They may be shipping in relatively small quantities, but there are at least a few Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Cameras floating around. If you haven't ordered one yet, it's probably going to be a while (since the pre-order list is long), but if you've been disappointed by Vimeo-only footage, we've got some camera-original ProRes clips for you to mess around with. Click through to check those out.

First up is footage from Hook, which you can download here. This footage is from his Auckland video we recently shared:

We've also got a clips from John Brawley. First are files with people and motion in the frame that you can download here, and then some more static shots you can find here (these were all shot in film mode on the Pocket, which is like log). Some people have tried their hand at grading the footage, here are a few samples with grading and stabilization from :

This  test showing what different FilmConvert profiles can do to the footage:

The last grading test I'll be doing (publicly) with John Brawley's Pocket Cinema Camera footage. This time around a grade which was meant to be a quick grade but took several hours to put together. It's done using FilmConvert with basic settings and using the 'Blackmagic Cinema Camera Film' profile. Nothing was done to the original footage before applying the FilmConvert filter in Premiere Pro CC. Film Grain was kept at 100%, as was Film Color. With the lake-view shots I also increased exposure with 0.08, marginal, but it just looked better that way

Not all film stocks from FilmConvert were used, I made a selection of seven stocks.

Here is  take on the rest of the footage in the second batch:

Dynamic range looks pretty good in these test clips. The footage has a very similar look to the original BMCC, and that makes perfect sense since they are supposedly from the same sensor family -- with the Pocket simply being a scaled down version. We don't have any RAW clips to play around with yet, as RAW is not yet finished on the camera, but you can still push these quite a bit. Just like with the BMCC, I was able to push color and saturation a lot, since the log mode on these cameras is relatively flat.

All in all, not bad for a camera that's only going to run you $1,000. There isn't another camera in this price range capable of putting out a log image that is this malleable without many penalties, so it's impressive to say the least.

What do you guys think of the footage? Feel free to post your graded versions.

Links:

cameracamerasblackmagiccinemacamerajohnbrawleyProRess16pocket cinema camera
Cinematography & Cameras