BlackMagic Cinema Camera in L Mount

[LocalHero1953]

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The new member of my camera family. It replaces, a good many months later, my Sigma fp. I also bought the battery grip and a couple of extra batteries (only one of which has arrived so far).

First impressions while the battery is charging: chunky alongside the SL2-S, a bit heavier, but not uncomfortable and OK in my hands. Most of the time I will use it on a tripod..

Rather more buttons than I'm used to, but at first sight they look organised, not placed by a Jackson Pollock fan. Definitely plastic in feel, but very solid plastic. One thing that drew me was the large tilting screen: a full 11cm width compared to the SL2-S 7.7cm - I'm hoping it will reduce any longing I might have for a separate screen/recorder. 

I think I have enough bits and pieces to fit a top handle, a cold shoe, a SSD bracket and an external mic, without getting a cage.

I have a chance to use it in parallel with the SL2-S tomorrow evening to record a theatre production. The 24-90 on the Leica will be at around 40-50mm, so I'll try it with the Apo-Summicron-SL 35mm

I need to dust my lenses and remove the grease from my right thumb.

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[idusidusi]

29 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

The new member of my camera family. It replaces, a good many months later, my Sigma fp. I also bought the battery grip and a couple of extra batteries (only one of which has arrived so far).

First impressions while the battery is charging: chunky alongside the SL2-S, a bit heavier, but not uncomfortable and OK in my hands. Most of the time I will use it on a tripod..

Rather more buttons than I'm used to, but at first sight they look organised, not placed by a Jackson Pollock fan. Definitely plastic in feel, but very solid plastic. One thing that drew me was the large tilting screen: a full 11cm width compared to the SL2-S 7.7cm - I'm hoping it will reduce any longing I might have for a separate screen/recorder. 

I think I have enough bits and pieces to fit a top handle, a cold shoe, a SSD bracket and an external mic, without getting a cage.

I have a chance to use it in parallel with the SL2-S tomorrow evening to record a theatre production. The 24-90 on the Leica will be at around 40-50mm, so I'll try it with the Apo-Summicron-SL 35mm

I need to dust my lenses and remove the grease from my right thumb.

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Wow that is the newest model with the L mount. I love the menu on the BM camera have they changed it or kept it going from the last two cameras. It is the clearest I ever saw. I hope you got the extra Viewfinder as in sun or other bright light the LCD was next to useless. The VF saves those occasions. It takes CF E type B cards too. I love Da Vinci software for video too. Enjoy!

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[LocalHero1953]

8 minutes ago, idusidusi said:

Wow that is the newest model with the L mount. I love the menu on the BM camera have they changed it or kept it going from the last two cameras. It is the clearest I ever saw. I hope you got the extra Viewfinder as in sun or other bright light the LCD was next to useless. The VF saves those occasions. It takes CF E type B cards too. I love Da Vinci software for video too. Enjoy!

I'm still waiting for the battery to charge and I have a whole batch of photos from last night to process before I can allow myself to play!

I haven't bought the VF, as I will be using it exclusively for video, and normally don't use an OVF for video - we shall see how it works in practice. I don't have a CF Express card yet - I forgot to ask in the shop when I picked it up, as I expect to use it with a Samsung T5 2TB SSD. I'd better get a CF card though.

I already use Davinci Resolve Studio for editing, so the included freebie is of little extra value at the moment.

Edited October 24, 2023 by LocalHero1953

[idusidusi]

3 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I'm still waiting for the battery to charge and I have a whole batch of photos from last night to process before I can allow myself to play!

I haven't bought the VF, as I will be using it exclusively for video, and normally don't use an OVF for video - we shall see how it works in practice. I don't have a CF Express card yet - I forgot to ask in the shop when I picked it up, as I expect to use it with a Samsung T5 2TB SSD. I'd better get one though.

I already use Davinci Resolve Studio for editing, so the included freebie is of little extra value at the moment.

Please let us know how you get on and it would be great to see some video, when you do get the time to bond with the BM.

[LocalHero1953]

22 hours ago, idusidusi said:

Please let us know how you get on and it would be great to see some video, when you do get the time to bond with the BM.

My first use of it may be delayed - my old Samsung T5 SSD drives are not recommended, and I have no CFexpress cards: I have a Samsung T9 and a Delkin CFexpress card on order.

[LocalHero1953]

I spent time today going through the menus. As others have commented they are logical and lucid. The large screen makes touch easy, and BM has exploited it well with large easy to read touch buttons and selector arrows. The screen is also sensitive.

With new cameras I avoid looking at the manual until forced to. The more Leicas you use, the less you need a manual, because you know what the terminology means and how Leica implements functions. BM uses its own terms, which I had to look up, such as the differences between Video, Extended Video and Film codecs, and the significance of the different compression and quality labels. The physical buttons were all obvious, except for the difference between those for Back Button AF and Focus Zoom, which look close enough for confusion. Four can be customised, either with a Toggle On/Off, or with a Preset Value/Action (e.g. ISO 3200). It'll be a while yet before I settle on what I find most useful - at the moment I have the three function buttons set to toggle on-screen displays of Focus Peaking, Grid/Horizon and Zebra, and the fourth button left at its default Back Button AF.

There is space for 10 user presets - more generous than Leica's 6 user profiles in the SL2-S. I have just created one for the moment for my typical theatre set up. I have some dance video coming up which will need a different preset.

As with any new camera, I am shocked at how quickly it eats batteries while looking at the menus and options. It does come with a mains power supply and locking 12V connector, which powers the camera and quickly charges the battery. It is supposed to trickle charge by USB-C as well (e.g. from a power bank), but I have also bought the battery grip which adds two more batteries.

I have put an Arca Swiss plate on the bottom and a Smallrig cold shoe on top. Fitting a top handle to the cold shoe actually feels quite secure, though a cage would be safer (and bulkier, of course).

[frame-it]

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5 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I spent time today going through the menus. As others have commented they are logical and lucid. The large screen makes touch easy, and BM has exploited it well with large easy to read touch buttons and selector arrows. The screen is also sensitive.

With new cameras I avoid looking at the manual until forced to. The more Leicas you use, the less you need a manual, because you know what the terminology means and how Leica implements functions. BM uses its own terms, which I had to look up, such as the differences between Video, Extended Video and Film codecs, and the significance of the different compression and quality labels. The physical buttons were all obvious, except for the difference between those for Back Button AF and Focus Zoom, which look close enough for confusion. Four can be customised, either with a Toggle On/Off, or with a Preset Value/Action (e.g. ISO 3200). It'll be a while yet before I settle on what I find most useful - at the moment I have the three function buttons set to toggle on-screen displays of Focus Peaking, Grid/Horizon and Zebra, and the fourth button left at its default Back Button AF.

There is space for 10 user presets - more generous than Leica's 6 user profiles in the SL2-S. I have just created one for the moment for my typical theatre set up. I have some dance video coming up which will need a different preset.

As with any new camera, I am shocked at how quickly it eats batteries while looking at the menus and options. It does come with a mains power supply and locking 12V connector, which powers the camera and quickly charges the battery. It is supposed to trickle charge by USB-C as well (e.g. from a power bank), but I have also bought the battery grip which adds two more batteries.

I have put an Arca Swiss plate on the bottom and a Smallrig cold shoe on top. Fitting a top handle to the cold shoe actually feels quite secure, though a cage would be safer (and bulkier, of course).

BM cameras' menus are all logical and generally speaking neatly arranged, lower the screen brightness and it wont eat the battery that much, once everything is setup, one very rarely has to dive into any menu

[Geoff C. Bassett]

42 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I spent time today going through the menus. As others have commented they are logical and lucid. The large screen makes touch easy, and BM has exploited it well with large easy to read touch buttons and selector arrows. The screen is also sensitive.

With new cameras I avoid looking at the manual until forced to. The more Leicas you use, the less you need a manual, because you know what the terminology means and how Leica implements functions. BM uses its own terms, which I had to look up, such as the differences between Video, Extended Video and Film codecs, and the significance of the different compression and quality labels. The physical buttons were all obvious, except for the difference between those for Back Button AF and Focus Zoom, which look close enough for confusion. Four can be customised, either with a Toggle On/Off, or with a Preset Value/Action (e.g. ISO 3200). It'll be a while yet before I settle on what I find most useful - at the moment I have the three function buttons set to toggle on-screen displays of Focus Peaking, Grid/Horizon and Zebra, and the fourth button left at its default Back Button AF.

There is space for 10 user presets - more generous than Leica's 6 user profiles in the SL2-S. I have just created one for the moment for my typical theatre set up. I have some dance video coming up which will need a different preset.

As with any new camera, I am shocked at how quickly it eats batteries while looking at the menus and options. It does come with a mains power supply and locking 12V connector, which powers the camera and quickly charges the battery. It is supposed to trickle charge by USB-C as well (e.g. from a power bank), but I have also bought the battery grip which adds two more batteries.

I have put an Arca Swiss plate on the bottom and a Smallrig cold shoe on top. Fitting a top handle to the cold shoe actually feels quite secure, though a cage would be safer (and bulkier, of course).

Blackmagic cameras eat batteries, it's my main issue with them. 

I am excited for this camera to enter the market, as it hopefully brings many more people to the mount. I do a lot of work alongside Blackmagic pocket cameras.  I shoot L-mount  (S5II, S5IIx, Leica SL2) and this has brought attention to my cameras on jobs since the announcement, people asking me if I'm going to get it? what are the lenses like? What are the best lenses?

I would have jumped on it, but the poor rolling shutter performance (My main gripe with the S5II), and the complete lack of any way to shoot 1080p with the full width of the sensor (ProRes 1080p is still a very much asked for deliverable) made it a no-go for me. Only tempted by the OLPF.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Geoff C. Bassett

[LocalHero1953]

8 hours ago, Geoff C. Bassett said:

I would have jumped on it, but the poor rolling shutter performance (My main gripe with the S5II), and the complete lack of any way to shoot 1080p with the full width of the sensor (ProRes 1080p is still a very much asked for deliverable) made it a no-go for me. Only tempted by the OLPF.

Is the BM worse than the S5ii/iix and SL2-S? From desk reports I thought it was comparable at full frame (not good, but similar), and improved at lower resolutions/crops.

If this was Leica I would expect the firmware to be updated eventually with more codecs and resolution. It does look a bit bare with only BRAW, but I don't know BM well enough to know if they're likely to add ProRes, or other full width resolutions.

Edited October 26, 2023 by LocalHero1953

[Geoff C. Bassett]

On 10/26/2023 at 3:21 AM, LocalHero1953 said:

Is the BM worse than the S5ii/iix and SL2-S? From desk reports I thought it was comparable at full frame (not good, but similar), and improved at lower resolutions/crops.

If this was Leica I would expect the firmware to be updated eventually with more codecs and resolution. It does look a bit bare with only BRAW, but I don't know BM well enough to know if they're likely to add ProRes, or other full width resolutions.

For rolling shutter it's the same sensor, it might be a little better readout, but not a significant improvement. At least with my S5IIx I can shoot in 1080p the full sensor width. It doesn't hold a candle to the Leica SL2's readout speed.

What Blackmagic Design is going for is a end to end system, where everyone shoots on BRAW and edits in Resolve. This started with the Ursa Pro 12K, which only shoots BRAW. They should have learned their lesson with that cameras lack of sales initially before they massively cut the price. At least that camera has a sensor design that enabled shooting 1080p RAW. 

I understand they don't want to pay for the license, but I think this is massive mistake to not have ProRes. Even if they made it a software key that customers had to pay in addition to the camera cost it would be okay.  

[LocalHero1953]

This is my likely set-up for theatre/performance recordings. Tripod-mounted (Gitzo 3-way head), battery grip, Smallrig handle for convenient handling and to attach the SSD clamp (and an external mic, if wanted). 

I have just run an endurance test: with three 3350mAh batteries, 1Tb CFexpress card and 2Tb Samsung T9 SSD, recording full frame BRAW at 25fps, I can record 2h49m (2.4Tb) before the batteries run out, good enough for most productions, though for some I might need another CFexpress card. The batteries are new so I might get up to 3h once they're run in.

The BMCC6K will get it's first real run tomorrow night recording a show of about 90m, which I'll do in parallel with the SL2-S for comparative purposes.

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[LocalHero1953]

Interim report.....

The video opportunity that I referred to in my previous post was actually unsuitable for drawing conclusions from a first trial.

Firstly the play I recorded was very dimly lit. I used the BMCC6k with the 16-35 SL zoom (f/3.5-4.5) and the SL2-S with the Apo-Summicron-SL 35. Rather than use the same ISO/aperture, I allowed both to open as wide as possible, to minimise the ISO and capture the best possible quality. The BRAW footage was much noisier than the ALL-I from the SL2-S, but was operating at a 2 stop disadvantage. I must give them a side by side trial under better controlled conditions. The BRAW footage cleaned up reasonably well with noise reduction in Resolve.

Secondly, a glitch in recording caused an error in the BRAW file. I don't think this was the BMCC6k's fault. I was recording to an internal CFexpress 1Tb card, and an external 2Tb SSD, connected by USB-C. The recording was set to go first to the internal storage and then to the external storage. I noticed right at the end of the show that the BM had stopped recording, with the symbol for the SSD card showing an error. I pulled the cable from the SSD card (not the camera), plugged it in again and it restarted. As the show had ended just at that point, I lost no significant footage. In Resolve however, the video track showed way out of sync with the audio track, and with the same clip from the SL2-S; I had to change the clip speed to a smidgeon over 36fps to get it back in sync (it was recorded at 25fps). I have tested the BMCC6k again since then with no repeat of the error, so I hope it was caused by the external cable connection error.

Edited November 20, 2023 by LocalHero1953

[frame-it]

may wanna get a Digital USB Cable Lock Clip Clamp

[LocalHero1953]

2 hours ago, frame-it said:

may wanna get a Digital USB Cable Lock Clip Clamp

In theory there is a clamp. The SSD is a Samsung T7, held in a Smallrig SSD holder, which has its own cable clamp. But the width of the T7 is at the upper end of what the holder will take, and it is difficult to squeeze it in with the cable attached - which is what I did, and I may have partly dislodged the connector. In future I will fit the cable after fitting the SSD, and then clamp the cable. I have also changed the sequence of use: the SSD, when fitted, is used first and the CFexpress second - that will tell me at the outset if I have a problem with the connector. 

Edited November 20, 2023 by LocalHero1953

[hansvons]

On 10/24/2023 at 2:18 PM, LocalHero1953 said:

I have a chance to use it in parallel with the SL2-S tomorrow evening to record a theatre production.

I'm curious how it went. 

Missed the following post for some reason. Thanks for letting us know.

Edited November 21, 2023 by hansvons

[hansvons]

On 10/26/2023 at 9:21 AM, LocalHero1953 said:

It does look a bit bare with only BRAW, but I don't know BM well enough to know if they're likely to add ProRes, or other full width resolutions.

Unlikely. BRAW is a very solid codec that has a higher fidelity than ProRes422. From a quality/bit-rate point of view, BRAW is much preferable. The higher noise in RAW files comes with hardly any manipulation, e.g. backed-in WB, etc.. If the footage looks noisy, you have starved the sensor. Probably, as with any modern sensor, the "native" sensitivity is ISO 800. The dual-gain scheme gives you more headroom, but you pay a price. 

It sounds counterintuitive, but dark, high-contrast scenes require lower ISO settings than the native ISO/box speed. The same has been the case with film back in the day. We chose a high-speed ISO 500 film for night exteriors, only to expose it at ISO 250 and set up the light accordingly. Looking strictly at the numbers using an ISO 250 would have done the job. But that isn't true, as we would have exposed the film in that situation at ISO 100 to get acceptable grain.

[LocalHero1953]

2 minutes ago, hansvons said:

Unlikely. BRAW is a very solid codec that has a higher fidelity than ProRes422. From a quality/bit-rate point of view, BRAW is much preferable. The higher noise in RAW files comes with hardly any manipulation, e.g. backed-in WB, etc.. If the footage looks noisy, you have starved the sensor. Probably, as with any modern sensor, the "native" sensitivity is ISO 800. The dual-gain scheme gives you more headroom, but you pay a price. 

It sounds counterintuitive, but dark, high-contrast scenes require lower ISO settings than the native ISO/box speed. The same has been the case with film back in the day. We chose a high-speed ISO 500 film for night exteriors, only to expose it at ISO 250 and set up the light accordingly. Looking strictly at the numbers using an ISO 250 would have done the job. But that isn't true, as we would have exposed the film in that situation at ISO 100 to get acceptable grain.

Interesting - I shall make some trials in the same conditions at both ISO 800 and 3200.

[frame-it]

nice article with clips

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagiccinemacamera/gallery#lowlightnyc

[LocalHero1953]

I have now used the BM in rather better circumstances: a well-lit play with even, warm coloured lighting. It performed well, and I am confident that it can keep up with the low light IQ/colours of the SL2-S, while being considerably easier to manage as a dedicated video camera.

I didn't have a chance to try it with the actual stage lighting before starting. I set it to ISO 3200, 25fps, 180 deg shutter angle, auto aperture, manual focus. I recorded open gate (6K full frame), and as 'Film' in BRAW, with constant bit rate (3:1). I was close up (on the edge of the cockpit-style stage), and used the Leica VE 16-35SL at around 24mm. The auto aperture stayed fairly wide.

I ran the camera on battery alone: the single battery in the body, plus two in the battery grip. For a 50 minute short play, with faffing around at the beginning, I went through one and a bit batteries. I recorded to the same Samsung T7 I had trouble with last time - no trouble this time. Sitting in an auditorium seat at a level below the camera, the tilt screen was handy. Being able to virtually zoom in during recording to check magnified focus was reassuring. 

I recorded audio both on the camera (no external mic) and on a Zoom H4N recorder. The BM audio was acceptable in emergency (it had some noise, and was a bit thin), but I used the Zoom recording in the final deliverable.

I edited in Resolve. I had previously created a 'powergrade' (i.e. a preset) which I applied to the clip. This included a raw adjustment node, a noise reduction node, a Colour Space Transform node to convert to Davinci Wide Gamut working colour space, a colour grading node, and a final CST node to convert to Rec709. Rather OTT for just one clip, but it was a useful education creating the powergrade, and I'm sure it will be useful for more complex projects.

The clip required little grading: I had set the WB too warm in recording; I lifted the overall brighness, and lifted the shadows a bit. No noise reduction was needed. The colours were very natural (as far as is possible with stage lighting). None of the exposure hazards that gave me anxiety during recording (e.g. a stage light shining on white clothing close up) caused problems.

I have quoted a lot of detail in case someone else would find it helpful as a starting point.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[Kristofferpaulsen]

I'm probably wrong, but I partially take credit for introducing the BMD guys to L mount.. I had to take a photo of the Founder/Owner Grant Petty for Forbes a few years ago, and I shot it on my SL2, and they were all fawning over my L mount lenses.. they couldn't believe I had the 50mm 1.4. Absolutely lovely company.. I've still got a 6k they loaned me years ago.. So keen to try the new one!

mods please don't penalise me.. but, a fun supplementary thing.. The founder of Black Magic Design shot on Leica..!

 

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