Blackmagic Design Releases 4K Pocket Cinema Camera

The folks over at Blackmagic Design have unveiled their newest version of the Pocket Cinema Camera. The new model, first seen at NAB 2018, supports 4K HDR RAW video.

Perhaps most importantly, the retail cost of $1,295 makes this camera the least expensive way to get started shooting 4K HDR.

Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

Following on the heels of the popular Pocket Cinema Camera, the 4K version supports 4K HDR RAW at 4,096 x 2,160 resolution and 60 fps in 12-bit RAW or 10-bit ProRes. The redesigned body is much more modern than the original Pocket Cinema, and since it’s built with carbon-fiber, it is much lighter.

Before you worry about dropping it, Blackmagic countered the new, lighter weight with a bigger grip. It also has larger dials and buttons for recording, ISO, shutter, aperture, white balance and other standard camera features. This is a departure from the previous version, where the rear display controlled most of the settings.

Full-Size Sensor

The old Pocket Cinema featured a Micro Four Thirds mount but had a smaller than full-size sensor. The 4K version has a full-sized Micro Four Thirds sensor with native DCI 4K resolution and 13 stops of dynamic range.

Storage Options Aplenty

The Pocket Cinema 4K can record ProRes or RAW to standard SD, UHS-II or CFast 2.0 cards. You can also record 4K directly to a media drive by using the USB-C expansion port. This is a great feature for those who dread transferring files… All you need to do is plug the external drive into your computer and you are ready to edit!

Brighter Touchscreen

Another bump up from the previous model is the brighter 5-inch touchscreen. The original Pocket Cinema caught a lot of flak for being so dim. With the screen you can frame shots, check focus or use the menu. There are also histograms, focus and peaking indicators and 3D LUTs that can be viewed on the screen.

DaVinci Resolve 15

Also launching with the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K is a new version of DaVinci Resolve. This “massive update” now includes the Fusion compositing VFX package to allow even more work to be done in the same program.

DaVinci Resolve 15 includes support for Apple Metal and CUDA and can recognize multiple GPUs.