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Blackmagic has since 2012 been leading a wave of affordability to the entire

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video production industry from amateur video creators to Indie filmmakers and

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even production professionals worldwide and one of the biggest disruptions in

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the camera space was the 2013 release of the original Blackmagic pocket Cinema

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Camera a camera that I personally bought and used for years so 6 years later can

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the pocket 4K be as disruptive as its predecessor was let's find out

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before we begin a quick physical tour is in order here because unlike the

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original the pocket 4K well isn't really pocketable at all and it also makes a

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departure from black Magic's customary above average build quality the body is

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made out of space age carbon fiber polycarbonate composite which appears to

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be black Magic's way of saying unapologetically plastic the top of the

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camera has the standard layout of buttons for record ISO shutter speed

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white balance Stills capture and three custom function buttons on the back of

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the camera you get a 5-in 108p display more on that in a moment and some very

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useful buttons for Iris and focus along with a dedicated High frame rate button

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this makes switching frame rates so much more convenient than the multiple menus

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you would have to go through on something like a Sony camera we've also got a shortcut for zoom in for Focus

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menu and Playback and then on the far right I am very pleased to see dual

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media slots there is one slot for cfast 2.0 cards and another for SD cards I

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hope you're taking notes red and the pocket 4k's impressive recording options

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do not stop there you can also use small portable ssds that plug directly into

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the type-c port on the left of the camera for our testing our friends over

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at iner bird sent us this awesome match kit that they specifically created for

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the pocket 4K it comes with a 256 cast

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2.0 card and a 512 gig portable SSD and

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both served me very well on extended shoot days that I tested this camera on

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being able to record directly to an SSD and then just plug that same SSD into my

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laptop to start editing was a very satisfying workflow that I got used to

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over the last last couple months I've been testing this camera it just makes

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sense finishing off the physical Tour on the left of the camera we have a mik in

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headphone jack fulls sizee HDMI which you degree is important if you've seen

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how many micro hdmis have worn out like we have a 12volt limo connector type-c

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and mini XLR we're off to a very good start here and it gets way better let's

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talk about the sensor the pocket 4K Sports a micro 4/3 size sensor capable

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of shooting up to 60 FPS at 4096 X 2160

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with 13 stops of dynamic range and an interesting dual native ISO of 400 and

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3200 that's very impressive at this price point but as many of you already

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know modern camera performance is as much about software as it is about

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Hardware fortunately Blackmagic has done a stellar job here as well and the

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images that come off the pocket 4K are outstanding I was able to put the camera

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through my usual variety of shooting scenarios and I was reminded of the difference a camera that is designed

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with filmmaking in mind can have compared to something made for Stills

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and video from the likes of Sony Canon or pan Sonic noise performance was

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surprisingly good at higher isos like 1600 and 3200 both read fairly clean in

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my tests which is not common for a camera with a sensor this size for

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documentary Shooters I see this being a huge positive when you're dealing with

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lighting conditions that are constantly changing with no time to pause to adjust

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for lighting the pocket 4K also boasts 60 FPS at 4K and 120 FPS at window 1080p

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recording modes and while it is a loss in quality the 120 FPS is totally usable

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and compared to the compet ition shooting internally at this frame rate

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the results are simply put excellent black Magic's menu is incredibly easy to

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navigate and while they feel a little mushy all the buttons are useful and

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efficient to use the main paino with the image that I came across is the

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Highlight rolloff in the pocket 4K still has a hard digital looking clip if you

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unable to perfectly expose for the brightest parts of your image I was

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particularly impressed with black Magic's new B recording format while

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it's not officially supported by Adobe there is a workaround to play B footage

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natively in Premiere and I was shocked at how easily the footage plays back in

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real time even on my LG work laptop that does not have much in terms of

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horsepower black magic raw like the red raw that we use every day gives the user

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the ability to change ISO and white balance after the fact through metadata

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which is a huge plus when you're running and gunning and don't have time to get

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your settings perfect now let's get into usability I mentioned it doesn't fit in

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a pocket but it's a little worse than that overall the pocket forkit is a bit

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awkward in its size for example because of its width you might end up needing

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weird offset plates to balance it on a popular small gimbal like the Ronin S I

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did however manage to come up with a build that I quite liked made up of

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parts that we had around the office now you might look at this and wonder if

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we're fully taking advantage of the pocket 4K small size but truthfully we

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didn't feel like we had much of a choice a lot of the bulk of this setup comes

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from needing to use a dummy battery plate which allows us to use larger

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vount batteries that we use for our Reds because the pocket 4k's battery life is

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a disgrace to cameras everywhere we honestly weren't even expecting that

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much given its predecessor's bad battery life but with the standard lp6 batteries

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I was getting less than 20 minutes of runtime on this camera that is not

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usable thankfully you have a lot of options to power it I decided to use an

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inexpensive lp6 dummy battery to DTaP adapter which allowed me to run the

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pocket for hours longer off a single vmount battery this does make the setup

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larger but that is also a welcome thing for my use case because a heavy camera

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is a steadier camera just to try it we did spend a little time shooting

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handheld with the pocket 4K by itself this can be handy if you're trying to

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capture some high quality footage discreetly I totally understand the

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appeal by the way but it wasn't an ideal experience ergonomically the body with

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just a lens is just too lightweight to make for the best handheld work because

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of the points of contact this is a personal preference however so your

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mileage may vary now let's get back to that 5-in display the touch screen is

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quite responsive and reacts similarly to the red touch monitor that we use on our

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daily driver weapon but a key disadvantage is that it's fixed in one

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position while not being bright enough to use in daylight making an external

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monitor an essential part of any pocket 4K build audio was an interesting

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experience to me on this camera because it has a mini XLR Port you can get an

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adapter cable like this one to use full-size XLR systems like our

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electronic Wireless lab pack or our Sennheiser 416 shotgun mic from my

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testing it not only worked but it sounded surprisingly usable that was a

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really pleasant surprise given black Magic's historically poor in camera

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recording quality overall though I still recommend getting a separate sound

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operator or recording device for sound critical projects but if you're trying

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to save money on gear or need to travel light for a project this is a good

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option this brings me to my final Point

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simply put the pocket 4K is unprecedented in terms of its quality

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for the price point no other camera on the market does what it can do for less

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money and the best part is unlike black Magic's previous disruptors there are

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fewer obvious deal breakers that might Force small cruise to move up to

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something more expensive that being said

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the true cost of ownership will obviously be much higher than the $1,300

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price tag but anyone just starting their career like I was when I bought my

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original pocket camera it's an incredible tool to learn from and

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improve your video and film making skills so bottom line for anyone looking

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to get into video on a budget you have no excuses to not go out and shoot

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something great when a camera like this exists on the market Bravo Blackmagic I

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tip my imaginary hat to you on this one Speaking of imaginary hats have you ever

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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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video and thank you guys for watching if this video sucked you know what to do

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but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link

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to where to buy the stuff we featured in this video in the description below also

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linked in the description is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community Forum which you

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should totally join