced back at NAB (a welcome accessory given the typical runtime of the internal batteries).

In addition to the above changes the Pocket 4K also received several new recording formats and anamorphic options:

  • Added support for 4K 2.4:1 4096 x 1712 recording in Blackmagic RAW up to 75 fps.
  • Added support for 2.6K 2688 x 1512 up to 120 fps recording in Blackmagic RAW suitable for Super16mm lenses.
  • Added support for 2.8K 4:3 2880 x 2160 recording in Blackmagic RAW up to 80 fps for anamorphic lenses.
  • Added support for 2x desqueeze preview when recording 4K 4:3.
  • Added support for 1.33x desqueeze preview.
 
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