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Blackmagic has since 2012 been leading a wave of affordability to the entire
video production industry from amateur video creators to Indie filmmakers and
even production professionals worldwide and one of the biggest disruptions in
the camera space was the 2013 release of the original Blackmagic pocket Cinema
Camera a camera that I personally bought and used for years so 6 years later can
the pocket 4K be as disruptive as its predecessor was let's find out
before we begin a quick physical tour is in order here because unlike the
original the pocket 4K well isn't really pocketable at all and it also makes a
departure from black Magic's customary above average build quality the body is
made out of space age carbon fiber polycarbonate composite which appears to
be black Magic's way of saying unapologetically plastic the top of the
camera has the standard layout of buttons for record ISO shutter speed
white balance Stills capture and three custom function buttons on the back of
the camera you get a 5-in 108p display more on that in a moment and some very
useful buttons for Iris and focus along with a dedicated High frame rate button
this makes switching frame rates so much more convenient than the multiple menus
you would have to go through on something like a Sony camera we've also got a shortcut for zoom in for Focus
menu and Playback and then on the far right I am very pleased to see dual
media slots there is one slot for cfast 2.0 cards and another for SD cards I
hope you're taking notes red and the pocket 4k's impressive recording options
do not stop there you can also use small portable ssds that plug directly into
the type-c port on the left of the camera for our testing our friends over
at iner bird sent us this awesome match kit that they specifically created for
the pocket 4K it comes with a 256 cast
2.0 card and a 512 gig portable SSD and
both served me very well on extended shoot days that I tested this camera on
being able to record directly to an SSD and then just plug that same SSD into my
laptop to start editing was a very satisfying workflow that I got used to
over the last last couple months I've been testing this camera it just makes
sense finishing off the physical Tour on the left of the camera we have a mik in
headphone jack fulls sizee HDMI which you degree is important if you've seen
how many micro hdmis have worn out like we have a 12volt limo connector type-c
and mini XLR we're off to a very good start here and it gets way better let's
talk about the sensor the pocket 4K Sports a micro 4/3 size sensor capable
of shooting up to 60 FPS at 4096 X 2160
with 13 stops of dynamic range and an interesting dual native ISO of 400 and
3200 that's very impressive at this price point but as many of you already
know modern camera performance is as much about software as it is about
Hardware fortunately Blackmagic has done a stellar job here as well and the
images that come off the pocket 4K are outstanding I was able to put the camera
through my usual variety of shooting scenarios and I was reminded of the difference a camera that is designed
with filmmaking in mind can have compared to something made for Stills
and video from the likes of Sony Canon or pan Sonic noise performance was
surprisingly good at higher isos like 1600 and 3200 both read fairly clean in
my tests which is not common for a camera with a sensor this size for
documentary Shooters I see this being a huge positive when you're dealing with
lighting conditions that are constantly changing with no time to pause to adjust
for lighting the pocket 4K also boasts 60 FPS at 4K and 120 FPS at window 1080p
recording modes and while it is a loss in quality the 120 FPS is totally usable
and compared to the compet ition shooting internally at this frame rate
the results are simply put excellent black Magic's menu is incredibly easy to
navigate and while they feel a little mushy all the buttons are useful and
efficient to use the main paino with the image that I came across is the
Highlight rolloff in the pocket 4K still has a hard digital looking clip if you
unable to perfectly expose for the brightest parts of your image I was
particularly impressed with black Magic's new B recording format while
it's not officially supported by Adobe there is a workaround to play B footage
natively in Premiere and I was shocked at how easily the footage plays back in
real time even on my LG work laptop that does not have much in terms of
horsepower black magic raw like the red raw that we use every day gives the user
the ability to change ISO and white balance after the fact through metadata
which is a huge plus when you're running and gunning and don't have time to get
your settings perfect now let's get into usability I mentioned it doesn't fit in
a pocket but it's a little worse than that overall the pocket forkit is a bit
awkward in its size for example because of its width you might end up needing
weird offset plates to balance it on a popular small gimbal like the Ronin S I
did however manage to come up with a build that I quite liked made up of
parts that we had around the office now you might look at this and wonder if
we're fully taking advantage of the pocket 4K small size but truthfully we
didn't feel like we had much of a choice a lot of the bulk of this setup comes
from needing to use a dummy battery plate which allows us to use larger
vount batteries that we use for our Reds because the pocket 4k's battery life is
a disgrace to cameras everywhere we honestly weren't even expecting that
much given its predecessor's bad battery life but with the standard lp6 batteries
I was getting less than 20 minutes of runtime on this camera that is not
usable thankfully you have a lot of options to power it I decided to use an
inexpensive lp6 dummy battery to DTaP adapter which allowed me to run the
pocket for hours longer off a single vmount battery this does make the setup
larger but that is also a welcome thing for my use case because a heavy camera
is a steadier camera just to try it we did spend a little time shooting
handheld with the pocket 4K by itself this can be handy if you're trying to
capture some high quality footage discreetly I totally understand the
appeal by the way but it wasn't an ideal experience ergonomically the body with
just a lens is just too lightweight to make for the best handheld work because
of the points of contact this is a personal preference however so your
mileage may vary now let's get back to that 5-in display the touch screen is
quite responsive and reacts similarly to the red touch monitor that we use on our
daily driver weapon but a key disadvantage is that it's fixed in one
position while not being bright enough to use in daylight making an external
monitor an essential part of any pocket 4K build audio was an interesting
experience to me on this camera because it has a mini XLR Port you can get an
adapter cable like this one to use full-size XLR systems like our
electronic Wireless lab pack or our Sennheiser 416 shotgun mic from my
testing it not only worked but it sounded surprisingly usable that was a
really pleasant surprise given black Magic's historically poor in camera
recording quality overall though I still recommend getting a separate sound
operator or recording device for sound critical projects but if you're trying
to save money on gear or need to travel light for a project this is a good
option this brings me to my final Point
simply put the pocket 4K is unprecedented in terms of its quality
for the price point no other camera on the market does what it can do for less
money and the best part is unlike black Magic's previous disruptors there are
fewer obvious deal breakers that might Force small cruise to move up to
something more expensive that being said
the true cost of ownership will obviously be much higher than the $1,300
price tag but anyone just starting their career like I was when I bought my
original pocket camera it's an incredible tool to learn from and
improve your video and film making skills so bottom line for anyone looking
to get into video on a budget you have no excuses to not go out and shoot
something great when a camera like this exists on the market Bravo Blackmagic I
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special thank you to B&H for loaning us the pocket 4K that we used for this
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