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I’ve had the camera for four years now and I have to say it’s one of my favourite things I own. It’s never let me down, not even once. It works perfectly used nearly daily for years.
Now, I haven’t used any other of the cameras that blackmagic offers but I wouldn’t say that you need anything more than what the 4k has to make anything you want. It has a good sensor, it’s small, has good UI, it’s fast and easy to adapt lenses on to.
I bought the camera with my brother when we were in university to upgrade from our canon eos m and it helped me get through uni in a big way. It’s a great little workhorse.
Also, I meant to mention that the fact it has braw makes an ENORMOUS difference compared to cameras in it’s price range. You just can’t beat the flexibility of raw when colour grading. I’ve saved many incorrectly exposed shots because of it.
I have friends that own much more expensive cameras like Red’s, Sony’s and Arri’s but the footage from any blackmagic camera shooting braw and properly graded is indistinguishable from them. The 4k performs like a much more expensive camera considering it’s capabilities.
If you’re getting one you should keep your camera rigging as simple as you possibly can, have as minimal of a setup as you can, don’t overcomplicate it. Also for the love of god don’t record externally with the 4k, get an angelbird SD or CFast card. Just trust me on that one.
Hi Boulic, first of all thank you.
I don’t know what you mean by edge blur effect? The only thing I did optically was shoot the film with a Mirror – 1b and a Helios 44-2 with a .71x viltrox speed booster.
To draw focus to what I wanted in the film I shot it with the Mirror – 1b with a low aperture. All of the film apart from one shot was shot on that lens.
I completely understand where you’re coming from Luca. I used to be the same way but I managed to make myself think differently about these things.
I suppose its harder to stop thinking like that depending on how technically minded you are but I’m not sure.
Luca, you’re not supposed to understand why Tarkovsky creates his images or the reasonings behind them, they’re meant to be felt and not analysed.
The image serves as a form of unction that emerges not from Tarkovsky’s intellectual mind, not from a film school textbook, but rather from the depths of his heart and soul. Rather than a calculated product of thought, it flows from an inner well of feeling and intuition, capturing something deeply personal and transcendent beyond mere intellect. For Tarkovsky, the image is less a concept to be analysed and more a sacred expression of his soul’s vision, resonating with a sense of mystery and emotional truth.
Whatever way Tarkovsky’s images resonate with you is the correct understanding of them, not Tarkovskys. Yours.
The same goes for any art really, often I go to see Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ and when I do I don’t try to understand Caravaggio’s choices, rather I try to understand why what he’s made resonates with me. What it is about it that I like, what my own meanings of the work are. Whether or not I can articulate those thoughts doesn’t matter. Its my experience with it that does.
What else is there to art except for your own interpretations of it and how it makes you feel? That’s the whole point of making and experiencing it.
By the way kayill, I don’t mean to put down modern art in any way. Its just not what I like to enjoy.
I can’t find the post at the moment but a few months ago I asked Roger a question on practicing cinematography.
He gave me a great but of advice to see and study paintings and go to art museums and observe paintings. Something along those lines.
Over the past few months I’ve visited the national gallery in Dublin many times and I also spent a few days in the national gallery in London, every time I go to each museum I try to understand the compositions of what paintings I like as much as I can, see how to light is interpreted, how the painter stages their subjects, use of colour, where focus lies and where my eyes are drawn. I try to fully take the painting in and understand it as deeply as I can than I try to implement what I learn from paintings and apply it to my own work.
My own personal work has improved greatly since I started studying paintings. My films look better now than when I was primarily studying films, television photography for composition.
Not to devalue the composition of images in film, television or photography but much more work (usually) goes into a painting than a shot in film. It takes longer to produce a painting so more care and thought (again, usually) goes into them.
I don’t pay and attention to modern art, just classical paintings.
I completely agree with you John. All of the shots in that film except that shot was taken with my Blackmagic Pocket 4k on Blackmagic raw but for that one shot I used my drone which shot on DJI D-Log. I’m not a pro colourist so I just couldn’t for the life of me make it match. It really annoyed me in the end but there just wasn’t anything I could do about. At the end of the day I just had to call it and say it was good enough!
You’re right, it does look like a cheap LUT. 😉
Thank you.
I remember reading an interview with either Elem Klimov or Aleksey Rodionov on the cinematography of come and see. I’m fairly sure it was mentioned that there were only one or two lights used on the films but yes it was nearly all shot with natural light.
Sorry, I wasn’t being clear.
I meant films that Roger Deakins admires that he didn’t work on.
Come and see is such a beautiful film. I don’t mean the subject matter but the visuals of course.
Hi David! I’m just wondering do you just have vast libraries of screenshots from movies that you like?
It just seems like that to me from the screenshots you share from films on this forum and your brilliant posts on Instagram!
I’ve actually been going through a lot of movies over the past few years and either screenshotting specific scenes I want to analyse or just every shot in the entire movie and then just going through the whole thing to best understand each shots relation to one another and of course composition, lighting etc. Shot deck just isn’t specific enough for me. I find it very helpful for developing my own ideas.
