Blackmagic Design announces Pyxis modular full-frame video camera: Digital Photography Review
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They prone to build up heat that affects the sensor noise, to use strange codecs internally, to be very picky about power, they are kinda painful to rig, and so on, and so on. BM cameras are great paper tigers but from my experience are not very reliable, part of the reason why you almost don't see big movies shot on BlackMagic. Most films are not shot in raw - especially not the ones in the price category this camera plays in. No one wants to have to transcode - and a lot of editing houses just outright don't want raw format. But, again, videographers looking at $1,300 cameras often do want stabilization, so it’s a conundrum. At any rate, we achieved decent handheld results using stabilized Panasonic lenses, but an external gimbal would definitely be preferred.
Built for video from the ground up
With 13-stops of dynamic range and dual native ISOs (ISO 400 and ISO 3,200), the Pocket Camera 4K is tuned to handling noise and retaining tonal detail in situations notoriously hard for video. The main topside buttons include a record button and a 4K stills capture button, along with quick access to ISO, shutter angle and white balance. Three handy customisable function buttons are also in easy reach, as too is the power switch. Power comes from an LP-E6 battery – the same type used in cameras like the Canon 5D IV and 7D II. It's a popular battery form-factor available from a wide variety of manufacturers, so buying extras shouldn't cost the earth. A good thing, since battery life is quoted at only 60 minutes.
Dual ISO
It uses Blackmagic's proprietary demosaiced and compressed 'Blackmagic RAW' format and can generate H.264 proxy files alongside. It has a built-in 4" Full HD LCD panel that can act as an HDR display thanks to its 1500 nits peak brightness. Despite being described as a box camera, the Pyxis includes extensive direct controls, as well as this display. It also requires an external recorder to capture 10-bit video. Lastly, it has C-Log capture and the industry-leading dual pixel AF.
A highly portable, semi-pro 4K video camera that's significantly less expensive than its rivals – what's not to like?
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XLR is also an industry-standard connector in the pro video sector that plays nicely with everything from wireless mics through to concert hall audio rigs, adding a huge amount of audio clout to this small camera. With 4K CinemaDNG RAW recording at 272 MB/s and ProRes 422HQ recording at 117.88MB/s, you will want a lot of storage media, even for short projects. Getting specific, a 256GB card will capture 14 minutes of 30fps raw footage.
Autofocus and battery woes
The key noticeable difference in our experience was that the RAW video we captured was better at managing the highlights than ProRes, so we ended up exposing down a bit more than we usually would. When we remembered though, it worked really well, especially when shooting in ProRes or RAW, as the range in these modes is excellent, giving us tons of room to manoeuvre in post and pull out detail from shadows. In turn, if your needs must rely on continuous autofocus, like us, then the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K won’t deliver that - Canon is still ahead of the pack here. On the back, to the right of the screen are other key function buttons, such as Iris, Focus, High Frame Rate, Zoom, Menu and Playback. We found when we relied on the display exclusively when setting exposure, we had a tendency to overexpose slightly, so if you’re anything like us, underexposing by half a stop should save your highlights.
Storage media
It's not only about size, but having all those features without needing extra accessories. All the inputs and outputs are already included, the large batteries attaches directly to the back of the camera. The only thing really missing is a viewfinder or an articulated monitor, which admittedly ads to the cost. Partner with us to reach an enthusiastic audience of students, enthusiasts and professional videographers and filmmakers. Click here to contact a sales representative and request a media kit.
Image quality and audio
The 12-40mm f/2.8, the 7-14mm f/2.8 and the 25mm f/1.2 all cost under $1,300. These gave us the full frame equivalent of a 23-76mm f/2.8, 13-27mm f/2.8 and 48mm f/1.2 prime. That’s a very usable range of top-notch lenses at an affordable price point.
In fact, we were unable to get the top cover back in place unless we started at the top and worked our way down. This is another one of those “What do you expect for $1,300” features. Regardless, if you need to shoot for hours in 4K RAW, expect to shell out more for media than you did for the camera.That’s where having ProRes is handy. You will get double the capacity of your media just switching to ProRes 422 HQ. If you’re not blown away at those specs, your expectations are too high.
We noticed during testing that the battery percentage went down very rapidly. Our suspicions were confirmed when we tested the battery life. Across a few different batteries and tests, we saw a relatively consistent battery life of about 40 minutes. The camera did get hot during our tests but never hot enough to affect performance.
This will set you back around $65 (£49), and as we will cover when we talk about battery life, will be a worthwhile investment. Good travel cameras should be small, versatile, and offer good image quality. In this buying guide we've rounded-up several great cameras for travel and recommended the best.
This is the cinema camera for the rest of us, but it remains very much a cinema camera. Its size and price — and use of the Micro Four Thirds mount — will naturally draw comparisons to hybrid mirrorless cameras like the Panasonic GH5S, but these are not direct competitors. Despite the accessibility, the BMPCC 4K is built for professional filmmaking workflows, and thus it may not suit the needs of the more casual user. The BMPCC 4K continues Blackmagic Design’s trend of making weird-looking cameras. It is excessively wide from left to right, but oddly short from front to back. Pick it up, and it’s surprisingly light thanks to its carbon fiber and plastic composite shell.
The Blackmagic PYXIS features two built in CFexpress card recorders, and a USB-C expansion port for recording direct to external flash media disks or an SSD. CFexpress media are more durable and faster than even older media so are perfect for recording full resolution, 12-bit Blackmagic RAW files. Plus, with dual CFexpress slots, customers can keep recording because customers can hot swap full cards without stopping. Blackmagic PYXIS records in Blackmagic RAW to preserve control of detail, exposure and color during post production. It also records HD H.264 proxies in real time making it easy to share media around the world in minutes. This means images always maintain unprecedented resolution and quality for color, keying, compositing, reframing, stabilization and tracking in HD, 4K or 6K.
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Choose between ISO 400 and ISO 3,200 depending on your ambient lighting conditions. Then in post production you can select any ISO between 100 and 1,000 if you shot at ISO 400 in-camera, or there's an ISO range of 1,250 to 25,600 available in post if you originally shot at ISO 3,200. It all translates to amazing dynamic range and editing flexibility. The image quality of the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K is equal to or better than the other cameras in its price range.
I also believe BM shoots at marginally higher framerates (36fps opengate, not that it really matters). @Samuel Dilworth No built-in ND filters, fixed LCD, but by all means, it's as close to perfect as one can probably get at this price point. The cheaper alternatives would be one of the Black Magic Pocket Cinema Cameras, or possibly a Panasonic mirrorless, but this is already so cheap that a couple of jobs will pay it off. @arhmatic - BM already has a hand-held 6K camera with a tilting screen in the back. And instead everyone complained to them that they wanted a box camera that could be rigged out with external monitors and viewfinders.
Most come in PL as well, but some (for example, Cooke SP3 or Sirui anamorphics) are now exclusive to mirrorless mounts. And, as Samuel said, you're free to adapt anything to L-Mount at the cost of mount rigidity. The camera features a series of mounting points for handles, viewfinders and other accessories and has a replaceable side plate that can be swapped-out for one with a SSD/phone holder or a standard rosette connector. Our last major frustration with the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K is its port covers. Three hunks of rubber cover the mic input, headphone output, HDMI out, 12v power, USB-C port and mini XLR port.
The camera includes a 12G-SDI out for monitoring with support for HDR and Ultra HD output. That means customers can connect an SDI display for on set monitoring of images, with or without overlays that show critical information and camera status. SDI allows for much longer cable runs than HDMI making it easier to reach monitors that are further away on set.
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