There’s a new camera in my life! This summer Blackmagic dropped the price of their little Pocket Cinema Camera, and I snatched one up. It’s incredibly powerful for it’s size and delivers a much higher quality image than my Canon DSLR ever did. I picked up a vintage C-mount lens from the antique store–a Bausch and Lomb 26mm f/1.9–and with the help of a Fotodiox C-Mount to Micro Four Thirds adapter I shot a quick demo with it. Here’s the result:
The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, or BMPCC for short, delivers 12 stops of dynamic range. That means you can capture more detail in the dark and light parts of a scene than you can capture with an average video camera. This range is similar to the dynamic range of film, which means that the BMPCC has a look more akin to a 16mm motion picture than digital video–a look I’ve been trying to achieve for years.
I shot a second test film in Chicago with my friend Mike, this time with a Cosmicar 12.5mm f/1.9 C-mount lens. He was shooting a time lapse video with his 5D Mark II, so I decided to shoot a video about him shooting a video. Here’s the result:
It’s amazing how much detail I was able to capture, even at night. The high dynamic range gives me a lot of wiggle room, and even when what I’m shooting is underexposed, I can often get a lot of it back in post. Here’s another video I just shot over Christmas, this time experimenting with a little Olympus 9mm fisheye lens:
I’m really excited to see what I can do with this camera in the future! I’m currently shooting a short science fiction film with it, and so far the results have been stellar–no pun intended. It’s great to finally own a digital video camera that feels like a 16mm motion picture camera, and delivers a similar image.
