Getting the best out of Blackmagic (BMPCC4k)

[ThatGreasyFootball]

Howdy all. I am curious if anyone has any tips, advice, color grading experience, etc… for shooting with the black magic pocket cine 4k. I am going to start on another film here in the coming months, except this time I am shooting in color. This worries the shit out of me, as I have never shot a film in color. Generally speaking I know how I want my scenes to be lit, and what i want them to look like, but I feel as if black magic is failing me when it comes to color. I am looking to get as close as possible visually to 35mil film or arri footage. I understand that this is a big ask, but I am quite poor and have no real options except to ask for the absolute most out of this camera. Any advice on how I might get closer to this deranged and possibly futile goal would be appreciated. Grazie Mille.

-PWM

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[LucaM]

I never used it but i was considering it too for my next short, it seems a nice camera and the price at the moment is very interesting (and usually it comes with a DaVinci Resolve Studio licence, at least the shops i checked here in Italy) .

What made me change idea about it was the lack of stabilization (but it couldn’t be a problem for you, if you don’t shoot handheld and you use a tripod or a gymbal or other tools) and the fact that the monitor is not very bright and can’t change angle (unless you customize it someway, i’ve watched some videos about mounting the monitor on an external case or something similar but i don’t know if the warranty would allow that), so it could make it complicated to see the monitor outside.

Summing up i’ve read gread things about it and the quality of its image and i’d like to try it for a while, but i think you’ll have to find a way to stabilize it and perhaps an external monitor to fully develop its potential. Let me know how it will work, i’m curious about it!

And good luck for the movie! 🙂

[Tyler F]

All BMD cameras like light. I tend to overexpose them about +1/2 stop by creating a LUT that purposely forces me to. Start there — Essentially what is happening is that you’re monitoring an image that appears darker than what it actually is, thus forcing you to pump more light into the set and more information to the sensor.

No one can effectively teach you how to build a 35mm LUT on the web, because it requires of a lot of patience and some in-program skills to build it the correct way, but you can find some free LUT’s available for the pocket 4k.

I would run a series of tests, probably something closer to how you would light on the day, then take that footage into Resolve and see how the image holds once you start grading. That way you know for yourself if it needs more/less light, what hue’s/saturations look good for RGB lights (if you’re using them), how much actual latitude you’re working with.. etc.

[Author]

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