What are the pro’s and cons between the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k or 6k?
Which One Should You Buy?
We’ve been asked numerous times by people if they should buy a BlackMagic 4k or 6k camera? Now people probably don’t want to waste any money, so when it comes to bang for your buck the two best cameras on the market right now are the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k and 6k. But which one should you buy? Well in this article we’re going to break down these two cameras and we’ll tell you the differences and why we think one is actually a better buy than the other.
First Impressions Of Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera?
Let’s get into this and take a look at the Black magic pocket Cinema Camera 4k versus the pocket Cinema Camera 6k. Our first impressions of each of these two cameras are that they are absolutely amazing especially in what they do for the value, in our opinion we don’t think there’s anything that’s ever come out quite like these two cameras when it comes to being able to give you high resolution such as 4k or 6k and giving you the flexibility of raw in these bodies especially for their price points. There’s really nothing that compares to them other than each other so that’s why we’re going to look in this article, we’ll cover why each of these cameras are good what we don’t like about each of these two cameras and ultimately which of these two cameras you should be picking up.
Does The BlackMagic Cameras Have Good Quality?
We have used each of these cameras for quite a while so we’ve had some time to really test them out and so the first thing we want to jump into and probably the thing that you’re most interested in is quality. Now when it comes to the difference between the two in terms of quality you’re not just getting 6k as far as resolution with this model but you’re also getting a bigger sensor, so you are going to be getting a super 35 millimetre sensor compared to the micro 4/3 sensor, that’s going to allow you to get a couple different things, obviously the 6k resolution but also with a bigger sensor you also have more flexibility in low-light shooting. You have a bigger sensor so it allows for more surface area for light to actually hit the sensor to allow you to get better low-light performance. In a camera like the 4k that has already had great low-light up to this point the other big benefit when shooting with the 6k sensor is if you’re shooting for a 4k timeline, you now have some extra room as far as being able to reframe your shot in post. Now that extra 2k, is it really helpful? That’s going to totally be up to you and how much reframing you’re planning on. It’s not as big of a jump from 4k to 1080p but that little bit of extra reframing room is nice to have in the Edit.
Can Your Computer Handle 6K Footage?
Now another big question that pops up when shooting with 6k is well. Is 6k going to just wreck my computer? Will I even be able to play back the footage? We can say that yeah you actually can and it actually plays back really smooth. Now as far as looking at the 6k footage on a regular 1080 screen, whether you’re looking at the 6k versus the 4k on a 1080 screen on a cell phone screen and honestly we really couldn’t tell that big of a difference, yes the 6k was a little bit sharper and you know you may be able to tell the difference between these shots online but after compression and putting it back on a lower resolution screen realistically the difference between 4k and 6k really wasn’t that big, and so since there wasn’t a massive difference between the two. Another question we’ve been getting is since the 6k can only shoot 6k in BlackMagic Raw is it worth editing it in DaVinci? Or is it worth using that raw workflow? Personally we think working with da Vinci hasn’t been the easiest thing, obviously it is a brand new software and no one has really mastered it yet and we really haven’t had enough time to really give our honest opinions on DaVinci just yet but we will say that when you were taking this file or when you’re taking the BlackMagic raw file into da Vinci, da Vinci handles it very well so there’s not a massive difference between the 4k and the 6k as far as the quality of these two cameras.
Do The BlackMagic Cameras Have Good Usability?
How’s the usability? And this is honestly where these two cameras differ the most. If you’re getting the black magic you should definitely just be getting it for raw which we do kind of believe to a certain extent. However when the 4k can shoot 4k ProRes and 4k raw but the 6k cannot shoot 4k raw it is a little bit of a bummer. Especially when you don’t necessarily always want to shoot in 6k, as we mentioned when you’re shooting in 6k on this camera in RAW you’re going to get frame file sizes that are about seven to eight gigs for a minute, but when you’re shooting in this guy in 4k raw you’re getting file sizes that are more like around 3.8 gigs to about 5 gigs or so which is significantly smaller. Especially when you start adding them up so sometimes you may not want to shoot in 6k, you might just want to shoot in 4k for the file sizes depending on what you’re shooting. That is one of the big issues that we have when it comes to shooting with either one of these cameras. Now as far as the menus go on these cameras they’re the exact same, they’re super easy, they’re very flushed out it’s nice to be able to shoot on them. They also have the exact same IO port so you don’t have to worry about any differences there.
If you’ve liked what you’ve seen on the BlackMagic 4k as far as the usability of it then using the 6k is going to be the exact same. Those differences when it comes to the different recording options, whether you’re shooting in 6k, 4k, the anamorphic modes and if you want to shoot in pro res or in BlackMagic Raw.
Are There Any Major Differences Between The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K And 4K?
Now one major difference that when shooting with these two cameras is as we mentioned already with the 6k it does have that built-in EF mount which is really great and it does have that super 35 millimetre sensor but that does limit you to a 35 millimetre sensor. If you want to know a bit more then you can definitely do some research and let us know what you think on that but we will say that when shooting with the 4k camera you can get adapters like the meta bone speed booster. What this does is this actually converts the micro four-thirds mount to an EF mount and then it’s also a speed booster so what that means is its actually going to allow more and allow this camera to have the look of a full-frame camera, which is really nice especially if you’re used to shooting on full-frame DSLR and mirrorless cameras, this is going to give you more of the look that you’re used to shooting with
Do BlackMagic Cameras Have Good Battery Life?
Last but not least when it comes to the battery life. The BlackMagic 6k and 4k both have terrible battery life so if you’re comparing them to mirrorless cameras and DSLRs which is kind of the price range that they’re kind of found themselves in the battery life is not very good.
So there you have it, that’s our comparison between the BlackMagic 4k and 6k, lets us know what you think and if you would pick up one of these cameras.