So, we're finally coming up on a year since the Pocket Cinema camera finally arrived after
Blackmagic had announced it at the NAB show in 2013, and now the 2014's show is past.
It's still kind of in a class all its own.
It still breaks the $1000 price barrier, and it's still the smallest video camera to record
at such a high bit rate, and even raw after Blackmagic came around with a firmware update.
But the thing is always needed to get rigged out for doing serious work, kind of an inevitable
compromise from the size and the audio inputs and the battery life, and a whole host of
other issues that people have had to contend with.
So at FocusPulling.com with the Blackmagic user group, I've seen a lot of amazing footage
come through with advice from people who have found ways to make it work.
And in the meantime, I think I've built up a rig that works for me, and I thought I'd
take this chance, like the last commentary, to just talk over some images to tell you
about some products that might work out for you.
It might be best to start with an adage that's pretty timeless advice, saying you should
probably spend more on your lens kit than on the camera itself.
And that's not hard to do with the Blackmagic Pocket.
And thinking back to the previous commentary, there's a Panasonic 12-35mm continuous f2.8
zoom lens that I found to be a real workhorse, especially when you're handheld because of
the power OIS stabilization in the lens.
But sure enough, it does cost even more than the camera.
But that's just a one-size-fits-all traditional zoom lens.
And what might inevitably happen is that your work evolves into calling for a kit of prime
lenses, or even better, cinema prime lenses.
At the moment, there's really just one company that seems to be answering that demand at
the scale, at the level of someone like a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera user.
And that company is Rokinon, who also go under the names Bauer or Samyang.
And their cinema prime lenses basically have two distinguishing characteristics.
First is that the aperture ring is de-clicked, meaning that as you turn it, it doesn't click
and therefore jerk the light level from one to the next, but it's smooth.
And the second is that the barrel is very wide with gear rings so that you could attach
something like a follow focus device.
So this is pretty well-known stuff, but the thing that surprised me is that you actually
don't want to get a cinema prime lens to match the mount of the camera you're using,
in the case of the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, which is micro four thirds.
And the reason is that the flange distance of the micro four thirds format requires
that the lens extend out from the body farther than the better alternative, which is to get
a Canon EF mount lens, which is really short.
It goes right up to the lens mount because Canon bodies have the sensor far deeper inside
because traditionally they weren't mirrorless.
And as a result, if you get a Canon EF mount lens, there's some cool accessories that you
can use in that flange extender.
And one of them that I'm going to start with here is something called Holy Manta.
There's any number of reasons why you might want to use an ND or a neutral density filter,
which is basically sunglasses for your camera.
The trendy and definitely overdone reason these days is to have this hyper shallow depth
of field or focus isolation in your shot.
But traditionally this sunglasses for your camera was located between the camera sensor
and the lens, but the Blackmagic Pocket certainly doesn't have a built in ND filter.
Frankly, most cameras don't anymore.
But what the Holy Manta does is it exploits that flange distance problem of the Canon
EF mount and simply puts in the adapter space an ND filter harkening back to the original
placement of an ND filter between the sensor and the lens.
This has a better effect than if you have it at the end of the lens barrel because out
there you tend to get things like crosshairs and vignetting at the edges that are less
prevalent or less of a risk when it's closer to the sensor.
So the way the Holy Manta works is it exploits that spacer inherent in any adapter that
goes from Canon EF mount lenses to a Micro Four Thirds mount or only one millimeter different
from that Sony Alpha NEX mount.
And inside of this adapter there is a slot for a cartridge that magnetically clicks into
place.
And this cartridge has a little thumb wheel that you can rotate to change the amount of
light that's blocked.
And this is like rotating a variable ND filter mounted at the end of a lens.
And what's more, you can flip a switch that's attached to this thumb wheel to make the entire
ND filter disappear.
That is to say it won't be anymore between the sensor and the lens.
And that's an ideal situation because there's inevitable compromises using an ND filter.
It compromises the optical quality.
And sometimes you want that without having to disassemble the entire operation for a lot
of reasons.
I tested out this product on a ranch shoot for a documentary I'm doing.
And this was during the worst drought conditions in the Central Valley of California ever,
I think, or at least in many years.
And so the dust was crazy awful.
And with that condition, it was awfully nice to not have to take off and on lenses and
the ND filter just to deal with changes and requirements for a certain shot.
So to be able to keep the ND filter protected from dust and without having to assemble and
disassemble and change lenses with that sort of situation was invaluable.
So it's certainly a cost-benefit ratio that you make because the Holy Manta ND is a rather
expensive unit.
But there's nothing else like it on the market in terms of the combination of the ability
to put it in that sweet spot between the lens and the sensor.
And also to be able to temporarily flip it away without disassembly.
So the Holy Manta is ideal for a specific situation when you are adapting a Canon EF
lens onto the micro four thirds mount of a black magic pocket.
But there will be situations when you simply want to attach a micro four thirds lens itself
onto the black magic pocket cinema camera body.
And in that case, there isn't any room between the lens and the camera sensor to fit an ND
filter.
And so in that case, you just have to go the traditional route and screw it onto the end
of the lens barrel.
I've always used a variable ND filter for that.
And the principle is the same as the one that's inside the cartridge of the Holy Manta, which
is just a couple of polarizing filters rotating against each other to vary the amount of light
that's allowed through.
The product I've used in the past is by a company called Lightcraft Workshop.
And just a couple of weeks ago, they came out with their next generation called the
Rabbit ND.
And it adds a couple of cool features, especially at the 58 millimeter size, which matches the
Panasonic lenses.
There's a little lever on the outside of the rotating ring that's easy to get to and more
precise to turn.
But also they made it so small and so thin that the inner diameter of the filter and
the outer diameter are the same, which is really rare in this product.
So among other things, you can use the same lens cap you were using on the lens on the
outside of the filter.
So that's lenses and adapters and filters, but I guess the idea of rigging implies really
adding bulk, adding mounting points.
And in the case of this little thing, protecting it, there's a company called View Factor,
a really cool ND company based here in the US.
And they were first to market making a cage for the Blackmagic Pocket called the Continio.
And to this day, I think it's still your best option.
They have really cool pricing and it looks cool.
You can add a little wooden handle on the front.
I've taken it all over the world.
Here you can see it alongside the Great Wall of China on a pretty aggressive hike.
It held up really well there and it has held up everywhere I've taken it.
With all of those mounting holes, which is basically like a cheese plate, it's given
a lot of options for me to mount things onto it.
I also found that a couple of slots on either side of the cage added the ability that I
didn't have with the original camera to put a quick release camera strap on.
This one's by Tamrac.
And what I did have to do though is I had to file down the edges so that it wouldn't
cut into the fabric of the strap.
But once I had that, it was great because then I actually had a traditional camera
strap that I really couldn't have rigged up on the camera bear.
So it's practically legend by now the ways that the Blackmagic Pocket dries filmmakers'
nuts and those circles of hell include battery life, viewfinder, audio.
But as for the battery, there is one solution that worked at least for me and it was to
get a little battery sled by ICANN that is really just simply a piece of plastic with
a couple of contacts and a little circuit board that takes the voltage from Sony and
Canon batteries and raises it up to 12 volts for the larger Blackmagic cameras.
And you have to get another adapter to fit the pin size of the input on the Blackmagic
Pocket.
And even though it costs way more than you would think it should, it actually does the
job.
Extends the battery life by quite a lot more than the measly 30 minutes you get out of those
little Nikon batteries that go inside the camera itself.
You can use both at the same time so it's a nice backup in any case.
As for the viewfinder, there have been a couple of accessories that try and deal with its
problems like not being able to see it well in daylight and the fact that it's so small.
But about a month ago, Zucuto finally delivered a version of their Z-Finder that uses a little
plastic adapter ring that you just simply tape onto the back of the Blackmagic Pocket
and then the Z-Finder snaps onto it.
It's not like a Z-Finder Pro, it's actually more like a Z-Finder Junior, so it's not
necessarily a bargain.
They also skimped by not including the plate that comes with the Z-Finder Pro to cover
the widest open part of it, which can be a problem when you're using it with the lanyard
that they include.
They also for some reason didn't include a second adapter ring that they promised in
the inventory list.
But Zucuto has in the internal optics an anti-fog mechanism that no one else has been able to
reproduce, so it's kind of a no-brainer.
It's the thing to get if you wanted to improve the viewfinder on this product.
Finally, with respect to audio, there's always been an attitude surrounding the pocket that
it simply doesn't need to do it well, but that tells you that it didn't do it well.
But there are reasons why you might want to record in camera.
It's just that the built-in microphones have really bad distortion and buzzing and electronic
interference noise.
And then even the external input, the preamp on that just isn't very strong, and it also
has poor signal-to-noise ratio.
So there's good reason to invest in an outboard recorder that either records independently
or at least prepares the signal in a better way for the internal recording of the pocket
to record well.
I went with this product called the Tascam DR-60.
It just fits right the form factor of the Blackmagic Pocket.
Granted, it's not ergonomically fantastic because it just makes it into a two-story building,
but it does prepare any XLR input by adding phantom power and delivering it to the inputs
on the Blackmagic Pocket or, in any case, creating an outboard track that you can sync
later.
It even has a slate button so that you can synchronize them easier.
So it's a great accessory because it attaches right onto the camera itself or, in this case,
to the cage.
And then to go with that, I attached, via XLR cable, a RODE NTG-2 using a mount on top
of the camera, and it all records exceptional audio, and in my case, I'm just using the
DR-40 as a preamp and not recording externally because I just don't want to deal with syncing
later, and that's more than sufficient for documentary work.
Although the DR-60 runs on its own batteries, it goes through them pretty quickly, so a nice
thing to pair with it is a mobile phone charger external battery pack that you can get anywhere.
And if you just put a USB cable between that and the mini USB port on the DR-60, you get
a nice lithium rechargeable battery source that extends the battery life of the audio
recorder.
To tie all these cables down, there's a really cool little product by a company called Tether
Tools, and this one's a jerk stopper in the style that has a 1.25-20 screw, and you just
screw it into the side of the cage, and then what it does is it ties down a cable so that
if you did accidentally pull on it, it would not risk damaging the ports on the camera
itself.
Wrapping up, I thought I'd mentioned one last gizmo that takes a Canon EF full-frame lens
and adapts it down to the Blackmagic Pockets sensor in a way that gathers more light and
improves the crop factor.
This is, of course, first made famous by an adapter from a company called Metabones, but
it's not a patented technology, and there are other companies that have made them for
a lot less, because in the example of the lenses at the beginning of this video, if
it's fully manual anyways, then all of these electronic controls are unnecessary, and then
it really comes down to optical quality.
I was happy to save about $500 by getting this product instead of the Metabones, and
I found the optical quality to be more than sufficient, but it's something at least worth
considering.
So I guess that about wraps it up, but I hope you found at least some of this information
useful, and I have put links to all of the products that I've mentioned in this video
in the caption below, and I do welcome you to please join the user group and to continue
the discussion there via the portal of focuspulling.com.
