- Here, we have
the Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K.
It shoots 6K in raw.
It shoots 4K in Pro Res.
It has an EF mount.
It has good dynamic range.
It has good colors.
It's compact, it's portable.
It's under $2,500 bucks.
That's all you got to say to get most people to schwing,
long term financial responsibility is a joke.
And they put the chip in the card reader,
and they tell you the chip reader isn't working,
so you have to take it and swipe it
and you feel like kind of dumb,
just give me the damn camera!
Over the last few weeks I've taken this camera
to Ireland, where it's cold and rainy,
and Arizona, where it's blazing hot,
and the beach where it's damp and sandy,
and I'm happy to say it hasn't broken on me yet,
so we're off to a good start.
And there definitely is a few things to know
about this camera before you go out and shoot with it,
or else you might be like what the (beep).
But once you have everything in place,
the 6K footage that comes out of this thing.
Oh yeah. First time I pulled up the footage on my display,
I was blown away by the amount of quality
coming out of a camera
that's barely bigger than the DSLR.
Is 6K necessary
or possibly even too much?
That's a whole other discussion,
'cause sometimes you could be filming close ups of people.
You're going to see every little pimple.
I have a pimple right here,
but I'm filming in HD right now,
so, you can't really tell.
But if we were shooting on this thing,
you would be like,
you'll be able to count the hairs.
So when you're filming people with this kind of set up,
that's when you really want to look into filters like
Pro-Mist or Schneider's Hollywood Black Magic.
Things to help just kind of
re-soften things out a little bit
so everything doesn't look so like (groans).
But of course the benefit is,
you retain all that detail
so you can punch in 200%, sometimes even 300%
and have the image look somewhat decent,
which is awesome.
But do keep in mind, this is not
a YouTuber's camera.
This is a cinematographer's camera,
which I think is a huge difference.
In YouTube land it's all about
convenience, right?
So, you want great auto focus.
You want sort of stabilization in the sensor.
You want a flip screen.
But the Black Magic has none of that,
except for this record button right here,
which apparently they put there so you can hold it out
and film yourself like this and hit that record button
and start vlogging.
This is not a vlog camera.
Well I guess if you flip the screen around
you can kind of make it work.
- It is a vlog camera see that - Oh, Whoa.
- It looks great.
- The image is really nice.
- Yeah, no that's a clean image.
If I can manage to take this around
everywhere with me, I don't know
if the audio is going to come out at all.
- Yeah. - But, here there you go.
So that audio was from
the built-in microphones from this camera,
which isn't great,
but it is awesome to have for reference audio.
Does have a standard headphone jack
so you can plug in something convenient like this.
But I love that it has a mini XLR port down here,
with phantom power.
So with a little adapter
you can plug it into a professional condenser mic.
So being compatible with those
high-end professional microphones was super important to me.
Sound is important, and I wanted to have that capability
out of this Red camera,
but I didn't have another $4,700 bucks laying around.
There is only one XLR port
and I always like to run at least two channels
when I'm doing something like an interview,
one blue mic and one lavalier.
So what you can do is set up a boom mic
and then have that plug into the XLR,
give it phantom power,
and then you can put it in like a lavalier,
and you can select two channels of recording.
So that's a very simple
and easy solution for audio.
Now, let's take this outside.
So, to maximize the performance out of this camera,
you're going to want to shoot in 6K raw,
which is a pretty good format.
It's powerful, it's flexible,
and its raw, so you can adjust
a lot of that meta data afterwards.
If you are editing on DaVinci Resolve,
which does come free with this camera,
then you won't have any issues.
But I'm a Premiere editor myself,
and these raw files don't work natively with Premiere.
There is a plug-in that you can purchase,
and it does work pretty well in Premiere.
So I've been using that,
haven't had any major issues yet.
One things for sure, when you combine
this 6K sensor with a nice cinema lens like this Angenieux.
But there is also the option to shoot Pro Res,
which maxes out at 4K,
but luckily, you can still use the full sensor.
It doesn't crop in.
And same with Pro Res Full HD,
it still utilizes the full sensor,
so if you're trying to pack kind of light
then that's a pretty good option.
And it looks pretty good.
So I think a lot of times
I probably will shoot in that file format,
especially if the post-work flow isn't comfortable
with Black Magic's raw files yet.
That is one downside to keep in mind
when you're shooting in raw is to utilize the full sensor.
You have to be shooting in full 6K resolution.
If you shoot in, let's say, 3.7k or 2.8K,
it crops into that sensor by that amount.
So, something to keep in mind.
Alright, so this is kind of off topic,
but I'm letting Steve ride around on my motorcycle right now
and we're going to give it to him in a second, so shh.
(motorcycle engine roaring) You're not really dressed
appropriately for motorcycle riding.
It's fun to ride though, huh? - Yeah, no I like it a lot.
- [Gene] Are you gonna get your motorcycle license now?
- Yeah, I gotta go, I meant to do it today.
You have to do a, what is that?
- That's the pink slip,
that's for you.
- What, shut the (beep) up. (Gene chuckles)
Why are you doing this?
- [Gene] Because I hate you.
- (Steve laughs) Then you know its going to break down soon.
- Yeah. (laughs) - Are you serious?
- [Gene] Yeah.
- You make way too much money apparently.
- [Gene] (laughs) No, actually I was thinking about
selling this and there's too many issues with it.
So, I just kinda wanna pass all the problems onto you.
- Oh, I see! You' re getting more out of it
than you're putting into it, is what it is.
- [Gene] Oh of course, I'm not actually
genuinely kind, that's stupid.
- Oh, yeah, exactly.
I mean, I do know the speedometer doesn't work.
- [Gene] Yeah, the speedometer doesn't work, but
who needs that?
As long as you just pull this all the way back,
you're good. - As hard as it goes.
- [Gene] Yeah, you're going the proper speed.
- And you notice the brakes don't work either.
Are you trying to tell me something?
- [Gene] You know, it's actually more fun
when the brakes don't work. (Steve laughs)
Please don't die on this. I'd feel kind of bad if you did.
- I don't believe you.
- [Gene] You have to let me ride it
whenever I miss it too much.
After it's tuned up, that's part of the agreement.
- I'll sign it back over to you after the speedometer works.
- [Gene] (laughs) Yeah!
(motorcycle engine revving)
That's what Steve looks like when he's really happy.
I wanted the robe!
- Hey man, I went in there first
and I saw it and honestly it'll look way better on me
then it'll look on you.
(Gene laughing)
- Can we get two more of the robes? That come with, yeah?
- [Gene] Did you really?
- I did.
- Did you really? - I did
- So with this 6K you can go up to 120 frames per second,
but there is a massive crop,
so it becomes a little bit tricky to use.
But you can go up to 50 frames per second
in full 6K resolution.
So, let's go test out some of the slow-mo options on this.
Let's go!
(hip hop music)
♪ Came through dripping ♪
♪ Aquafina I'm sipping ♪
♪ 15, kept a weapon on me ♪
♪ Flow make digits ♪
♪ I mind my business ♪
♪ Stack chicken like, what it's gon be ♪
♪ Watch for the blues 'cause I know that they dumpin' ♪
♪ Nothing in my view ♪
♪ So it's hush on discussion ♪
♪ Hush on discussion ♪
♪ You know what you need to ♪
♪ I keep it in the fam to let you know I don't need you ♪
♪ Y'all cats be see through head nods to peace you ♪
♪ Been king I'm regal got in in my Evisu ♪
♪ Came through dripping ♪
♪ Aquafina I'm sipping ♪
♪ 15, kept a weapon on me ♪
♪ Flow make digits ♪
♪ I mind my business ♪
- I'm empty I'm all out.
- Yeah, me too.
- You guys just want to go back to the room?
It's hot.
- [Crowd In Unison] Yeah, let's go.
- So the 50 frames per second at 6K obviously, great.
And to get to 60 frames per second,
it was a very, very slight crop.
But to go anywhere past 60 frames per second
is where you really have to take
that big resolution loss and go down to 2.8K.
And the resolution of 2.8K doesn't really bother me,
but that crop definitely does.
If you shot on Red cameras
you're probably familiar with the same thing on there.
Once you try to hit 200 frames per second,
you really have to start cropping in.
Now during slow-mo you can generally
get away with hand-holding it
because that slow-motion kind of smoothens everything out,
but if you're shooting real-time,
you're definitely gonna wanna come up with
some sort of solution to stabilize
even a handheld rig like this,
or obviously a gimble works great.
If you are planning on using EF lenses,
with image stabilization,
such as this 100 mil,
which has great image stabilization,
it doesn't work until you hit record on the camera.
So, I slapped this on in Ireland and I was like,
"Ah, man the stabilization doesn't work."
So I took it off and put another lens on there
and just shot with that for the rest of the day.
But later, turns out if you hit record,
the image stabilization suddenly turns on,
just for the recording time.
So, just something to keep in mind.
But I can't stress this enough,
if you are planning on doing a big shoot
with a gimble and this Black Magic Camera,
pre-balance it the day before to make sure
that there's not gonna be and weird fitting issues
because it is a pretty awkward-shaped camera.
It's such a lightweight camera so I love that.
You can hold this thing up all day.
Okay, not all day,
but relative to a Red Camera this is a piece of cake.
Let's try to get some shots with it.
(upbeat pop music)
(skateboard crashing) (Gene laughing)
I got you, I got you, in 6K!
Ah man, carrying around that Black Magic Pocket
is such a better experience than carrying around that Red,
just because it's so much lighter.
And that music was pretty dope too, right?
So shout out to Epidemic Sounds for sponsoring this video.
And also they're a big part of what made
that Ireland trip possible for Sam and I.
So, that was awesome.
They are my go to source of music for my YouTube videos.
All the music in this entire video, all Epidemic Sounds.
And you can use all those high quality tunes
for your videos as well.
And I got a link in the description for a free trial.
And they also have a library for sound effects,
which is always a big plus to have.
It just spices up the video when you drop in
a little bit of background sounds.
And their songs have stems too, which is awesome.
What are stems?
Well, imagine the song split up into
a couple of different layers.
So if you want to pull out a certain element or layer,
you have the ability to do so.
For example, in the last song we used while
Sam was skating, there's a whole bit in there about
kissing under a mistletoe as part of the lyrics.
And I was like, "I don't really want those lyrics in there",
so I was able to get the stems, cut it out, boom.
So thanks again, Epidemic for sponsoring this video,
and being a good partner to me
since the beginning of this channel.
So, link down there in the description for a free trial.
And as usual with a sponsor video, there's a giveaway.
So three people in the notification squad
will get a six month account to Epidemic Sounds.
All you gotta do is leave a comment down below,
letting us know what you want to do with that music.
And we're going to choose three winners within the first
12 hours of this video going live.
Good Luck!
Now, I'm sure a lot of people recently got their
Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K,
that came out last year and if you have that version,
don't stress about upgrading to this 6K.
For many people, the 4K option might still be
the way to go considering that it's half the price.
With the 6K, there's going to be three main differences
you're going to notice,
One is the resolution, the 6K instead of the 4K,
also the EF mount instead of the Micro Four-Thirds mount,
and also the super 35-millimeter sensor,
which is larger than the Micro Four-Thirds sensor on the 4K.
But a few things to keep in mind,
not all Super-35 millimeter sensors are created the same.
Some are larger than others.
For example, the Super 35-millimeter sensor on the Red
is a tad bit bigger than the one on this Black Magic.
And this one actually tends to be on the smaller size.
We're dealing with about a 1.63 times crop factor.
If you're all about getting that larger sensor look,
then you can always put a speed booster on the
Black Magic 4K.
And I actually saw this one video basically saying,
with the Black Magic 4K with the Metabones XL Speed Booster,
you're essentially emulating
a even bigger sensor size than what's on the 6K.
So I'll link that video right there,
if you want to check that out.
And if you are all about that full frame sensor life,
then I have been reading about speed boosters made for this,
where you install into the camera,
which should give you about a 1.1x crop factor,
so very close to full frame.
I've never tested it myself,
so I can't say anything about it.
But if that peaks your interest,
maybe worth looking into.
It's actually a good thing that I have this
1.6x crop on this camera right now.
Cause if this was a wider angle,
you might see that I am not wearing pants.
So, Sam when you're editing this,
please don't cut to the wide shot.
No, I said don't cut to it!
One downside I did notice about this 6K sensor,
is that it has more rolling shutter than the 4K does.
And it's very apparent if you look
at the pillars in the foreground.
No, those pillars aren't crooked.
In case you're not familiar with rolling shutter,
basically an image gets recorded
from top to bottom, kinda like a book.
The issue is if you have some fast moving objects,
by the time it gets to the bottom,
it's noticeably in a different spot
than when it started the image.
So, you get this kind of crooked image.
So things like quick pans
and fast foreground elements crashing the screen
are things that you're going to need to avoid
if you have a camera like this.
This is another benefit of bigger, higher-end cinema cameras
is that they scan the image much faster
to kinda mitigate that skew.
And by the way, I am uploading this video in 8K resolution.
So I just kind of upscale this 6K,
so you can kinda see what it looks like.
There's no 6K option to watch on YouTube just yet.
Now, when you buy this camera there are a few accessories
I consider to be must haves.
Like don't even buy this camera without getting
these accessories with it.
The biggest thing is an external battery pack
because the battery life on this thing
with those little tiny Canon batteries, total crap!
They die so fast and sometimes they just kind of shut off
without any sort of warning.
And it's freaky whenever that happens
while you're recording, you know.
You're like, "Oh I hope that clip got saved."
Luckily, I haven't lost any footage yet,
but I'm still not a big fan of the camera
just cutting off on me.
Oops, time to change the battery, again.
There's a couple different powering solutions out there,
but I've been using this Powerbase Edge by Core,
and I've actually been really digging this thing.
'Cause it's super versatile, it's not just for this camera.
So you can basically click in this camera
into the battery,on the bottom is a V-mount,
so you can use it like that,
or you could just screw in a quarter inch right here,
so you can just attach it to a tripod.
The way I have it connected to the camera is through
a dummy battery like this, just coming out of here.
So that just plugs straight into here.
You can also take a P-Tap and plug into the power right here
but I chose to go with this dummy battery option,
so that it's less in the way,
and less things coming out of the side of the camera.
Only downside to this dummy battery,
is I had to completely remove the door.
Like Canon cameras, they usually have a little port here
on the side so I can tuck this cable in and close that door.
But this Black Magic doesn't have that slot,
so I have to leave this a little bit exposed.
You can power two things off USB here,
and two P-Taps or D-Taps,
whatever you wanna to call them.
And I usually use the P-tap to power the monitor up here.
My monitor of choice is the SmallHD Cine 7.
But this is something I also consider to be a must
because one, its articulating.
This screen right here is locked on.
It doesn't fold up or move in any direction.
And this one is also a lot brighter.
So, in conditions like this you could totally
get away with using this screen.
But if you're in direct sunlight,
it gets really hard to see this screen.
And a lot of times you can misfocus that way.
Filming in Arizona, I noticed there were a few shots
that I was a little bit soft on
because I was using this display,
but with a bigger, brighter monitor,
I would have been fine,
In 6K resolution, if you're slightly,
slightly off, you'll notice it.
Another thing I love about the Cine 7,
is you can input a digital HDMI signal into here,
and you can output an SDI signal out of here,
to work with your professional SDI compatible stuff.
That is one good thing I wish this camera had
was an SDI port.
But, at least when you feed it through this monitor,
you can get an SDI out signal.
And the final must-have is an ND filter
because there are no ND filter built into the camera.
Obviously, many options for ND filters out there,
but I'm rocking
the Polar Pro Peter Mckinnon edition ND Filters.
These are fantastic.
Actually the first time I ever used these
were on Peter's camera.
I was helping him film a little B-roll sequence
and just on that little EOS R display,
I was like, "Wow, these are crazy sharp and clear."
So of course, between you and me,
I was like, "Peter, look there's coffee, he, 'what?'"
Boop, I don't have pockets right now.
For some of you it might make sense to get a cage
so you can really start rigging this thing out heavily.
But my primary reason for using this camera
is more for having this as a minimalist set up,
so this is how I've been running it,
and it's been a working pretty well.
One thing I still do wish they had,
was another thread down here, like a three-eighth inch screw
so that you don't have to worry about
the camera kinda sliding back-and-forth.
One of the things I do love about this camera
is the inner face where the buttons are laid out.
The menu system is very simple, easy to understand.
But you have access to all your primary tools
right then and there.
It was definitely designed with video shooters in mind,
opposed to being a photo camera
that can kind of shoot video. Now when it comes to shooting
in different color profiles you can choose between
Film, which is the flat look,
and then Extended Video, and Video.
I would personally never touch Extended Video, or Video,
I just don't really like the way it looks.
So I would definitely say, shoot on the flattest
color profile and grade it yourself.
The camera does come with a license
of DaVinci Resolve, so that is awesome.
It is one of the most powerful
color grading softwares out there.
The colors seem to line up pretty well
with the 4K version of this camera,
in case you're familiar with that.
But I also used to grade a lot
of Sony FS7 footage and S-log 3.
And this footage reminds me a whole lot of that,
which is a good thing because the Sony FS7,
quite a bit more than this $2,500 camera.
Or, you could just take the lazy route,
and just buy my LUTS that I made specifically
for this camera.
Here's a couple shots of my LUTS in action,
to try to convince you to buy my stuff.
See, I'm living the dream right now, man.
This is what I've always wanted to grow up to be.
Being able to make money while not even putting on pants.
Yeah, I've made it, I've made it!
Check this out, we're gonna do some low light tests,
and it's super dark here in this parking lot.
It has a dual native ISO, so one out of 400,
and one at 3,200 and at 3,200 ISO,
it looks really, really good.
The lighting that we're using on Kari,
is that light all the way over there.
That one light, all the way over there is
doing all this over to here.
At 12,800 ISO as you would expect,
there is quite a bit of noise,
but it's not terrible, like in some circumstances,
I think you could use this. Very impressive in low light,
(woman gasping) for sure.
That's not funny. (woman laughing)
That's not funny.
Anyways, hopefully this has been helpful,
but this video getting way too long.
So, let's close this up by reading a few comments
from my last video, which was all about this Sony RX100 VII.
Check out what I got for this.
This is called a Mag filter and it's just like a little
magnetic ND filter that just sticks onto the front
of a point-and-shoot like that, pretty sweet right?
We want the iPhone 11 versus Red Weapon in the next episode.
I actually pre-ordered that this morning.
I had to wake up at five a.m. to order the iPhone 11 Pro.
I got it, I'm excited about it.
That super wide angle lens is going to be dope.
"Are we going to see more footage from you in Ireland?
"Looked dope AF in Peter's video."
Yeah, we have so much footage from them
but the bottleneck is always editing.
Sam and I are always tag teaming these videos,
but it's still just always so much editing to be done.
Every two weeks, Potato Jet says,
"This is the best camera in the market."
That's not true, maybe a little bit true.
"I recently got into filmmaking.
"Is LUTs available at Best Buy?"
No, but potatojet.com.
"How don't you have over a million subscribers?"
(murmurs) I don't know, But I'm on my way.
I'll get there one day, hopefully before I'm 80.
I'm out of things to say!
(soft hip hop music)