Blackmagic Pocket 6k recommendations and warnings

[Stuart Brereton]

So, I'm putting together a Pocket 6k package for a friend who is planning to shoot a low budget movie with it. Since there is a chance I'll be the one shooting it for him, I want to get it to a usable state for either tripod or handheld use. He already has the camera, and lenses are taken care of. He also has some sort of Tilta cage for it. I'm looking for recommendations for all the other stuff. Matteboxes, Viewfinders, AC monitors, batteries, handheld rigs, etc etc. What are your favorite rigs?

Also looking for any tech tips from users of this camera. Any known gotchas? Glitches? Insanely annoying quirks?

Thanks all.

[Phil Rhodes]

I like something with a VCT-14 compatible quick release and shoulder pad on the underside, rods on the front and back, and somewhere to stow the camera on top. Something like a Tilta BS-T03. That way, you can balance the thing with batteries (and have reasonable battery life) and convert it between handheld and tripod as quick as any ENG camera. The BS-T03 has a reasonably complete stack of dovetails and adjustable slides on top which allows things to be balanced properly. It allows you to rig more or less any camera into a workable setup. Other VCT-14 quick release baseplates exist but some don't have rear-mounting rods, which you sort of need to get the batteries far enough back to clear the screen for user interface. Zacuto have the Z-VCT-P which I think does, at three times the price. I'm not sure why it's worth it.

Many places have 15mm rod-mounting V-mount battery plates. You'll need some trivial conversion to power the camera from it.

Your selection of viewfinders is greatly limited by the lack of any SDI on the Blackmagic 6K. Otherwise, I'd propose Blackmagic's own viewfinder if you wanted a loupe. You could convert it but that's then becoming a pile of boxes and you might as well get an Ursa Mini Pro.

In fact, honestly, you might as well get an Ursa Mini Pro, unless you have some crusading need for 6K.

P

[Stuart Brereton]

17 minutes ago, Phil Rhodes said:

you might as well get an Ursa Mini Pro, unless you have some crusading need for 6K.

Thanks Phil. no need for 6K, but he already owns the camera

[Jae Solina]

Longtime BMC user here. I would absolutely love to see you use a blackmagic camera. You do such great work. I absolutely believe the Pocket 6k will look amazing on your hands. 

[Stuart Brereton]

Thank you very much, Jae. Hopefully, this project will come together, and I’ll have a chance to find out how the BM cameras look.

[Matthew J. Walker]

On 8/12/2020 at 1:52 PM, Stuart Brereton said:

I'm looking for recommendations for all the other stuff. Matteboxes, Viewfinders, AC monitors, batteries, handheld rigs, etc etc. What are your favorite rigs?

As @Phil Rhodes mentioned, the lack of SDI requires an HDMI to SDI converter for most monitors , which of course needs battery power. I own a now half broken Blackmagic Cinema Camera that I used a lot last year. I used to use the 95wh Blackmagic Jukebox battery directly connected to the camera via DC which powered my camera for a solid two hours. On my Steadicam I used a Maxoak 158wh battery on a V-Mount plate with two D-Tap to DC cables connected to it, one Powered the monitor, the other plugged into the steadicam from the bottom which allowed me to power an SDI to HDMI converter from the top via a DC port and connect the converter to the camera since I was using an HDMI monitor and the BMCC 2.5K has the opposite problem of only having SDI, contrary to the BMPC 6K's issue of only having HDMI. At which point I can just plug the HDMI into the steadicam and male HDMI at the bottom of the steadicam would plug directly into the monitor. The 158wh Maxoak would power the monitor and the converter for more than several hours and is the highest amount of watt hours one can legally bring onto a an airliner. When I wasn't using the steadicam rig, I preferred simply using a pistol grip under the camera screwed directly into the 1/4"-20 tripod threads, a simple 15mm rod mount with any matte box attached to the rods, and a very simple viewfinder called the GRID Viewfinder. Simple, lightweight and effective.

 

On 8/12/2020 at 1:52 PM, Stuart Brereton said:

Any known gotchas?

It is a rolling shutter, so be aware of that. My BMCC 2.5k also had a rolling shutter. Very noticeable with fast moving objects or sporadic camera movement. 

 

On 8/12/2020 at 1:52 PM, Stuart Brereton said:

Glitches?

I've never used the BMPC 6K so I made a point to express only variables that can be insightful for any Blackmagic user. While my personal BMCC 2.5k was fragile internally, I may have just been unlucky.

 

On 8/12/2020 at 1:52 PM, Stuart Brereton said:

Insanely annoying quirks?

The only thing I noticed that may or be not be just a Blackmagic thing was when highlights were blown out, they were blown out and held zero data. To counter this, I'd set the zebras to 90% or 95% and make sure nothing of importance was bright enough to bee seen with the zebras. This always resulted in great highlight roll off, if anything happened to be blown out. Again, nothing that can't be worked around.

 

1 hour ago, Stuart Brereton said:

Thank you very much, Jae. Hopefully, this project will come together, and I’ll have a chance to find out how the BM cameras look.

My BMCC 2.5k also had an astonishing thirteen stops of dynamic range, resulting in an image that had massive amounts of color data, especially when shot in RAW. My Blackmagic produced a dense, clean image in almost every instance, lighting situation, or anything thereof and I used to baby it. You however, can expect the BMPC 6K to handle low light extremely well because it's a Super35 sensor. Much like @Jae Solina this interests me and is something I wouldn't mind seeing.

[Rajavel Mohan]

On 8/12/2020 at 11:22 PM, Stuart Brereton said:

So, I'm putting together a Pocket 6k package for a friend who is planning to shoot a low budget movie with it. Since there is a chance I'll be the one shooting it for him, I want to get it to a usable state for either tripod or handheld use. He already has the camera, and lenses are taken care of. He also has some sort of Tilta cage for it. I'm looking for recommendations for all the other stuff. Matteboxes, Viewfinders, AC monitors, batteries, handheld rigs, etc etc. What are your favorite rigs?

Also looking for any tech tips from users of this camera. Any known gotchas? Glitches? Insanely annoying quirks?

Thanks all.

Hi Stuart, what lens have you got for the 6k camera? the lil experiment i had done with bmpc 4k worked wonders with the raw. check link for 4k output. (few shots on sony a73). Am seriously looking to buy 6K. Looking forward for your work on 6K ! wishes. 

 

[Stuart Brereton]

11 hours ago, Rajavel Mohan said:

Hi Stuart, what lens have you got for the 6k camera? 

The director has some Canon L series primes. If I end up shooting his project, I’ll probably use my own Cine-modded Asahi Takumar set.

[Haik Yan]

On 8/12/2020 at 9:52 PM, Stuart Brereton said:

So, I'm putting together a Pocket 6k package for a friend who is planning to shoot a low budget movie with it. Since there is a chance I'll be the one shooting it for him, I want to get it to a usable state for either tripod or handheld use. He already has the camera, and lenses are taken care of. He also has some sort of Tilta cage for it. I'm looking for recommendations for all the other stuff. Matteboxes, Viewfinders, AC monitors, batteries, handheld rigs, etc etc. What are your favorite rigs?

Also looking for any tech tips from users of this camera. Any known gotchas? Glitches? Insanely annoying quirks?

Thanks all.

Here are some BMPCC6K Rigging ideas.