GEAR BLACKMAGIC POCKET CINEMA CAMERA 6K
In fact, using a Canon EF mount could nowadays be seen as quite a brave choice. There are adapters available to fit certain other lenses, but the flange distance means you can’t modify Sony-fit glass to it, for example. Canon seems to be focusing on its larger RF- mount lenses, too. However, many filmmakers own Canon lenses and they are plentiful to buy new or used, or to rent. One benefit of Canon EF lenses is that many have built-in image stabilisation while the camera itself has none at all. Next to the punch-in focus button is a dedicated button for high frame rate recording, the main menu button and a playback button. It’s all obvious and well designed. There’s a huge rear screen, which is bright – but totally fixed, and this is a problem. Outdoors in bright sunshine it was virtually useless, and of course there is no EVF to get you out of a corner. If you buy the Blackmagic then it’s worth investing in an effective sunshade at the very bare minimum, while a plug-in EVF or external monitor should really be on your shopping list, too, especially
thumb. One is an instant auto exposure button where the camera changes the aperture. The other is an autofocus button that uses the contrast-detect AF system, which doesn’t have any continuous tracking mode. We tried it with a Canon 50mm f/1.8 EF lens and it was quite slow, but did lock on to static subjects. You can also use the touchscreen to select what you want the focus to aim at, or use it for focus pulls. It works some of the time, but is not in the same league as phase detection systems from rivals. It’s a shame as the Canon lenses have such great AF motors. We found it far better to use proper manual focus cine lenses, as befits a cinema camera. We tried a Samyang 35mm VDSLR lens and also one of the firm’s Xeen cinema primes, and were impressed not only by the handling but also by the image quality. The camera has a focus assist button to zoom in to a larger area, ideal for manual focus lenses. Using one of the Xeen lenses on the front of the camera really does take its name as a Pocket Cinema Camera to new heights of fallacy, though.
between file size and ultimate quality. But with 6K files, even at the most compressed, the quality and resolution is still incredible. The camera also supports UHS-II SD cards, and if you shoot in full- resolution 6K you can get around an hour of recording time on a 256GB card. You’d best be investing in big, fast external hard drives and a fast computer to store and edit those huge files on, though. In terms of usability, the BMPCC6K has a large button to start and stop recording in the place where most mirrorless cameras have their regular shutter release for taking stills, and a small button next to it to capture stills if you want. There is a control dial on the front of the body that controls the iris. You can also change other settings by touching the icon on the touchscreen, then either use the touchscreen slider or the control dial. There are buttons to change ISO and white-balance, and three function buttons to toggle false colour, effect of the display LUT, and frame guidelines. It’s a shame there are no waveforms on the screen; there is a histogram, but it’s not as useful. The back of the camera has two buttons that fall under your right
ABOVE The large rear screen dominates the back of the camera, while three custom buttons are easy to set RIGHT Log footage gives a flat image that’s easy to grade in most NLE software
“You can change other settings by touching the icon on the touchscreen, then either use the touchscreen slider or the control dial”
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PRO MOVIEMAKER WINTER 2019
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