For those Blackmagic Pocket Camera shooters who are reading this, today is a great day for you! After a long wait, Blackmagic Design has finally released new cinema camera firmware that unlocks RAWcinemaDNG recording functionality in the Blackmagic Pocket Camera.
Many early adopters of the camera were initially upset that the shipping version of the Pocket Cam couldn’t shoot RAW out of the box (as advertised), but thankfully their frustrations are finally over as Blackmagic has now made the firmware When it’s over, you can download it from their website www.blackmagicdesign.com. For those of you who have been shooting RAW on a Blackmagic Cinema Camera or any other RAW camera, you know how difficult it is to revert to any compression format after RAW – even one as powerful as ProRes. For myself, even though most of my work doesn’t require RAW format, I still use it whenever possible because the image quality is absolutely unparalleled and hard to pass up.
So, while today’s news is very exciting, I’m surprised that the firmware update doesn’t include any other new features or upgrades for BMPC or BMCC (except maybe some bug fixes). In fact, today was something of a reminder that Blackmagic hasn’t had a major update to its original cinema cameras (either EF or MFT) in a long time. Key features like viewing remaining SSD space and audio meters are still missing, and unfortunately, these shortcomings do cause problems in real-world shooting scenarios. While the BMCC is one of my favorite cameras I’ve ever shot with (and I’ve been using it more than ever lately), these issues have really shown themselves to me in a work environment, and there have been a few instances where the SSD has Full, I didn’t know the camera was coming so I lost some footage. I’m certainly not the only one waiting. A large number of BMCC photographers are eagerly waiting for the firmware update, but there is no hope, not to mention a large number of BMCC 4K customers who are still pre-ordering, waiting for 4K cameras to become a reality.
But for now, at least we finally have the power of RAW on a compact camera, which is a big step in the right direction. I pray that version 1.6 will be released soon, along with the more important BMCC updates. There is hope here!
For more information on shooting RAW at the BMCC, check out My RAW workflow using DaVinci Resolve and FCP X I used it in my film “Brothers and Sisters,” which was submitted to the Sundance Film Festival.
About the author
Norm Kroll
Noam Kroll is an award-winning Los Angeles-based filmmaker and founder of boutique production company Creative Rebellion. His work can be seen at international film festivals, online television and in various publications worldwide. Follow Noam twitter, Instagram and Facebook for more content like this!
