(upbeat music)
- Happy New Year, everybody.
You guys know that Looney Tunes intro
where like some character comes
out of like an orange ring?
Do I look like that?
(impersonates Porky Pig)
That's all, folks.
(laughs)
Okay, it's a little bit
different than I remembered it.
It has to be like orange circles,
which I kind of have,
but it has to be bigger
and the background has to be green.
So let's do that real quick
and then we'll start talking
about this Black Magic
Cinema Pocket Camera 4K.
It's a lopsided circle.
I'm really bad at this.
It's a little flat.
Hey, that's looking pretty good, huh?
Okay, in the official Looney Tunes intro,
there's like a green backdrop,
but you guys know I can't
put a green backdrop
behind here or else you guys
are gonna green screen me
into a whole bunch of weird crap.
I'm gonna get me in trouble.
I do have that blue though.
That's a little bit dark.
I'm gonna add a little
bit of light to this now.
How's that look?
Oh, too bright.
But in the Looney Tunes background,
the pig has a shadow behind him,
which means he's being
lit by a harsh source,
but clearly if you look at him,
he's being lit by something very very soft
like there's no gradation
in his skin tones.
Looney Tunes has been lying to your face
about lighting your entire life.
And that is how you spend your
entire morning goofing off
and not being productive at all.
(laughs)
But today we're talking
about this camera right here,
which is making a lot of
noise in the camera world.
And after playing with
this for the last month,
I can comfortably say this is a camera
that is awesome for a lot of
people, but not everybody.
Some of you guys need to
completely just stay away from it.
Don't even look at it.
Stop it.
Now before we start talking
trash about this camera,
which is coming by the way, don't worry,
but let's talk about why
I bought this for myself
and my production company
and why I spend my own money on it.
First of all, it delivers a
professional output 4K 60 frames
per second in ProRes 422 HQ and RAW,
but me, personally, I
usually shoot on ProRes 422.
I find that to be plenty
of space to work with.
RAW can be nice once in a while,
but as long as you dial in
your settings on set properly,
I never really felt like, man,
I really wish this was RAW.
It's got a nice wide dynamic
range, very smooth and flat.
And because it's ProRes,
you can color grade the crap
out of this thing.
So it can work well as a B or C camera
to many different set ups.
But, bottom line, it
didn't take much to sell me
on this camera.
All you have to say if
4K 60, ProRes 422 HQ,
compact body, and it's 1,300 bucks.
Take my money.
Am I expecting this to
be the best cinema camera
that's ever existed?
No, not at all.
But it's 1,300 bucks.
I mean, it literally is the
same price as this memory card.
I'm not even kidding.
This is the same price
as this memory card.
Kinda sucks.
(slapping sound effect)
Ow.
And I already have all these
other professional cameras.
Why am I spending more money on this
besides the fact that I'm
addicted to buying (beep)?
Gimbal use, I mean, c'mon.
I just finished doing a
whole shoot last month
where I was traveling all over the place.
Went to to NASA and
filmed on the launch pad,
which was dope.
We put the RED Epic
Helium on here and filmed
with it all day, every
day, and it was awesome.
It looked absolutely gorgeous,
but my back hurts.
I hate this.
And when you compare
the weight of these two,
I mean, this thing is tiny.
Oh man, this would be a good thumbnail.
Hold up here.
Check this out.
I always feel so stupid
doing these thumbnails.
(laughs)
Tada!
Now it's on the MoVI Pro and
that was like the simplest set
up ever.
The MoVI Pro has no issues.
It doesn't even know
there's a camera on there.
I'm gonna just strap this
mimic system onto my head
and then check it out.
I don't even had to do anything.
I just up to set, set
this up, and I go, okay,
you want that angle?
Got it.
How back that?
You want that too?
I know you're looking at me, dude!
Stop!
By the way, this MoVI Pro,
best gimbal I've ever used,
hands down.
I got to make whole video
about this thing someday.
Oh my God, this thing
is so freaking light.
I can literally use this thing all day.
And because of it's
size, it's got to be one
of the cameras that's
gonna be super popular
to throw on a gimbal,
but they made it a little bit wide
so it doesn't fit onto a DJI Ronin-S.
This company, LanParte,
they sent me a whole bunch
of things for this camera,
which we'll get into later,
but they do make this offset plate,
which will allow you
to mount this directly
onto a Ronin-S or a Zhiyun Crane.
So that's probably gonna be one
of the hot-selling
accessories for this camera.
Now let's talk about image
quality for a second.
I'm gonna actually take this off of here.
And right now I'm filming on the 80D,
but I'm gonna take this camera
and put it in its place.
And we're switched over
to the Black Magic Cinema camera 4K.
Man that is a hard camera name to say.
And I really like how it looks.
I like the dynamic range.
I like the highlight rolloff of my face.
I look super pretty.
And one of the reasons why
I was really considering
this camera as my A camera
for the studio setup is
that usually I'm filming with this camera
and then I take this microphone
and I have to plug this microphone,
which is the Shure SM7B
into this Zoom F8 recorder
and I record audio separately
and then I have to sync it in post.
But now I'm just literally
plugging this microphone straight
into the camera with a mini XLR adapter
because this camera actually
puts out phantom power
which is awesome.
So all you need is a little adapter cable
that comes out of this camera
and gives you an XLR port.
And this is generally what it looks like
if I lightly grade the footage,
but this is what it
looks like if it's flat
and then I can grade it
couple different ways.
And there's lot of flexibility.
When I'm grading it, a lot of times,
it reminds me of the Sony
FS7, which is good thing
because the Sony FS7 is a great camera
and it's $7,000.
But my main turn off of using this camera
to film yourself is, first of all,
you can't really see yourself.
And the only reason why I'm able
to pull this off right now is
because I have a giant
production monitor right there
behind it showing me what I'm filming.
But without that, you're
literally just looking at this.
This is what you're gonna see
and you're gonna be like,
"Okay, I hope I got the shot.
"I hope I'm in focus
"because we don't have
continuous auto focus."
And it generally works,
but it's always in the back
on my mind like am I in perfect focus?
And I can't really move around too much.
And we're back on the typical Canon 80D
and I have my auto focus back
so I can move all over the place
and this thing will follow
me so glad about that.
I must admit, though, that
Black Magic 4K ProRes looks
so sharp.
I am kind of tempted to use
this as my kind of studio A cam
that I leave here, but I just don't know
if it's worth the extra hassle
because right now I can
film for hours and hours
and I'll just come out
with two little SD cards,
one from the camera, one from the audio.
Syncing only takes a few seconds and boom.
Just that little short sequence
that I filmed on this
camera, it was 35 gigs.
I recorded in ProRes 422 HQ
and, my gosh, 35 gigabytes.
That's usually around the
size of my entire videos like
with all my A roll, my B roll,
all the footage I get usually
under like 25 gigs.
And just that little tiny
segment right there, 35 gigs,
just boof.
And I usually don't set
up a production monitor
because right now I mean the
flippy screen out of the 80D,
I mean, it's great.
It's enough for what I'm doing.
This I'm required to set
up that production monitor,
but, man, on my 4K display,
I could notice a pretty big difference.
How different does it look to you guys?
I'm gonna throw up that poll.
I want you guys to tell me honestly.
But keep in mind, the only reason
why I'm slightly considering
this as my Youtube camera is
because this is more like a studio hybrid.
It's more like a Youtuber vlog space,
but also a regular
traditional film studio.
But if you're looking
for a camera specifically
to start a Youtube channel, you plan
on filming yourself a whole lot
or vlogging, don't even, no.
Is it in focus?
- [Steve] It's pretty good.
- This is a terrible camera
to record yourself in,
not really a vlogging camera,
but it probably looks nice.
If you were vlogging, this is
what you would be staring at.
You can kind of see that
this red light is recording,
but that's about it.
You can't really tell if you're in focus
or what it's recording, what's in frame,
what's in behind you.
For me, a good vlog camera is something
that you can just set up
and not think too much about
because you don't really
want to spend all your focus
on the camera.
You want to be focused on
whatever the hell you're doing.
When I'm looking at vlog cameras,
the few things I'm looking
for is like a flip out screen,
great auto focus, some sort
of image stabilization,
whether it's in the lens or in the body,
and something very simple to use
and great image just
right out of the body.
I want to be able to just pull this thing
out whenever I'm guilted, know confidently
that I got a pretty good usable shot
and then put it away and
then do something else.
Somebody must have thought
this would be a great vlogging camera
because they put a
record button right there
so you could film yourself, but no.
This on the other hand,
I would use probably more
if I was like a camera
operator to like a documentary
or something where I'm gonna man it
and be a traditional camera operator.
As an indie filmmaker or a
small production company,
I mean, this is great
option to get you started.
Let's say you're trying
to film a documentary
for a super low budget, I
would probably suggest this
if this is your price bracket.
But even though the body
price is nice and low,
there is still a little
bit or work to be done
with this camera before
I would consider it
to be usable in a
professional environment.
First of all, only 1/4
inch thread on the bottom.
Once we start rigging this thing out,
it's gonna start slipping
and sliding sideways.
This is a camera that you absolutely need
to have a rig before you can use it
in a professional environment
for many different reasons.
But for one, there's
no stabilization built
into the body, so unless your
lens has image stabilization
built into it, you better
be on a tripod or a gimbal
or super steady.
For me, whenever someone
uses a DSLR to film something
without image stabilization,
it's a dead give away
that it's a DSLR and not
like a cinema camera.
It's really because it's so
much smaller and lighter.
The thing with small cameras
is you'll be holding it
and you'll be like,
"I'm holding this very,
"very stable right now."
You don't realize how much
you're actually shaking.
So, see this black dot right here?
I have a laser on this camera
and I have a mirror set
up on the other side
of the room to kind of amplify the effects
and I'm gonna basically
try to keep this laser
on that black dot.
You can see how much it
shakes and how fast it shakes.
It's very erratic.
It's like (trills tongue).
So let's rig this up.
Add a little bit of weight to
it, give it some wider grips,
and three points of contact.
There's a lot of different
rig options out there.
LanParte was kind enough to send me some,
so shout out to them.
And their stuff seems
pretty reasonably priced
for the quality.
It's definitely solid stuff.
Top handle and SSD tray come with it
so if you're trying to record
to like a two terabyte SSD
drive, not worry about data,
you can mount it here
and plug it into the side
of the camera and we got
ourselves a handheld rig,
a follow focus, all that good stuff.
I'm gonna link all this
stuff in the description.
Now let's do our super
scientific laser test.
I got three points of contact,
a wider grip, more weight.
And it's not so much being
able to stay on the target,
but more of how fast it jitters.
And that jitter is like a dead give away
that you're shooting on
kind of like a DSLR opposed
to a cinema cam.
And cameras like the RED,
they're so heavy out of the box
that it doesn't really need added support.
Now, aside from getting
rid of that jitter,
the first thing you're
gonna really, really need
to solve is the battery,
which is my biggest
gripe with this camera.
They actually give you
a crap generic battery
when they ship you this camera.
It is a terrible battery.
It doesn't even charge on
a genuine Canon charger.
If you put that battery
into a Canon camera,
it's like what the hell is this?
Get this out of my body.
So I've been using the
authentic batteries from Canon
and that seems to work
a little bit better,
but still these are tiny batteries.
We had to change out the
batteries so many times.
It got really, really annoying
and it doesn't give you
that much of a heads up
when it's about to just cut out on you.
These are like 14 watt hours,
which is not gonna last long at all
in a camera that's
recording ProRes and RAW.
I really feel like they should've
just made the camera a tad bit bigger
and just given it actually juice.
A must is an external power source.
You can plug it in from
the side right here.
And really for any camera
that records 4K ProRes,
you're gonna want a nice
beefy battery like this
and I just P tap into there.
And this battery plate goes
on 15mm rails.
Next this monitor back here,
it's pretty nice and big
and sharp so I feel pretty
comfortable pulling focus on it,
but it doesn't articulate
at all like in any direction
and it's not that bright.
So if you're outdoors, you're
gonna get tons of glare.
You're not really gonna be
able to see it that well.
So it's a great monitor if
you have the camera right
at eye level and it's a pretty dark place.
Then, it's great.
Otherwise, it sucks.
Some point or another,
you're really gonna need
to invest in a decent external monitor.
So it's great that it's only 1,300 bucks
to get you up and running with the body,
but really to get it to
perform, you're gonna have
to spend some extra
money to kind of make up
for what it's lacking.
It has a full-sized HDMI
port, which is great,
but no SDI port, which kind of is a bummer
because a lot of cinema
cameras like the Arri Alexa,
they only have SDI.
They don't even have HDMI.
SDI is so much more of
a better connection.
HDMI, you kind of like
wiggle the cable wrong
or something and you'll lose connection.
I mean, HDMI works and it's inexpensive,
but once you use SDI a
couple times, you're like,
"Wow, this is so much better."
Also keep in mind, there's
no ND filters built in,
so you might want to
get yourself a matte box
if you have cine lenses where
you can't just thread them on.
And a lot of people are not
happy about the Micro 4/3,
which I'm personally not a fan of either.
I got a speed booster,
which adapts the EF lenses
to the Micro 4/3 system
and this speed booster
basically redirects the light
so you get a little bit of extra light
out of the lens, which is always nice.
You still maintain control
over the electronic controlled lenses.
Instead of it being a
two times crop factor,
it becomes more like a
1.4 times crop factor.
Metabones makes great speed boosters
and I've been using theirs for years,
but I've been trying this new one by,
I think it's Commlite or Ommlite
and that's been really awesome
because instead of it feeling
like a Micro 4/3 system,
it feels a whole lot more like Super 35.
So, Ommlite or Commlite
or whatever you call it,
I'll link them in the description as well.
But, yeah, once I got
all these accessories on,
it's starting to feel much
more like a usable camera.
One thing is for sure, once
this is all said and done,
the image quality out of
this camera is surprising
for it's price point.
It's really on par with
cameras that are like five
to 10 thousand dollars.
♪ Happy birthday to Steve ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
- Thank you.
- Woo!
And their low light
capabilities, a huge improvement
over some of their previous models.
At 6,400 ISO, it still looks pretty decent
and you crank it way up
and of course you start seeing
a whole lot of grain there,
but still for a Micro 4/3
system, I'm impressed.
Now in terms of the user
interface, the menu,
and just kind of dialing
in all your settings,
this might one of the
most well laid out menus
that I have ever seen.
It's very, very straightforward,
very simple to use.
And everything's just super
simple, the way it should be.
I didn't look at the manual.
I just kind of went into the menu
to try to see if I could
figure everything out myself
and it was a breeze.
The only thing that took
me a little while to figure
out is how to get it into
120 frames per second.
That one took me a minute,
but basically you first have
to go into HD and then you
have to do a window sensor,
which crops in, and
then you can crank it up
to 120 frames per second.
The 120 frames per second
slow motion on this,
definitely very usable, but it is cropped
and it's in HD, so keep that in mind.
And for a camera with
such bad battery life,
I really wish they didn't
place the battery right here
on the bottom like a photo camera.
DSLR is a photography camera.
It's fine to put it right here.
You're usually handheld or on a tripod,
but photography tripods
are usually very small
and you have very easy access
to this bottom port right here.
When you're shooting cinema,
you're usually on a big
fat fluid head tripod.
You might have to pull it
off the trip or whatever just
to get into this battery door.
Pretty much every cinema
camera I can think
of right now has the battery
that comes out from the back.
So it's easy to switch
it on and off no matter
if it's on a gimbal or a rig or whatever.
It really sucks having a
perfectly balanced gimbal
and then the battery dies and you're like,
"Oh, let me take this camera
entirely off the gimbal,
"switch out the battery, put
it back in, and rebal..."
It's a pain.
Oh my God, look how dramatic this is.
And the best part about
this whole thing is
that this wood is fake.
It's like wrapping paper.
It looks pretty convincing
though doesn't it?
For 1,300 bucks, this is
really, really impressive.
At the same time, it does
concern me a little bit.
How are they able to develop this
and drive the price down so low?
You guys might've seen my
first video about this camera
where I got it, it worked
great for five minutes,
and then completely
stopped working giving me
this weird green, black image.
Had to ship it back in
because it was like an internal error.
And stuff like that, I get it.
Every single camera company
has had a big unit come
off their production line,
but I feel like Black Magic
might have a few more issues
than most established camera companies.
I would probably go out of my way
to buy the extended warranty.
Usually stores like B&H or Amazon,
they usually offer you like a camera
or an electronics
extended warranty program
that goes to three to four years
in case anything happens to it.
I usually skip those,
but with this camera,
just from what I've seen and
what I've heard others say
about issues with their camera,
I'd probably pay the little
extra to just get that
and I probably wouldn't also want this
to be my only camera on a set
because of the reliability issue
that I've had in the past.
Me, personally, I'd probably
be using this mostly
as like a B or C cam to other cameras
and I definitely see a
time and place for it
in some of my future projects.
So I'm really happy about this purchase.
I'm really curious how the Black Magic
and the RED look side by side.
Should I make that it's own video?
Hmm, maybe.
And let's close this video
off with reading a couple
of comments from my last video,
which was all about putting
a GoPro and the DJI Osmo
on this little RC car,
zipping it around town,
and seeing how the footage looked.
Top comment from Dan & Nak:
can you try the RED on
the RC car next time?
I think I need a bigger RC car.
Actually Freefly, the
company that makes the MoVI,
they actually create an RC car
that fits the MoVI and then
you can throw a RED camera
on there and zip that
around, which is pretty cool.
The Freefly Tero, oh there it is.
Man, those things look so cool.
I want one so bad.
Put that on my wishlist for Christmas.
Oh, wait, Christmas is already over.
Damn it.
What's the affiliate link
for pizza and foot massages?
That's not for sale.
Next comment comes from
I'm a big sandwich.
That's a great name.
I don't know if potato
is ever gonna see this,
but here's an analogy
between RC and sensor size.
Oh that's actually pretty cool.
1/20th scale and smaller is a 1 2/3 inch.
Micro 4/3 is 1/14th scale.
1/5th scale, medium format sensors.
That actually makes
perfect sense to me now.
That was very useful.
I would rate the dog three out of four.
Show your abs.
Okay, you guys asked for it.
Here we go.
That's real.
This is not photoshopped at all.
(gentle electronic music)
