Tyler Purcell

My BMPCC has all sorts of funny lines and noise pieces in it when un-corrected out of the camera. The moment I apply a color correction to it, they completely go away, as if they never existed in the first place. The problem has to do with direct light on the sensor and how it deals with it. For sure one of the "issues" of the camera, but you don't hear people complaining about it because I think most people color correct their material and as a consequence, color-out the issue. I also rate this camera at 200ASA, I find the material looks substantially better at that ISO. I find it delivers far less grain and has a crisper, more cinematic look to it. The camera is a cinema camera, not a camcorder, not an iphone, not a D5MKIII. Its designed to shoot movies and I find just performing simple camera tests to be annoying, the moment you get outside and shoot something, then bring it back for color correction, I think you'll find the camera will work fine.

WOW is that a nice find! :) I love the H16, one of my favorite cameras.

The ScanStation is a great product, remember seeing it at a trade show few years back. I love the optical lineup for the registration, works great. The Super 8 stuff looks awesome, thats what modern film stocks can deliver. I wish back in the 80's and 90's when I was shooting Super 8, that kind of stock existed. Good stuff! Love the 1440 mode on Youtube, I'll have to experiment with that more often. ;)

Few things... I think you were under exposing the material and thats going to give you a flatter image over-all. I always use a spot meter when shooting film outdoors, because ambient meters won't necessarily give you the subjects proper exposure. When exposed properly, the film will have less grain in the telecine process because the operator won't have to crank up the gain to get a decent image out of it. What stock you use also plays a huge role. The lower the ASA, the more light you need, but the less grain you'll have. A nice modern daylight 50 ASA stock will work wonders for reducing grain. Vision 3 7203 is the vision 50 ASA stock. When I was shooting 16, I made my basement a "dark room" and would load my own daylight spools out of 400ft rolls using a simple rewinder. Its important to learn these tricks up front because you will generate better quality footage from the get go. As mentioned above, if you wish to spend some money, you can have the film "scanned" vs "telecine'd". Scanners are much higher quality then telecine's and the output files are much easier to grade because they don't insert their own color table like a telecine operator would. However, the difference in price AND time can make a lot of people walk away from scanning. Thats up to your budget and time constraints. Plus, you'd have to be up to speed on color grading material coming from a scanner. Sure they can put a LUT (look up table) on it for you, but in reality, you wanna do that stuff in your color grading tool. Learning how to edit isn't too difficult, you should just take a basic class in FCPX and go from there. In terms of color grading, DaVinci resolve lite is made by Blackmagic Designs and its a basic "film" coloring tool which will allow you to apply proper LUT's to film you've shot. Its a complex tool, but if you can take a class and learn it, the skills will be invaluable for the future.

Yea, I'm all Rokinon lenses, nothing else. I want manual everything, none of this in-camera iris nonsense. Its hard to find cheap "primes" anymore, glass which is simply made for the cinematographer instead of the still shooter. I find the Rokinon lenses to be soft and have a very "filmic" look to them. I just received my filters so I'm finally using LOTS of filtration (2 stop ND's) in order to combat the fact the camera is so sensitive, I'm usually stopped all the way down outdoors, even at 200ASA. The lenses look great all the way open. Every time I shoot with this thing, I get more and more impressed with its ability to copy the look of Super 16.

Dang, I did the math wrong! HAHA Whoops... sitting here looking at the AJA tool, its Bits vs Bytes! EEK! Yea, I mostly do commercial work in uncompressed, so the file sizes aren't a big deal. I was looking a folder full of uncompressed media and had forgotten that it was not a feature! :P

WOW Rob great stuff! :) I dealt with CineLab for years when I was back in Boston, you guys rock. Glad to see you're still alive and adding more film services. Long live film!

I use to work in uncompressed and pro res all day long, file sizes are actually not that different. Pro Res 4444, 12 bit 1920x1080 standard HD broadcast resolution is 312mbps. Uncompressed 4:4:4 10bit 1920x1080 is 274mbps. A lot of times clients specifically ask us for uncompressed HD instead of pro res. I'm a huge pro res advocate, everything I do personally starts with pro res, but the file sizes are still huge. Last feature I exported in Pro Res 4444 was 215GB! Thats a very difficult file for any computer to open up... lemme tell ya, we had stupid fast 12 core mac towers with 4gb fiber raids on an Xsan and it was barely able to playback. Most of the time we'd have to copy the file to a local fiber raid and then play it back. Anyway, I stick with Pro Res 4:2:2 HQ and thats good enough for my clients. ;)

Joshua, Its funny you ask this question because on the very day of that recent shoot above, my dad was shooting with his brand new T3i using one of my primes. I haven't assembled the footage because it was hand-held like mine and my dad doesn't have a rock steady hand like mine. Still, just looking at similar shots and comparing them, the difference between the two cameras was very dramatic. Its not just things like latitude and color dynamic range, but more simple things like motion blur. The Canon simply looked like crap in comparison, like some Sony $400 handycam. I'm sure with some setup work, I can make the T3i look closer, but it will never look the same. The BMPCC is a 1920x1080 resolution, identical to the output resolution of the T3i. The BMPCC I believe has a 2k sensor, which is all you really need anyway. The zoom factor is about 2x on the BMPCC. This isn't a big deal with longer glass, but it can become a problem when selecting wide angle lenses. My 8mm prime lens has some focus issues, due to it being a piece of junk. But it does deliver a very wide image for those moments you need one. Otherwise, having a camera that doubles the focal length is awesome because you can by shorter lenses (cheaper) which go longer. ;) As Adrian said, the BMPCC needs some TLC in post, more so then the Canon. But then again, there is more data there to mess with. You won't get the graining issues you see on the Canon because even if you underexpose, there is still plenty of clean material to work with. Its so much fun in post because you can color things properly, which is a blessing! Reminds me of film! :)

I've been wanting to see how the camera performs in a more relaxed documentary setting. Armed with extra batteries, 14mm cinema prime, Rhode shotgun mic and viewfinder, I went out to the local trolley museum and shot some material over christmas vacation with my parents. I didn't want to add music or fancy editing, simple cuts to tell a story was all I wanted to do. 200 ASA 45 degree shutter Video dynamic range Rode shotgun mic (1/4" input), with gain turned way down to avoid distorting 100% hand-held with no aids Rokinon 14mm cinema prime Canon mount with MTF adaptor This is the first time I've used video mode and I didn't like it at all. The dynamic range was limited and simple exposure mistakes turned into big problems in post. I think the camera's strength lies in its film dynamic range, take that away and the camera does wind up looking more like a video camera with decent glass then a cinema camera. Twas a fun shoot, more to come!

Yea, yea, sorry I was thinking 1.85:1 formatting, my bad. Most of colorists I use prefer Targa or DPX sequences, not Pro Res files. I do all my prep-work in pro res and then deliver them just what they need as a still image sequence for coloring. I love pro res, it works fantastic for things like this. I have yet to edit anything on 2k Pro Res. Dealing with the 220mpbs 1920x1080 Pro Res HQ dailies is difficult enough. I can't imagine almost doubling the bandwidth to get 2k and 444 color space. Remember, the topic at hand isn't theatrical distribution, its having fun with a film camera. Nobody (myself included) is suggesting that 2k sucks or something. I'm merely working out a workflow which is cost-effective and delivers the best quality for the time and money put in. In my eyes, 2k just isn't worth the time and money unless you have a theatrical deal lined up. Sure, "best source possible" is fantastic when you have a budget or don't shoot very much footage. But unfortunately, the truth of the matter is, 2k is expensive to deal with both in scanning costs AND most importantly, storage costs when you look at the big picture. Heck, even shooting a feature film on a very strict budget in S16, "scanning" wasn't even discussed when doing budgets. Single pass, one-light transfers is what most people do because of the time and cost constraints associated with scanning large amounts of film. Most films will live as digital files for sub 2k distribution anyway. So spending the extra money on 2k scanning, isn't worth while unless you've got the budget, a great colorist and theatrical distribution lined up. Trust me, if I had a scanner at my office and could load film for minimal cost, I would do it. Unfortunately, when I budget films, we can either get 2k images OR we can get a Jib and Stedicam for the shoot. Most people will go for the Jib and Steadicam, over 2k images. ;)

Having fun/messing around with film is a totally different thing then actually putting together a production and needing a professional product coming out the back end. So for just having fun, here are some suggestions for ya: There are some great soup to nuts full-service labs in the US, the two I've used are Pro 8 in Los Angeles and Cine Lab in New Bedford, MA. Pro 8 cuts their own stock from 35mm and ships them in 100ft daylight spools with flat processing/transfer included in the pricing. So its perfect for the budding filmmaker, looking to shoot a few daylight spools and get back the material digitally. 1920x1080 10 bit 4:2:2 color space "telecine" is the best you'll get from any of these labs for a reasonable budget. Since your Krasnogorsk shoots 4x3, your image will be pillar boxed on the left and right sides. Generally, I get labs to send me one-light transfers of B&W negative or positive and with color, I have them try to make it as flat as possible so I can touch up in post. I work in Pro Res HQ 220mbps, which works seamlessly/native with Final Cut Pro 7/10 and Avid Media Composer 7. 2048x1080 12bit 4:4:4 2k needs to be scanned not telecine'd. The difference is expense and time, but no major difference in quality for B&W material. Scanned files are generally converted into targa sequences which are huge and difficult to edit. 2k is generally a finishing format, not an editing format. Once you've cut your film using the telecine footage, you can then pick selects to be re-scanned in 2k for your final cinema output. But remember 200ASA Vision 3 @ Super 16 dimensions is BARELY 2k. B&W negative and reversal, is more like 1000 lines of resolution square, so 1000x1000 4x3. So scanning it in 2k is pretty much worthless unless you're gonna do a theatrical distribution. In terms of super8, I personally wouldn't project anything, ever. The projectors are notorious for damaging film and some negative is a different emulsion then positive, so its more susceptible to damage. If I were forced to shoot super 8 again, I would shoot it with the lowest ASA stock possible, negative (vision 3) and have Pro 8 telecine the results. Personally, to get the super 8 look, I'd just shoot reversal super 16 with an aaton a minima, purposely underexpose and push the stock in processing to get that grain look. Good luck with your adventure, there are LOTS of youtube videos of people learning how to shoot motion picture film. Its a lot of fun and absolutely worth doing for any budding filmmaker!

I bought the filters separately, the matte box has 2 filter holders.

I use a Proaim kit from India and it works great. They made it specifically for this camera. http://www.thecinecity.com/eshop/PROAIM-Handheld-Camera-Mount-Shoulder-Kit-20-C.html Its cheap and cheaply made, but it works great. Its got a 4x4 matte box and it stabilizes on the shoulder using a counterweight. I bought some cheap 4x4 filters from them as well, just enough to get me started.

I've been pretty successful with my camera so far, though its an all-new kit with EOS mount primes, instead of having to adapt older glass. I've learned a lot about the camera in recent shoots, most of it has been positive, but some has been annoying. I still love the camera's quality, its sheer image quality is staggering for how small the body is. But I shoot wild and it can be a bit tricky to deal with. Not having any automation is rough, no option for auto iris OR a zoom lens is kinda frustrating when trying to grab that quick shot. However, I've come up with solutions for most things, I know which of my primes will work well in certain shooting environments and understand how to deal with mess-up's in post. I'm going to schedule a short narrative film soon, I need to try shooting in a more controlled environment and see what happens. I have two more episodes of my dirt bike series (in the other thread) to finish and then I'm going to be onto a new subject. I shot with my friends 5DMKIII this weekend, holy crap, what a piece of junk compared to the BMPCC... yes, I just said that. :)

Yea, I'd rather own something then rent it. I rarely get much advance notice of shoots and a cinematographers "package" seems more important today then just simply owning a camera and renting the lenses. Its part of the reason I went this direction vs buying a cheap S16mm body and continuing to shoot film. For the same amount of money as a film package w/o glass, I got a digital cinema package WITH glass. Yea, the zoom lens issue is a problem, its not a HUGE problem, but it does get annoying. I usually shoot with zooms unless doing extremely short or long focal lengths. So to have nothing but primes has been interesting. However, its been good for me as a cinematographer because its forced me to think outside of the box more. Zoom lenses are pretty much the "lazy-man's" way to deal with finding a focal length. heh ;) I haven't read anything about the lomo's, I'll do some research, thanks for the info! :)

Yea, I'll have to watch out for that audio issue. I thought about buying a PL mount adaptor and finding some old super 16 zoom's, but even they can be super expensive.

Yea, the coloring was interesting... most of the "faded" look is due to the Mpeg encode, the original pro res file on my color grading monitor is stellar. But when encoded, it looses some saturation. I need to figure out if its just not translating the rec 709 properly, its probably a simple checkbox I haven't found yet. The second video I maxed out the saturation on to see what it looked like, it pops on my monitor, but again, is missing all of that pop on the youtube clip. I'm using a cheap adaptor fotodiox from Amazon, but I wouldn't recommend it. Its already coming loose on me, its just a cheap piece from china. The lenses do have a nice magenta tint to them, I have a video coming out full of lens flares which look awesome, very much as you said, like the older nikon lenses. I haven't tried a zoom yet, cinema zooms are impossible to purchase in my price bracket and buying micro 4/3rds glass is scary. I have other canon mount cameras, so it seems reasonable to spend money on that style of glass. I did choose a better location to shoot in the 2nd video with less background noise. The mic isn't bad, but its not great. It has a funny background noise that I filtered out in post as well. I purposely shot with the internal mic to show what its capable of doing, so people could hear the actual quality of the sound in real production. I now have a wireless kit and external shotgun mic, both work fantastic. My future videos are all going to be using the aftermarket mic's. I have two more videos being shot right now with the camera, one of which will contain some behind the scenes material of the rig, so people can see what I'm shooting with and the digital workflow. Every time I shoot with the camera, I get better and better results, I feel more confident with the package and I hope to get involved with a bigger production in the near future to really show its potential.

Some early work on the Pocket Cinema Camera. Sound gear just arrived today, so next video will have better sound. But this gives you an idea what the camera looks like with cheap primes, ambient lighting, no bounce cards and built-in audio. I made a few shot choices which may not be the best, but wanted to see what the camera can handle. So far I'm very impressed and just looking to share what I've been able to capture. Everything here was shot with 2 lenses; 24mm F1.5 and 85mm F1.5, though both lenses were stopped down. Edit: I have no idea why the youtube clips are so desaturated, but rest-assured, my master pro-res file is VIBRANT, looks like technicolor.

Just wrapped up my 2nd shoot with the camera today. It came out much better, still waiting for my mic's to show up, still have a few pieces of dust on the sensor or somewhere on the lens. However, all of that is fixable with a can of air for next time around. Today I had issues setting up my shoulder rig and changing lenses on the rig, as the mattbox doesn't fold out like the nice ones do. Ohh well, it was cheap! heh ;) Umm, ND filters, gradient filters and mic's are on the way. My next video will be shot this week and over the weekend, so I will get some better sound hopefully. So here is video 2 200 ASA 45 degree shutter Film dynamic range, Pro Res HQ 220 4:2:2 10 bit codec Rokinon 24mm F1.5 EOS mount prime for wider shots Rokinon 85mm F1.5 EOS mount prime for close-up shots Edited with FCP 7 in native Pro Res Colored in FCP 7 without any difficulty, no LUT necessary

I'm so excited to be shooting with this camera, I've been waiting for it since the announcement earlier this year. I recently had a very bad experience shooting a feature with Canon 5D MKII and 7D's. I was completely un-impressed by the limitations, even with the software updates, the quality of the .h264 file and its 4:2:0 8 bit compression, left me extremely frustrated. Furthermore, the "lens shifting" issue plagued us the entire shoot, if you touched the lenses, the focus would shift. Plus, of course the focus racking is not smooth either. So in my eyes, the whole thing was a flawed design and likewise, when purchasing a complete cinema package, I wanted to try something different. The bigger Blackmagic camera did interest me, but the physical size vs performance, was not what I wanted. Besides, the internal battery concept was very flawed. So when the pocket camera was announced, I put my name on the list to buy and I received it less then a month ago and started very slowly building my package. My goal was to assemble a true "cinema grade" package including completely manual cinema primes. This is a challenging proposition because not only is the camera brand new, but there is no cinema glass made for the Micro 4/3rds lens mounting system. So immediately, it was all about adapting canon EOS mount glass to the camera. Rokinon makes some very cheap prime lenses, they aren't anywhere near the quality of canon glass or for that matter, any other cinema glass. However, they are cheap and they do allow me to use all manual controls without the need of powering the lens OR fighting with lens shift. Plus, with a camera this small, hand holding is a big problem and since almost everything I shoot is hand held, I needed to buy a shoulder rig with a follow focus kit. Having lenses which are already made for that type of rig, helps tremendously. Yesterday I shot my first video with the camera. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my shoulder rig with me and my wireless mic kit hadn't showed up yet. But the video below does give you a good indication of what the camera is capable of doing without any aids outside of a tripod for the interview shots. The day was very overcast and raining most of the time in between shots and its a very dirty environment for a camera. But for me, this video shows the potential of long lenses and the Blackmagic Pocket Camera. I will be posting another video in less-than two weeks, once my wireless kit comes in and I can get some good audio. Here are the specs for the shoot: 200 ASA 172 degree shutter Film dynamic range, Pro Res HQ 220 4:2:2 10 bit codec Rokinon 24mm F1.5 EOS mount prime for wider shots Rokinon 85mm F1.5 EOS mount prime for close-up shots Edited with FCP 7 in native Pro Res Colored in FCP 7 without any difficulty, no LUT necessary The 15000mbps .h264 file upload to youtube, unfortunately damaged the true dynamic range of the piece. But its the best I can do as the original file is 4GB.

Not to get into too much detail, but the JVC is a pretty decent camera, its only serious weakness is the MPEG2 it records. I'd rate it at around 320asa, perhaps a tiny bit more, depending on which lens you use. If the gain is off, and the shutter is low, you can achieve fantastic images, even in the dark. MPEG2 is great with low motion, so slow dolly shots and not much action happening on screen and you'll capture a great image. I usually light for film with the JVC, but I don't use the stock lens. If you can't afford a lens right now, you can always buy a still lens adaptor and buy some cheap photographic primes which will help with depth of field issues the stock lens has. I personally like the JVC over the Panasonic or Sony, though the new EX Sony camcorder is finally getting better with 1080p and 1/2" chips, your still stuck with a built-in lens. I think the versatility of using multiple lenses is crucial to a cinematographer and thats what makes the JVC's stand out from the pack. Sure its 720p and sure its HDV MPEG2, but if you buy the firestore HD and use FCP to edit, man... the entire package is worth its weight in gold! Hope that helps a bit... E-mail me if you have any questions, I know a whole lot about this camera... tye1138@mac.com.

Hi Kal, Sadly, with the GY-HD200, your limited to a component based video output, which is not digital. Its an analog signal at a higher frequency range and bandwidth, that equates to HD resolution. This is the biggest fault with the JVC HDV format, its VERY consumer based. Tape or Firestore HD are the highest ENG (portable) quality you can get off that camera. Now if you were to capture on location using a component cable and a IOHD sure, you can achieve less compression and higher color space (4:2:2 instead of HDV's 4:2:0) using Apple's Pro 4:2:2 codec in 720p mode. I've done extensive testing with the JVC HDV format, I know it better then some of there engineer's. Its not a great format, especially for high motion. The 19Mbps MPEG2 thats recorded on tape and through the firewire port, is sub-standard in today's flourishing HD world. Mini-DV can easily store 25Mbps, but JVC's idea is simple; they wanted a camera that produced the same quality as broadcast HD which as a limit of 19Mbps. Otherwise, the camera's potential is only limited by the 1/3" pickup device, which looks quite good for a sub $20,000 camera. So in my opinion, don't worry about using the AJA IOHD and capturing it separately, the only benefit you'd get is if you used it on the set to capture picture directly to a computer.

David and Michael, you guys are great fun... total film geeks like myself, I hope when I'm older I'll be doing the same thing you are doing now, spending free time helping others discover the magic of filmmaking. I appreciate the fact industry professionals like most of you, hang out on this forum and keep it lively. :) There is something magical about film, before you've shot it. Just like there is something magical about a TV studio before you've been working in one for years. I've given huge talks about shooting in Digital video vs film in the past. I've written papers on the subject and even done tests when the first batch of medium grade HD cameras came out. I talk with at least 3 people a week about shooting HD on a budget, none of which take film into consideration. It hurts me to realize that in 20 years from now, the great filmmakers of our time will be retired and the new filmmakers, who take there place, will have grown up with HD and digital capturing mediums. In my opinion, film will disappear, not because of the demand changing, but because of new filmmakers themselves, never having touched or wanted it. This relates directly to Javier and its the reason I made that huge post on how to make money. I think its a great idea to shoot film while you still can. Just the thought of shooting on film, keeps the format alive. Everybody should shoot film, especially 16mm... if there is a will, there is a way! :D

Javier, I think you do too! lol :) Thanks for understanding Martin, good luck with your projects!!!