BMPCC4K vs Panasonic S5

Antoine Pret · January 28, 2022

Hi all,

I mostly direct low budget music videos & short films at the moment (maybe low commercials soon) and usually worki with a crew of 1 to 5 people max.

I often do some cinematography work when I'm not directing. Recently I started to invest in 16mm because I really the feel and like working around the limitations of the medium but I need a cheap & good digital package to shoot on the side.

I previoulsy owned a Sony F3,A7SII and have worked with GH5,FS7...Really liked the F3 but I wanted to move away from it's bulk and quirks.

I have a set of canon FD lenses & a wide Tokina & i'd like to rent bigger PL lenses for specials projects.

I already have V mount batteries,Atomos,SSD/SD cards of all sorts & all the things to rig up cameras a bit.

I mostly shoot handheld, on a tripod or with a slider, not a fan of gimbals.

On the used market I can scoop a BMPCC4K+metabones or a Panasonic S5/S1 for roughtly 1300€

I do like the blackmagic image more but I fear the low build quality and don't want something that could easily break.
On the other hand the S5 seems more sturdy but the image seems more video-like but I guess one could achieve great things with some filtration & more work in the grade.

What are your suggestions ?

Jack Jin · January 29, 2022

So as an owner of these two cameras, here are my thoughts:

First, the bmpcc4k right now is shooting blackmagic raw, and unfortuntely blackmagic raw is not true raw, it's partially debayered in camera, and for some reason on the p4k and p6k camera's braw is especially soft and mushy, i would say that the hd cinema dng from the bmpcc original is comparable to the p4k in braw. You really isn't getting the full 4k resolution out of the blackmagic raw files, especially due to their high frequency detail filters that eliminate fine details such as hair, fabric textures, small texts, etc. This was done as a way to denoise the footage in camera, and was sharpened as well, creating a mushy image, with a green fringing commonly present in the prores and blackmagic files on the pocket 4k post firmware 6.2, I originally thought that it was my lens's fault, but turned out it was braw, as the cdng stills did not have those green fringing.

Second, the bmpcc4k's colorscience is intresting, it's a lot easier to manually grade by hand in terms of getting a pleasing image, due to the fact that blackmagic seemed to have aimed for skintones instead of accurate primary colors. So even though the skintone is very healthy, the greens are very brown. And if you attempted to fix those greens in post, the afformentioned mushiness and green fringing becomes extremely obvious. I owned a lot of pocket 4k luts, like the p4k2alexa, p4kalex by emotive color, the buttery luts, and filmconvert nitrate. Which all aim to match the pocket to arri alexa or a cineon log film scan of different film stocks. But since the alexa has very vibrant greens, even though the color look great on the p4k2alexa and p4kalex, the mushiness and green fringing is exaggerated.

Third, I would say that the lowlight performance of the p4k, is about 0.66 stop noisier then the s5, and the exposure lattuide to be a stop lower then the s5 when having highlight recovery turned on (the s5 does not have highlight recovery in blackmagic raw), due to the fact that s5 is better then any camera under 10000 dollars when it comes to usable dynamic range and latitude . Speaking of which I do own a blackmagic video assist 12g to record both prores and blackmagic raw on the lumix s5. The lumix s5's blackmagic raw is somehow quite a bit more detailed then the braw out of the p6k, and the 4k apsc crop blackmagic raw on the s5 definitely has more detail then the braw out of the p4k. But in terms of natural texture it still does not hold a candle to the normal prores 10bit footage recorded on the video assist. But the weird thing about the lumix s series of cameras is that their noise reduction seems to have some waffle shaped artifacts, which is apparent when you push the colorgrade in post at iso4000 and above, with a bit of banding present on bright areas that should not be there on normal prores 10bit as well. I have reported these issues to the panasonic team so hopefully they will get fixed soon, in which case I would whole heartedly suggest shooting prores, as it has much better performance and have smaller file size, but until then i will be sticking with the blackmagic raw on the s5.

Fourth, almost all modern mirrorless and dslr have a very nice and strong IR cut filter built into their sensor, which means that even with high levels of ND filtration the skin tone, and blacks in the image stills normal. However, the blackmagic cameras have always had bad IR cut filters, it is better on the p4k then on the original pocket, but outside even without any ND black fabric tends to turn purplish, and skintone becomes quite pink as well. This is not completely fixable in post. Thus a external IR cut filter would be needed on the p4k. I first purchased hoya ir cut filter, which does filter ir light well, however the filter's coating is very soft. So after a bit of usage the filter was very scratched, and if you shoot any wider then 35mm in fullframe equivalent, then you will see green vigenetting on the edges. Which is a pain to correct in post, the only IR cut filter that I recommend is the heliopan IRUV cut, which doesn't have the green vignetting issue and has a very strong coating just like a normal lens filter.

In terms of usability I prefer the p4k, the dials position just makes sense and since you don't need a video assist on top of the camera the balance is great. The motion on the p4k is also very smooth, smoother then the s5 in the same framerate and shutter speed.

I would also recommend you to get s1alex for the lumix s5, because it converts The V-log from the s5 to arri log c, which means that it's much easier to get a very pleasing colorgrade from the s5. The s5's internal 150mbps codec is the best internal codec in mirrorless cameras, since it preserves color details in the shadows much better then the XF avc codec on canon cinema cameras and XAVCS-I codec in sony cameras. But it's still only 150mbps, which means that it does have some blockiness if you have very fast shutterspeed and a lot of moving stuff in the frame. But that's why you get a external recorder for prores.

In the end I recommend the s5 a lot more, not only does it not have the mushiness and fringing issues of the pcoket 4k, it also is a fullframe sensor, thus having amazing dynamic range and better lowlight. It also can cover the entire image circle of your FD lenses, thus I recommend it more.

Antoine Pret · January 29, 2022

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer !

So in terms of highlight rolloff & film texture the S5 recorded externally would be better than the P4K without too much hassle in the grade ?
I do feel pretty confident when it comes to grading while not being a professional colorist but I really never use LUTS.
How bad is the rolling shutter on the two ?

Jack Jin · January 29, 2022

1 hour ago, Antoine Pret said:

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer !

So in terms of highlight rolloff & film texture the S5 recorded externally would be better than the P4K without too much hassle in the grade ?
I do feel pretty confident when it comes to grading while not being a professional colorist but I really never use LUTS.
How bad is the rolling shutter on the two ?

Highlight roll off on internal footage and external prores is actually quite nice, very similar to p4k with the highlight recovery on, but braw on the s5 does not have any highlight roll off in clipped areas, as all highlight roll off is built into the colorscience and processing of the camera, and braw does not use the camera's colorscience but rather blackmagic's V-log color science. I would highly recommend s1alex again, as it really does make grading so much easier, V-log is quite weird in it's hue and s1alex just makes an incredibly nice and filmic gamma curve since it converts the v-log to arri log c. The pocket 4k's rolling shutter and the s5's rolling shutter in 4k apsc crop are about the same, around 13ms, and the s5 in fullframe is at around 21-22ms. Which for reference, the a7m4 is at about 27-28ms and the pocket 6k is at about 19ms.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Jack Jin

Antoine Pret · January 30, 2022

Thanks again Jack, will go for the S5.

Janos Bozsonyik · February 16, 2022

On 1/29/2022 at 6:30 AM, Jack Jin said:

So as an owner of these two cameras, here are my thoughts:

First, the bmpcc4k right now is shooting blackmagic raw, and unfortuntely blackmagic raw is not true raw, it's partially debayered in camera, and for some reason on the p4k and p6k camera's braw is especially soft and mushy, i would say that the hd cinema dng from the bmpcc original is comparable to the p4k in braw. You really isn't getting the full 4k resolution out of the blackmagic raw files, especially due to their high frequency detail filters that eliminate fine details such as hair, fabric textures, small texts, etc. This was done as a way to denoise the footage in camera, and was sharpened as well, creating a mushy image, with a green fringing commonly present in the prores and blackmagic files on the pocket 4k post firmware 6.2, I originally thought that it was my lens's fault, but turned out it was braw, as the cdng stills did not have those green fringing.

Second, the bmpcc4k's colorscience is intresting, it's a lot easier to manually grade by hand in terms of getting a pleasing image, due to the fact that blackmagic seemed to have aimed for skintones instead of accurate primary colors. So even though the skintone is very healthy, the greens are very brown. And if you attempted to fix those greens in post, the afformentioned mushiness and green fringing becomes extremely obvious. I owned a lot of pocket 4k luts, like the p4k2alexa, p4kalex by emotive color, the buttery luts, and filmconvert nitrate. Which all aim to match the pocket to arri alexa or a cineon log film scan of different film stocks. But since the alexa has very vibrant greens, even though the color look great on the p4k2alexa and p4kalex, the mushiness and green fringing is exaggerated.

Third, I would say that the lowlight performance of the p4k, is about 0.66 stop noisier then the s5, and the exposure lattuide to be a stop lower then the s5 when having highlight recovery turned on (the s5 does not have highlight recovery in blackmagic raw), due to the fact that s5 is better then any camera under 10000 dollars when it comes to usable dynamic range and latitude . Speaking of which I do own a blackmagic video assist 12g to record both prores and blackmagic raw on the lumix s5. The lumix s5's blackmagic raw is somehow quite a bit more detailed then the braw out of the p6k, and the 4k apsc crop blackmagic raw on the s5 definitely has more detail then the braw out of the p4k. But in terms of natural texture it still does not hold a candle to the normal prores 10bit footage recorded on the video assist. But the weird thing about the lumix s series of cameras is that their noise reduction seems to have some waffle shaped artifacts, which is apparent when you push the colorgrade in post at iso4000 and above, with a bit of banding present on bright areas that should not be there on normal prores 10bit as well. I have reported these issues to the panasonic team so hopefully they will get fixed soon, in which case I would whole heartedly suggest shooting prores, as it has much better performance and have smaller file size, but until then i will be sticking with the blackmagic raw on the s5.

Fourth, almost all modern mirrorless and dslr have a very nice and strong IR cut filter built into their sensor, which means that even with high levels of ND filtration the skin tone, and blacks in the image stills normal. However, the blackmagic cameras have always had bad IR cut filters, it is better on the p4k then on the original pocket, but outside even without any ND black fabric tends to turn purplish, and skintone becomes quite pink as well. This is not completely fixable in post. Thus a external IR cut filter would be needed on the p4k. I first purchased hoya ir cut filter, which does filter ir light well, however the filter's coating is very soft. So after a bit of usage the filter was very scratched, and if you shoot any wider then 35mm in fullframe equivalent, then you will see green vigenetting on the edges. Which is a pain to correct in post, the only IR cut filter that I recommend is the heliopan IRUV cut, which doesn't have the green vignetting issue and has a very strong coating just like a normal lens filter.

In terms of usability I prefer the p4k, the dials position just makes sense and since you don't need a video assist on top of the camera the balance is great. The motion on the p4k is also very smooth, smoother then the s5 in the same framerate and shutter speed.

I would also recommend you to get s1alex for the lumix s5, because it converts The V-log from the s5 to arri log c, which means that it's much easier to get a very pleasing colorgrade from the s5. The s5's internal 150mbps codec is the best internal codec in mirrorless cameras, since it preserves color details in the shadows much better then the XF avc codec on canon cinema cameras and XAVCS-I codec in sony cameras. But it's still only 150mbps, which means that it does have some blockiness if you have very fast shutterspeed and a lot of moving stuff in the frame. But that's why yo kiu get a external recorder for prores.

In the end I recommend the s5 a lot more, not only does it not have the mushiness and fringing issues of the pcoket 4k, it also is a fullframe sensor, thus having amazing dynamic range and better lowlight. It also can cover the entire image circle of your FD lenses, thus I recommend it more.