(upbeat music)
- Happy New Year, everybody.
You guys know that Looney Tunes intro
where like some character comes out of like an orange ring?
Do I look like that?
(impersonates Porky Pig)
That's all, folks.
(laughs)
Okay, it's a little bit different than I remembered it.
It has to be like orange circles,
which I kind of have, but it has to be bigger
and the background has to be green.
So let's do that real quick
and then we'll start talking
about this Black Magic Cinema Pocket Camera 4K.
It's a lopsided circle.
I'm really bad at this.
It's a little flat.
Hey, that's looking pretty good, huh?
Okay, in the official Looney Tunes intro,
there's like a green backdrop,
but you guys know I can't put a green backdrop
behind here or else you guys are gonna green screen me
into a whole bunch of weird crap.
I'm gonna get me in trouble.
I do have that blue though.
That's a little bit dark.
I'm gonna add a little bit of light to this now.
How's that look?
Oh, too bright.
But in the Looney Tunes background,
the pig has a shadow behind him,
which means he's being lit by a harsh source,
but clearly if you look at him,
he's being lit by something very very soft
like there's no gradation in his skin tones.
Looney Tunes has been lying to your face
about lighting your entire life.
And that is how you spend your entire morning goofing off
and not being productive at all.
(laughs)
But today we're talking about this camera right here,
which is making a lot of noise in the camera world.
And after playing with this for the last month,
I can comfortably say this is a camera
that is awesome for a lot of people, but not everybody.
Some of you guys need to completely just stay away from it.
Don't even look at it.
Stop it.
Now before we start talking trash about this camera,
which is coming by the way, don't worry,
but let's talk about why I bought this for myself
and my production company
and why I spend my own money on it.
First of all, it delivers a professional output 4K 60 frames
per second in ProRes 422 HQ and RAW,
but me, personally, I usually shoot on ProRes 422.
I find that to be plenty of space to work with.
RAW can be nice once in a while,
but as long as you dial in your settings on set properly,
I never really felt like, man, I really wish this was RAW.
It's got a nice wide dynamic range, very smooth and flat.
And because it's ProRes, you can color grade the crap
out of this thing.
So it can work well as a B or C camera
to many different set ups.
But, bottom line, it didn't take much to sell me
on this camera.
All you have to say if 4K 60, ProRes 422 HQ,
compact body, and it's 1,300 bucks.
Take my money.
Am I expecting this to be the best cinema camera
that's ever existed?
No, not at all.
But it's 1,300 bucks.
I mean, it literally is the same price as this memory card.
I'm not even kidding.
This is the same price as this memory card.
Kinda sucks.
(slapping sound effect)
Ow.
And I already have all these other professional cameras.
Why am I spending more money on this
besides the fact that I'm addicted to buying (beep)?
Gimbal use, I mean, c'mon.
I just finished doing a whole shoot last month
where I was traveling all over the place.
Went to to NASA and filmed on the launch pad,
which was dope.
We put the RED Epic Helium on here and filmed
with it all day, every day, and it was awesome.
It looked absolutely gorgeous,
but my back hurts.
I hate this.
And when you compare the weight of these two,
I mean, this thing is tiny.
Oh man, this would be a good thumbnail.
Hold up here.
Check this out.
I always feel so stupid doing these thumbnails.
(laughs)
Tada!
Now it's on the MoVI Pro and that was like the simplest set
up ever.
The MoVI Pro has no issues.
It doesn't even know there's a camera on there.
I'm gonna just strap this mimic system onto my head
and then check it out.
I don't even had to do anything.
I just up to set, set this up, and I go, okay,
you want that angle?
Got it.
How back that?
You want that too?
I know you're looking at me, dude!
Stop!
By the way, this MoVI Pro, best gimbal I've ever used,
hands down.
I got to make whole video about this thing someday.
Oh my God, this thing is so freaking light.
I can literally use this thing all day.
And because of it's size, it's got to be one
of the cameras that's gonna be super popular
to throw on a gimbal,
but they made it a little bit wide
so it doesn't fit onto a DJI Ronin-S.
This company, LanParte, they sent me a whole bunch
of things for this camera, which we'll get into later,
but they do make this offset plate,
which will allow you to mount this directly
onto a Ronin-S or a Zhiyun Crane.
So that's probably gonna be one
of the hot-selling accessories for this camera.
Now let's talk about image quality for a second.
I'm gonna actually take this off of here.
And right now I'm filming on the 80D,
but I'm gonna take this camera and put it in its place.
And we're switched over
to the Black Magic Cinema camera 4K.
Man that is a hard camera name to say.
And I really like how it looks.
I like the dynamic range.
I like the highlight rolloff of my face.
I look super pretty.
And one of the reasons why I was really considering
this camera as my A camera for the studio setup is
that usually I'm filming with this camera
and then I take this microphone
and I have to plug this microphone,
which is the Shure SM7B into this Zoom F8 recorder
and I record audio separately
and then I have to sync it in post.
But now I'm just literally plugging this microphone straight
into the camera with a mini XLR adapter
because this camera actually puts out phantom power
which is awesome.
So all you need is a little adapter cable
that comes out of this camera and gives you an XLR port.
And this is generally what it looks like
if I lightly grade the footage,
but this is what it looks like if it's flat
and then I can grade it couple different ways.
And there's lot of flexibility.
When I'm grading it, a lot of times,
it reminds me of the Sony FS7, which is good thing
because the Sony FS7 is a great camera
and it's $7,000.
But my main turn off of using this camera
to film yourself is, first of all,
you can't really see yourself.
And the only reason why I'm able
to pull this off right now is
because I have a giant production monitor right there
behind it showing me what I'm filming.
But without that, you're literally just looking at this.
This is what you're gonna see
and you're gonna be like, "Okay, I hope I got the shot.
"I hope I'm in focus
"because we don't have continuous auto focus."
And it generally works, but it's always in the back
on my mind like am I in perfect focus?
And I can't really move around too much.
And we're back on the typical Canon 80D
and I have my auto focus back
so I can move all over the place
and this thing will follow me so glad about that.
I must admit, though, that Black Magic 4K ProRes looks
so sharp.
I am kind of tempted to use this as my kind of studio A cam
that I leave here, but I just don't know
if it's worth the extra hassle
because right now I can film for hours and hours
and I'll just come out with two little SD cards,
one from the camera, one from the audio.
Syncing only takes a few seconds and boom.
Just that little short sequence
that I filmed on this camera, it was 35 gigs.
I recorded in ProRes 422 HQ and, my gosh, 35 gigabytes.
That's usually around the size of my entire videos like
with all my A roll, my B roll, all the footage I get usually
under like 25 gigs.
And just that little tiny segment right there, 35 gigs,
just boof.
And I usually don't set up a production monitor
because right now I mean the flippy screen out of the 80D,
I mean, it's great.
It's enough for what I'm doing.
This I'm required to set up that production monitor,
but, man, on my 4K display,
I could notice a pretty big difference.
How different does it look to you guys?
I'm gonna throw up that poll.
I want you guys to tell me honestly.
But keep in mind, the only reason
why I'm slightly considering this as my Youtube camera is
because this is more like a studio hybrid.
It's more like a Youtuber vlog space,
but also a regular traditional film studio.
But if you're looking for a camera specifically
to start a Youtube channel, you plan
on filming yourself a whole lot or vlogging, don't even, no.
Is it in focus?
- [Steve] It's pretty good.
- This is a terrible camera to record yourself in,
not really a vlogging camera, but it probably looks nice.
If you were vlogging, this is what you would be staring at.
You can kind of see that this red light is recording,
but that's about it.
You can't really tell if you're in focus
or what it's recording, what's in frame,
what's in behind you.
For me, a good vlog camera is something
that you can just set up and not think too much about
because you don't really want to spend all your focus
on the camera.
You want to be focused on whatever the hell you're doing.
When I'm looking at vlog cameras,
the few things I'm looking for is like a flip out screen,
great auto focus, some sort of image stabilization,
whether it's in the lens or in the body,
and something very simple to use
and great image just right out of the body.
I want to be able to just pull this thing
out whenever I'm guilted, know confidently
that I got a pretty good usable shot
and then put it away and then do something else.
Somebody must have thought
this would be a great vlogging camera
because they put a record button right there
so you could film yourself, but no.
This on the other hand, I would use probably more
if I was like a camera operator to like a documentary
or something where I'm gonna man it
and be a traditional camera operator.
As an indie filmmaker or a small production company,
I mean, this is great option to get you started.
Let's say you're trying to film a documentary
for a super low budget, I would probably suggest this
if this is your price bracket.
But even though the body price is nice and low,
there is still a little bit or work to be done
with this camera before I would consider it
to be usable in a professional environment.
First of all, only 1/4 inch thread on the bottom.
Once we start rigging this thing out,
it's gonna start slipping and sliding sideways.
This is a camera that you absolutely need
to have a rig before you can use it
in a professional environment for many different reasons.
But for one, there's no stabilization built
into the body, so unless your lens has image stabilization
built into it, you better be on a tripod or a gimbal
or super steady.
For me, whenever someone uses a DSLR to film something
without image stabilization, it's a dead give away
that it's a DSLR and not like a cinema camera.
It's really because it's so much smaller and lighter.
The thing with small cameras is you'll be holding it
and you'll be like, "I'm holding this very,
"very stable right now."
You don't realize how much you're actually shaking.
So, see this black dot right here?
I have a laser on this camera
and I have a mirror set up on the other side
of the room to kind of amplify the effects
and I'm gonna basically try to keep this laser
on that black dot.
You can see how much it shakes and how fast it shakes.
It's very erratic.
It's like (trills tongue).
So let's rig this up.
Add a little bit of weight to it, give it some wider grips,
and three points of contact.
There's a lot of different rig options out there.
LanParte was kind enough to send me some,
so shout out to them.
And their stuff seems pretty reasonably priced
for the quality.
It's definitely solid stuff.
Top handle and SSD tray come with it
so if you're trying to record
to like a two terabyte SSD drive, not worry about data,
you can mount it here and plug it into the side
of the camera and we got ourselves a handheld rig,
a follow focus, all that good stuff.
I'm gonna link all this stuff in the description.
Now let's do our super scientific laser test.
I got three points of contact, a wider grip, more weight.
And it's not so much being able to stay on the target,
but more of how fast it jitters.
And that jitter is like a dead give away
that you're shooting on kind of like a DSLR opposed
to a cinema cam.
And cameras like the RED, they're so heavy out of the box
that it doesn't really need added support.
Now, aside from getting rid of that jitter,
the first thing you're gonna really, really need
to solve is the battery,
which is my biggest gripe with this camera.
They actually give you a crap generic battery
when they ship you this camera.
It is a terrible battery.
It doesn't even charge on a genuine Canon charger.
If you put that battery into a Canon camera,
it's like what the hell is this?
Get this out of my body.
So I've been using the authentic batteries from Canon
and that seems to work a little bit better,
but still these are tiny batteries.
We had to change out the batteries so many times.
It got really, really annoying
and it doesn't give you that much of a heads up
when it's about to just cut out on you.
These are like 14 watt hours,
which is not gonna last long at all
in a camera that's recording ProRes and RAW.
I really feel like they should've
just made the camera a tad bit bigger
and just given it actually juice.
A must is an external power source.
You can plug it in from the side right here.
And really for any camera that records 4K ProRes,
you're gonna want a nice beefy battery like this
and I just P tap into there.
And this battery plate goes on 15mm rails.
Next this monitor back here, it's pretty nice and big
and sharp so I feel pretty comfortable pulling focus on it,
but it doesn't articulate at all like in any direction
and it's not that bright.
So if you're outdoors, you're gonna get tons of glare.
You're not really gonna be able to see it that well.
So it's a great monitor if you have the camera right
at eye level and it's a pretty dark place.
Then, it's great.
Otherwise, it sucks.
Some point or another, you're really gonna need
to invest in a decent external monitor.
So it's great that it's only 1,300 bucks
to get you up and running with the body,
but really to get it to perform, you're gonna have
to spend some extra money to kind of make up
for what it's lacking.
It has a full-sized HDMI port, which is great,
but no SDI port, which kind of is a bummer
because a lot of cinema cameras like the Arri Alexa,
they only have SDI.
They don't even have HDMI.
SDI is so much more of a better connection.
HDMI, you kind of like wiggle the cable wrong
or something and you'll lose connection.
I mean, HDMI works and it's inexpensive,
but once you use SDI a couple times, you're like,
"Wow, this is so much better."
Also keep in mind, there's no ND filters built in,
so you might want to get yourself a matte box
if you have cine lenses where you can't just thread them on.
And a lot of people are not happy about the Micro 4/3,
which I'm personally not a fan of either.
I got a speed booster, which adapts the EF lenses
to the Micro 4/3 system
and this speed booster basically redirects the light
so you get a little bit of extra light
out of the lens, which is always nice.
You still maintain control
over the electronic controlled lenses.
Instead of it being a two times crop factor,
it becomes more like a 1.4 times crop factor.
Metabones makes great speed boosters
and I've been using theirs for years,
but I've been trying this new one by,
I think it's Commlite or Ommlite
and that's been really awesome
because instead of it feeling like a Micro 4/3 system,
it feels a whole lot more like Super 35.
So, Ommlite or Commlite or whatever you call it,
I'll link them in the description as well.
But, yeah, once I got all these accessories on,
it's starting to feel much more like a usable camera.
One thing is for sure, once this is all said and done,
the image quality out of this camera is surprising
for it's price point.
It's really on par with cameras that are like five
to 10 thousand dollars.
♪ Happy birthday to Steve ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
- Thank you.
- Woo!
And their low light capabilities, a huge improvement
over some of their previous models.
At 6,400 ISO, it still looks pretty decent
and you crank it way up
and of course you start seeing a whole lot of grain there,
but still for a Micro 4/3 system, I'm impressed.
Now in terms of the user interface, the menu,
and just kind of dialing in all your settings,
this might one of the most well laid out menus
that I have ever seen.
It's very, very straightforward, very simple to use.
And everything's just super simple, the way it should be.
I didn't look at the manual.
I just kind of went into the menu
to try to see if I could figure everything out myself
and it was a breeze.
The only thing that took me a little while to figure
out is how to get it into 120 frames per second.
That one took me a minute, but basically you first have
to go into HD and then you have to do a window sensor,
which crops in, and then you can crank it up
to 120 frames per second.
The 120 frames per second slow motion on this,
definitely very usable, but it is cropped
and it's in HD, so keep that in mind.
And for a camera with such bad battery life,
I really wish they didn't place the battery right here
on the bottom like a photo camera.
DSLR is a photography camera.
It's fine to put it right here.
You're usually handheld or on a tripod,
but photography tripods are usually very small
and you have very easy access
to this bottom port right here.
When you're shooting cinema,
you're usually on a big fat fluid head tripod.
You might have to pull it off the trip or whatever just
to get into this battery door.
Pretty much every cinema camera I can think
of right now has the battery that comes out from the back.
So it's easy to switch it on and off no matter
if it's on a gimbal or a rig or whatever.
It really sucks having a perfectly balanced gimbal
and then the battery dies and you're like,
"Oh, let me take this camera entirely off the gimbal,
"switch out the battery, put it back in, and rebal..."
It's a pain.
Oh my God, look how dramatic this is.
And the best part about this whole thing is
that this wood is fake.
It's like wrapping paper.
It looks pretty convincing though doesn't it?
For 1,300 bucks, this is really, really impressive.
At the same time, it does concern me a little bit.
How are they able to develop this
and drive the price down so low?
You guys might've seen my first video about this camera
where I got it, it worked great for five minutes,
and then completely stopped working giving me
this weird green, black image.
Had to ship it back in
because it was like an internal error.
And stuff like that, I get it.
Every single camera company has had a big unit come
off their production line,
but I feel like Black Magic might have a few more issues
than most established camera companies.
I would probably go out of my way
to buy the extended warranty.
Usually stores like B&H or Amazon,
they usually offer you like a camera
or an electronics extended warranty program
that goes to three to four years
in case anything happens to it.
I usually skip those, but with this camera,
just from what I've seen and what I've heard others say
about issues with their camera,
I'd probably pay the little extra to just get that
and I probably wouldn't also want this
to be my only camera on a set
because of the reliability issue
that I've had in the past.
Me, personally, I'd probably be using this mostly
as like a B or C cam to other cameras
and I definitely see a time and place for it
in some of my future projects.
So I'm really happy about this purchase.
I'm really curious how the Black Magic
and the RED look side by side.
Should I make that it's own video?
Hmm, maybe.
And let's close this video off with reading a couple
of comments from my last video,
which was all about putting a GoPro and the DJI Osmo
on this little RC car, zipping it around town,
and seeing how the footage looked.
Top comment from Dan & Nak:
can you try the RED on the RC car next time?
I think I need a bigger RC car.
Actually Freefly, the company that makes the MoVI,
they actually create an RC car
that fits the MoVI and then you can throw a RED camera
on there and zip that around, which is pretty cool.
The Freefly Tero, oh there it is.
Man, those things look so cool.
I want one so bad.
Put that on my wishlist for Christmas.
Oh, wait, Christmas is already over.
Damn it.
What's the affiliate link for pizza and foot massages?
That's not for sale.
Next comment comes from I'm a big sandwich.
That's a great name.
I don't know if potato is ever gonna see this,
but here's an analogy between RC and sensor size.
Oh that's actually pretty cool.
1/20th scale and smaller is a 1 2/3 inch.
Micro 4/3 is 1/14th scale.
1/5th scale, medium format sensors.
That actually makes perfect sense to me now.
That was very useful.
I would rate the dog three out of four.
Show your abs.
Okay, you guys asked for it.
Here we go.
That's real.
This is not photoshopped at all.
(gentle electronic music)