I have not been able to find much time to play some more with my bmpcc camera, I did some quick raw test a while back and decided to take the camera incl my 9-18mm olympus lens with me again to spend some more time with it on a few days holiday a week back. We where at sea, not that much to see, we had rain, strong winds but the first 2 days in the early morning and late in the evening there where some beautiful moments to see how the camera would handle the color gradients in the sky.

Some of my impressions and I am probably repeating myself from my last experience with this camera:

I shot in raw again because that's the only reason I got this camera, this time I had attached a loupe I got for my gh4, it didn't fit the bmpcc viewscreen right and there was a small part on the right that was blocked from view but it was ok to judge my focus better, it was at least a lot better then just looking at the screen.

The lcd screen from this camera really suxs, when I compare it to my other camera's high rez screens it looks like I"m back in the seventees looking at my parents black and white tv.

The fact that you cannot articulate or swivel it also really suxs which makes framing a shot from different heights almost impossible.

The autofocus also really suxs, even in clear daylight it takes it's time before it locks on and even then it can get it wrong, the focus peaking however does work well and you need that to check focus or to manual adjust your focus. Also for an unknown reason my focus peaking each time shuts off and I have to go into the menu system to activate it, not sure what I am doing wrong or if this is normal behavior.

This camera has the worst ergonomics ever, every shot takes time to set up. It made me miss some moments where for instance a group of ducks was approaching to land on the water and I missed the shot because it took me too long to set up the camera.

The raw workflow is also massive, it takes a lot of time to process the footage, to colorcorrect every single shot and it takes a hugh amount of harddrive space, I"m still using after effects and adobe raw to colorcorrect because that's the only easy way I know so far to get my raw footage like it should be. I still am not getting it right, on moving subjects I found out that after export to a editable format every 4 or 5 frames one frame is missing, not sure what I am doing wrong.

Next time I really want to put this camera next to my gh4 and shoot some shots side by side to see what the difference is and if it's worth holding onto it, there are several shots that I made the past days that look great in color and which I"m sure would be difficult to get the same result with the GH4, also the DR can make a big difference in certain shots. If only it was not so difficult to shoot and edit with.

Below is what I shot, does this look bmpcc worthy? :)

BMPCC raw 2 on Vimeo

These are interesting comments Noa. I have thought about these cameras as a stepping stone, more particularly the new form-factor, but have been hesitant about them. The problems you detail with file size and workflow are good to know about. Thanks.

I really liked the subject matter in your test shots and could see how much more it captures compared with my cameras.

Hi Noa

How can the BMPCC have the world's worst ergonomics? I think my BMCC is worse than my BMPCC in the ergonomics department.

Anyway, they both suck!!!

But the picture is great. As shown in your video. Keep up the good work.

These are interesting comments Noa. I have thought about these cameras as a stepping stone, more particularly the new form-factor, but have been hesitant about them. The problems you detail with file size and workflow are good to know about. Thanks.

I really liked the subject matter in your test shots and could see how much more it captures compared with my cameras.

I was able to buy my pocketcam new for 500 euro which is less then half of the current price and since I have a big collection of m4/3 glass I only needed a few extra batteries and a bigger and fast sd card. I see didn't mention it but the battery life is also a joke, I"m afraid to leave it in standby mode too long which says a lot.

I've tried resolve to handle the raw footage but it looks too complicated to me and I don't want to spend time learning it or building a pc according to resolve specs, not for these few personal films I plan to shoot with it.

Hi Noa

How can the BMPCC have the world's worst ergonomics? I think my BMCC is worse than my BMPCC in the ergonomics department.

Anyway, they both suck!!!

But the picture is great. As shown in your video. Keep up the good work.

They both are basically a sensor in a box but for the BMCC that's a shoebox :) The following weeks the leaves on the trees start to turn color and I plan on going into the woods to shoot some of those nice autumn colors but will bring my gh4 with me as well and try to shoot side by side, will be interesting to see the result.

If you are on Adobe Premiere CC2015 you might want to see how the new Lumetri Panel right inside Premiere Pro helps with your workflow objections as opposed to equipping/learning Resolve.

As is obvious of course, the whole raw process depends on project type, length, budget, and turnaround time available. Raw requires extra steps, but it also provides the opportunities better final quality results and options. The greater light exposure latitude can be really important. But as Noa has said, raw requires time and equipment needs and thus must be factored for the project.

I use Edius and from what I understood raw support will be in a future update, if that would work out fine that would be great ofcourse.

Exactly - a sensor in a box with a recorder. When they figure out how to incorporate an ND filter and a viewfinder and some useful buttons I might start to think of them as cameras. As it is we have to add the bits and pieces to turn them into cameras.

On the other hand, all things considered, they're pretty good at what they do, even if they don't do the whole job.

Lovely restful holiday imagery Noa, well done. I hasten to add that I have no doubt you could create visual beauty even with a Box Brownie such is your eye. Clearly a labour of love and certainly healthier than hanging around in a dingy bar watching TV.

And of course 13 stops of dynamic range is so passé these days while the ergonomics you remind us of are legendary for all the wrong reasons.

Never-the-less one might well credit Black Magic for raising our awareness of dynamic range in the scheme of things and for raising the bar that many other manufacturers quickly jumped over, much to our delight.

But no, not a very practical device for capturing fleeting moments when on holiday, and being on holiday is a necessary condition given the labour intensive nature of the thing, though for the original intended use - amateur movie making - it might have a place even if 'amateur movie making' is bordering on the oxymoronic.

Whatever, nice art; the best I have viewed out of the BMPCC. I would hang that on my wall. Thanks for sharing.

Have you shot some with your pocketcam? Don't tell me it is collecting dust? :) I have to admit one thing though, there is some kind of magic seeing your footage come to live when it's been handled by adobe raw. I click "auto" first to get a starting point and I had footage which looked like overexposed beyond recovery yet all detail and color appeared out of nowhere. Then being able to lift underexposed areas as if you are shining some extra light on it and then to decide if you want footage to look like it's early in the morning or late in the evening is something special.

I almost compare the raw video process to the developing process of analog photos, there are still people that love to take pictures with a old analog camera and spend all that time in a black room developing every single photo separately.

I do confess my BMPCC is collecting dust however your work inspires me to pull it out of the cupboard and play around, yet again. There was a time when I too spent all of my (spare) time in the basement dark room developing black and white film and being totally absorbed in the printing process so I do indeed know what you mean. At the time there was no alternative available to the photographic hobbyist/artist.

The trouble is I now have a Sony AX100 which, as you know, enables the capture of footage of a quality unheard of (in the price bracket) when the BMPCC was introduced. Not only that but my highly configurable Sony a6000 (not to mention my RX10) with the XAVC-S codec and 60p is also streets ahead of anything that was available then, again within the price bracket.

And with the excellent NLE systems available plus their addons, it is just not that difficult to produce pleasing clean footage of all shapes and sizes without the 'darkroom' time-consuming effort.

One more confession: I recently purchased a 9.4 meter sailboat and my fussing, my fiddling, fine tuning and obsessing is focused in that direction. I spend inordinate amounts of time (and money) adjusting the cut of my jib, the batten tension, the detail in becoming totally shipshape, and any intelligent person would shake their head in bewilderment at such fetish behaviour.

So photography and moving pictures are taking a back seat right now albeit ever present, and the quick and not so dirty approach with the flood of magnificent tools available today makes that a piece of cake.

One way to handle raw is to convert to Cineform. In my case, I use RawPro4, which utilizes Cineforms raw profile. RAW 4 PRO - RAW 4 PRO - offloads and converts RAW clips to video, with audio (http://raw4pro.com/)

But how do you colorcorrect then? Is that easier compared to using after effects and adobe raw? What I find very easy in adobe raw is that you just click the auto button and you get a very good starting point to tweak the image further.

Hmm, I shoot ProRes and edit in FCPX and use Color Finale plugin to grade.
You have to use this camera with "purpose." It's for dynamic range and discrete use as well as heavy grading without the risk of artifacts.

I most often use it with my Lumix 12-35 lens, which has image stabilization, and a Zacuto loupe specifically for it. I have a good Genustech Eclipse VariND on it as well.

When I want shallower Depth of Field and/or faster aperture I use Metabones SpeedBooster.

There's very little difference between the best ProRes settings and cDNG especially if you're delivering for web use. cDNG would hold up a bit better in the most extreme grading situation but people do Broadcast/Cable TV in ProRes HQ.

I always leave Focus Peaking on and when I need it, 2x magnify for focus assist.
I always leave Zebras on (I use 100% but some might be little more conservative) because as long as you have highlights protected you can adjust in post.

Push Focus and push iris are certainly worthless but, for me, I like to use fully manual. Yes, the screen is poor as well especially in daylight. I like the ergonomics because it's small and easy to hand hold.

I haven't found another camera in this price class to match its picture quality (dynamic range, codecs/gradibility).

If I want to be super fast at getting shots I use my Sony PXW-X70 but that's not what the BMPCC is for. At these prices you buy a camera to be a tool in a more complete toolset.

I do have a hunch that Blackmagic will come out with an "Ursa Micro" which might have a more traditional handycam shape

I have shot prores as well but I am not able to get anywhere near the results I am getting with shooting raw and then grade in after effects, it's like night and day difference to me. I colorcorrect in Edius which also has advanced colorcorrections tools but I just cannot get anything pleasing looking out of prores, I certainly can't get the same rich deep colors I get with raw and that's with a simple click of a button. Also the detail I am able to recover in raw is just impossible to achieve the same result in prores.

About focus peaking, how do you leave that on, mine sets itself off each time I shut down and restart the camera and I have to manually go into the menu to activate it.

Whilst I don't have anywhere near the knowledge of others on the forum, I used the free version of Resolve 10 on some footage from my Canon HF200's. I can get a fairly flat image profile out of them with the custom settings. I did find that I was able to improve the footage substantially with basic colour correction of shadows, mid-tones and highlights, but it is a lot of extra work. My current computer while overseas is not powerful enough to run Resolve so I have had to abandon my attempts for the moment.

All that to say, I would love to have a BMPCC with which to experiment, but camera, batteries, lens, new computer, new cards etc. Take it well beyond the realms of possibility for the moment. I will just have to enjoy the samples I see and the discussions around them.

Noa:

Cineform's raw codec is editable in any NLE and corrector. To give footage an initial look, you can actualy add that in GoPro Studio, without destruction of the footage.

Noa,

Is shooting prores really not an option? Isnt' prores amazing with its color depth compared to anything that a 8bit mirrorless cam can offer?

You tell me, I have seen enough from the pocket cam shot in prores that looks worse then what some others achieve with a 8bit 4:2:0 camera, not saying that you can't get great looking footage out of this camera when you shoot pro-res, I only have not figured out how to.

That was shot prores: The One - First Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera Shortfilm on Vimeo

More info here: https://frankglencairn.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/the-1-shooting-a-short-with-the-bmc-pocket-and-much-coffee/

And? It still doesn't say how to get this kind of color out of the camera, that's the point I"m trying to make, there are many flat profiles out there, slog2, 3 v-log etc but it takes skill to know how to colorcorrect. In raw I just click a button and "bang" the light is on and I only need to tweak further to taste. With prores it still is dark after you switch the light on and you need to be an electrician to make it work. :)

I know you are trying to proof that the pocket cam has amazing color depth and whatnot and I"m not saying it's not possible but show me some of your own work (you do have a black magic camera, right?) that will blow my socks off. If it is that easy, I"d like to see how. Try to convince me why this is a better camera then any 8bit cam out there.

Noa:

Cineform's raw codec is editable in any NLE and corrector. To give footage an initial look, you can actualy add that in GoPro Studio, without destruction of the footage.

Chris, I do have raw4pro but the problem is that goprostudio doesn't import the converted cineform raw footage, it sees it in the explorer but refuses to import it. Do you know of any online tutorials that show this process in goprostudio to color correct cineform raw?

That was shot prores:

This morning I went out to the forest for some quick test shots with my bmpcc and gh4, I tried prores and raw on the pocket cam and shot v-log on the gh4. All 3 codecs are very flat and difficult to correct in post and with my limited experience in colorcorrecting not an easy task.

Here are 2 shots with each shot containing prores, raw and vlog and then a combination of v-log and raw in the same shot. Just look at how awful prores looks if someone with little experience tries to colorcorrect it but look how v-log looks and that looks much flatter then prores to start with. both camera's had a 12mm lens attached to it, different in frame is because the pocketcam crops more. From what I remember the gh4 footage comes closest to how it actually looked like. I"m actually a bit surprised about this test, the footage I shot at sea gave me a "wow" feeling while now I"m not sure what to think of it eventhough I applied the same workflow.

password: test
Private Video on Vimeo

Noa,
As you might remember I've been using a BMPCC from a neighbor. The footage you saw once that I color correct without too much experience was not up to your taste.
I play mainly with a canon XF-305.

Ok, I get your point and here's my conclusion.
The BMC are not for fun or toys, they are meant for people who will talk the time to master color grading, preferably with Resolve. I haven't had the time but I'm planning to. My process will be the opposite than what most people do. Since I do need to build another computer, the current one is from 2009, I'll build something to be able to run Resolve nicely. I'll practice grading raw and prores footage and only if I think I can become decent at it will I buy a BMC.
Now about raw. I really see the beauty of it. I also see why we see so many pieces on YouTube or Vimeo that look amazing. Those pieces are 2-5 minutes, no script, no narrative etc,,,,just graded raw footage.
I don't see me having a problem doing that. I simply don't see myself to shoot a 90 minutes independent film in raw. Suddenly everything will become overwhelming. THis is why I want prores to work. Raw seems fine to me as long as there's no pressure and it's just play. Shooting a ration of 3 to 1 in raw means 15 Terabytes of storage, and a grading process that could be tedious.
Let me build that machine and practice and I'll tell you what I can or can't do, but you're right. Until then, I should shut up!

Ok, from your footage, no, no need to worry about prores over the GH4. To me it's not worth bothering. BUT, this is because you don't know yet how to grade prores.
The GH4 does provide a good enough level of quality for me. The GH4 cost around what a BMCC would cost me. So my thinking is that to go with equal price I'd stick with the better codec, ProRes...but yes, I do need to learn how to color correct it.
As yu remember me saying this, the most important thing for me is content and somebody who knows how to use the GH4 and lights will be beyond what I need as far as quality of the picture to be able to watch it.
If the BMCC would cost 5000 bucks I wouldn't even consider it. But since it's less than 2000 and more or less on par as far as running it than a GH4 or a NX1 I must consider it.

I think the reason why the bmpcc footage looks bad is because the camera has issues resolving all the fine detail with those trees and leaves and it just looks like a blurry mess to me. I have tried some other corrections on the raw footage, because that I am able to bring that to life much easier then prores and eventhough you can see there is so much color information those particular forest shots still look like crap, no matter what I try. This has little to do with me being inexperienced with color correcting.

This might explain why the sea footage looks so good in comparison, those all where wide shots with a lot less very fine detail.

I"m still not giving up on that camera :) It's my footage I took at sea that convinced me to experiment further with it.

Properly graded ProRes should look no different than cDNG for Broadcast or even Cinema use. Certainly cDNG is a bit more flexible but you can push ProRes (especially ProResHQ and up) very far in a grade without any problems. Perhaps one needs to travel over to some Blackmagic specific sites to see that. Heck, for web use ProRes LT is very good. You might see some resolution difference between LT and HQ and compared to cDNG.

If someone can show how you can bring prores from a pocket cam to life I"m all eyes. :)

In this video Mattias Burling explains basically that you can push Raw more to push exposure
... but you don't always need to do that.
BMPCC - Part 6/9 - Prores or Raw? - YouTube

In this video by DL Watson, again the difference is most obvious when pushed but how often do you need to push?
He concludes that for every day use ProRes is fine.
Pro-Res Flavors vs RAW - BMPCC on Vimeo

Although this video by Tom Majerski is with the BMCC it's same color science and codecs.

He states, "The general consensus is that the two formats are both fantastic - but that the Raw mode will give you significantly more flexibility and quality - especially in extreme situations."

Again Raw gives you flexibility but if you don't have to push things the differences are very slight.
The Raw may be a bit sharper in this case because it's 2.5k whereas ProRes is HD. Dynamic Range is the same though.

Raw Cinema DNG vs ProRes HQ modes - on BMCC. Showdown on Vimeo

These are specific to Pocket and low light with ProRes vs Raw.
Raw vs ProRes in low light – Pocket Camera | Too Much Imagination (http://blog.domisljije.si/2013/11/13/raw-vs-prores-in-low-light-pocket-camera/)

Blackmagic Camera ProRes Flavors - Which do I choose? - THE DIVISION (http://www.divisiontv.com/blog/blackmagic-camera-prores-flavors-which-do-i-choose)
"ProRes 422 (HQ): Best Quality ProRes, Files are smaller, but footage looks just about as good as raw."

Thx for the links Craig but I wanted to know how you colorcorrect bmpcc prores to make it look like reality. Like below frames where one is from the bmpcc in prores and the other from the gh4. I have a hard time even getting any color into prores while in raw it's very easy.

Hi Noa

Wow - I'd like to help. If I could download a few frames of the ProRes I'll bring it up in Resolve tomorrow evening (my clients are here from Tokyo until mid afternoon so can't work on it until late in the day) and have a shot at a basic CC and (assuming I get something reasonable) I'll walk you through exactly how I got it.

First impression is that your PreRes image looks like a good starting point - my stuff looks like that before I grade it. In fact I want it to look like that for starters.

One of the best tutorials I've seen on Resolve is by Warren Eagles - I think he was using Resolve 10 and not sure he has anything out on version 12. It isn't free - I found it at FXPHD if I recall correctly, but it's really excellent.

Anyhow if you put it in Dropbox or something and send me a link I'll see what I can do with it.

I'm very happy with the ProRes from the BMCC and BMPCC - in fact I haven't even upgraded to the firmware that supports RAW yet.

Thx Jim, I do have resolve 12, the free version, on my pc but during install I already got the message that my pc was underpowered, probably because of my quadro k420 card which doesn't meet min specs but since edius doesn't require a fast graphics card I don't intend to invest in a expensive one just for resolve. But I can get it to open.

What I find so difficult with these bmpcc prores files is that you don't have any reference at all what the color looked like to start with, every attempt I did so far just resulted in very weird looking colors. Otoh V-log from the gh4 looks even more flat yet I can much easier get accurate color out of that one in Edius.

Below are 4 very short prores HQ422 clips straight from the card, They all where just testshots and I have identical GH4 shots as a reference. If anyone wants to have some fun and see what they can do with these, be my guest to download and play with them. Ideally I just want to colorcorrect in Edius but I"m not able to get any real and especially no accurate color out of it. Just to make myself clear, I"m not saying that Bmpcc prores files cannot be colorcorrected, I just don't know how.

https://copy.com/rcxE0gW4ThwCYNze
https://copy.com/RqnFpEMPugn60rip
https://copy.com/cetw0AfxZyeAwvHg
https://copy.com/MZhH9X9HKtDLsaRw

I did a quick grading with FCPX of your first 2 Clips. Shortened to 6 sec. each to save time.BMPCC ProRes Grading - YouTube
In both shots the sky is completely blown out on my waveform monitor (cliping at 100 IRE) so there's no color in there. For some reason, there appear to be not enough metadata in your clips to allow FCPX to automatically process the "Film" mode of the clips into the standard Rec.709 gamma profile for viewing. So I just did it manually.

First shot may look slightly warm compared to your framegrab. Is it closer to what you saw in the actual scene?

Yes, this looks close to reality, what exactly did you change it fcpx?

I can't remember the exact number (degrees of adjustments) but here is roughly what I did:

- bringing down the shadows but not to exceed 0 IRE
- bringing down the midtones, by guessing to the level that looked "pleasant" to me.
- not touching the highlights since most of them already clipped at exactly 100 IRE, raising them would have clipped parts of them that were not yet clipped but near the threshold, lowering them would have made the scenes look murky or too flatly dull without gaining any more color or detail in those parts.
- raising the global color saturation to the max and raising the midtone saturation to about 2/3 the maximum. Both adjustments didn't affect the sky which had been clipped to completely white.
- not altering the color balance of the clips as I had no idea what the scenes actually looked like.

I believe you can do the same in your PC-based NLE as the above is very fundamental to level and color adjustments but the hard part is the subjective things as personal preference for color, contrast level, and sharpening level, etc. Some NLEs out there should be like FCPX in that they can recognize the raw files (BMPCC ProRes, Sony S-log 2/3 XAVC(S) etc.) uploaded into the programs and do automatic mapping of the files to the broadcast standard Rec.709 looks. from there you only have to do some minor adjustments as you like.

Hi Noa

For some reason I don't seem to be able to open the clips. Neither Quicktime nor Resolve like them them. Nor Edius 6 for that matter.

I'm running Win 7.

I played around a bit with the jpg image (which is probably an exercise in frustration after it's been through the jpg compression)

What kind of day was it? The feeling I get from fooling with the jpg and looking at the blown white sky is that it was a bit overcast and not very highly saturated or contrasty.

I edit the ProRes out of my BMCC/BMPCC on this system so no idea why I can't open the files. I'll try on my MacBook later tonight.

For some reason I don't seem to be able to open the clips. Neither Quicktime nor Resolve like them them. Nor Edius 6 for that matter.


Weird, I"m on win 7 pro and use edius 8 workgroup. Also, it was a overcast day, the overexposed parts you see are clouds only.

Some NLEs out there should be like FCPX in that they can recognize the raw files (BMPCC ProRes, Sony S-log 2/3 XAVC(S) etc.) uploaded into the programs and do automatic mapping of the files to the broadcast standard Rec.709 looks. from there you only have to do some minor adjustments as you like.

I think that is the part I"m missing here, I can alter highlights, shadows and midtones but that doesn't do anything with the color and using the colorcorrecor doesn't help either. Not sure how you can map the files to rec.709 in Edius because that I think should bring out the real colors to have a starting point.

You get the level (gamma) to the level of your liking first and only then you can play with color saturation, not the other way around. In any case this means pumping up the saturation by a significant amount. Try different combinations of saturation of the highlight, midtone and shadow areas. The good thing about these BMPCC's ProRes files is that they are 10-bit 4:2:2. The colors, reds in particular, have more tolerance for bleeding at the edges and banding that usually occur to 8-bit 4:2:0 video files when color saturation is raised.

Having said that, I totally agree with you based on my short experience with the BMCC and later the BMPCC over a year ago, that the ProRes files from these two BM cameras were somehow more difficult to work with, grading-wise, than the 12-bit RAW files from either camera. I and my colleges then suspected the ProRes encoding engines in both cameras may not have matured or been capable enough to encode such high datarates in real time so they had to leave out certain chroma information. Just a guess, though.

Finally figured out what I was doing wrong and could download the clip

Here's what I came up with

https://www.dropbox.com/s/s82wdvtmo2bplq2/Noa%20Woods%2077.mov?dl=0

Whether this is "objectively" correct or not isn't the point - I grew up in New England and I remember what late Autumn days looked/felt like on overcast days so that's what I aimed for. The point of course is that you can do a lot with ProRes. Whether it's as much as you want to do is a different question. Raw would take too much memory so it isn't a real option for what I usually do.

noa and all-

for those of us on the sidelines, i find this thread extremely helpful.

i do not own a bmpcc but have worked with one several times.

i am aware of the difficult ergos.

i am aware of the difficult workflow.

i am also thoroughly drawn to the look of well shot, thoughtfully graded blackmagic footage.

thank you all for doing the heavy lifting.

carry on!

be well.

rob
smalltalk productions/nyc

This is mainly for Noa.
Listen, this is the best I can do, shot in prores with a vintage 20 mm. My neighbor, who owns the camera shot this, I graded it. I simply can't do better and I'm ready to take your full front criticism.
What do you think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CSPuFjvaHs&feature=youtu.be

You are able to get better color out of prores then I am able to so who am I to criticize you :) I still get the best results shooting raw and color correct in after effects and still have not been able to get nearly the same results shooting prores and then colorcorrect.

He had chosen to shoot prores, just met him as he was playing with his cam yesterday and was set to shoot prores, but I'll try to borrow the cam again and shoot raw, alone and see what I can do. Still, I think my computer might have a problem with raw. Prores was actually not too demanding and even though I'm aware that many people have produced much better footage than what I showed on this link when they were shooting raw, I thought that didn't too too bad, which is telling me that raw might look amazing. As soon as I have something I'll post it.

worked more on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MrWkTSOf58&feature=youtu.be

That's it, I'm stopping here!