Nauticam - BMPCC 4K

I'm considering it (housing price obviously being a factor). I'd love to try it out at least, though it may indeed prove to be a minimal upgrade over a GH5/GH5s.

 

The biggest advantages I see are the wider usable dynamic range at 4k60 (12bit raw vs 8-bit h.264 v-log internal gives a lot more color gradation information) and the greater flexibility over white balance that being able to work with the raw files should bring.

 

The bigger monitor would also be a nice advantage.

 

Even if the Nauticam housing ends up costing $3600-$4000, the whole package will still be in the same ballpark price range as a GH5s+Nauticam Housing

 

Downsides are the lack of in-body stabilization (but the other cinema options like the C200, EVA-1, REDs, Alexa also lack this) and the much larger file sizes that require more storage and processing power than the GH5's 150mb/s files. A lot will depend on just how good the black magic raw is once it gets implemented. And I'd love to see FCPX support for braw.

 

From the comparisons I've seen out there, image quality is really quite close overall with what the C200 puts out, including similar/lower noise at ISO 6400 than the C200 produces, at $5300 for body+housing vs $15000+ for the C200 (more once you factor in pairing it with a WWL-1 vs WACP). So unless you really need the dual pixel of the C200, or Canon's color science somehow rears it's head again, this seems like a much better buy?

Hello Andrei, your comments helped me a lot.

This is somewhat different topic but I am curious your opinion. I know a guy who is professional underwater cinematographer shoot things with Ari and Red with huge crane. The guy insists me that the design of housings for mirroless camera/DSLR is very different from cinema camera like Red/Ari or C200 you mentioned. you know, those are elongated design. So he said its easier to balance underwater, and it shows low shakeness than we think even thought the cameras have no internal stabilization.

What do you think? If the words have meaning, maybe C200 has benefit over BMPCC 4K, which has ordinary mirroless/dslr design housing.

I have had the pleasure of working with four different professional underwater cameramen who shoot with housed (SubSpace, Nauticam, Gates) 4 – 8K Red systems. One is Didier Noirot in France, who is a good friend of mine; another is Tim Fitz, who is basically a neighbor of mine Palm Beach Florida. The difference your professional friend is talking about between rigs built around Red, Ari, even a Canon C200 to mirrorless systems is mass in terms of displacement in water. The greater the mass displacing water – think small boat vs. a 150-foot yacht in cruising in 5-foot seas – the greater the stability of the platform. The boat will of course bounce, where as the yacht hardly falters. The same thing can be demonstrated by shooting two GoPros side by side with one mount it on a scuba tank with some handles fasten to it, the other handheld by itself. The footage from the camera mounted on the tank will show almost no shake at all, where as the handheld GoPro will be all over the place.

Bottom-line, for camera system stability underwater, the bigger the better. Of course, one must nut forget the role the elongated nature (due to housing’s design to accommodate the camera body, optics and battery system) play a significant role in the system’s hydrodynamics – torpedo vs. block. When properly weight and balanced the system is often times not only completely neutral underwater, it will sit completely level with zero tendency tilt, pitch or role, even you should push it with your finger.

Looking at the images of Nauticam’s new housing for the BMPCC 4K, I would have preferred for it to have a 120N mount instead of the smaller 85N port mount. But, since the camera has a very nice size monitor built in, it precludes the need for an external monitor on top, which might make it at least easier to balance underwater.

Bottom-line, for camera system stability underwater, the bigger the better. Of course, one must nut forget the role the elongated nature (due to housing’s design to accommodate the camera body, optics and battery system) play a significant role in the system’s hydrodynamics – torpedo vs. block. When properly weight and balanced the system is often times not only completely neutral underwater, it will sit completely level with zero tendency tilt, pitch or role, even you should push it with your finger.

Completely agree, I can see a few people adding the NinjaV or similar to the BMPCC4k to get it more stable.

Having the 7" Inferno behind my GH5, along with the WWL-1, has made it a lot longer and has increased the stability of the whole 'rig' a few car tyre weights on the bottom of the Inferno, has made my whole system neutral and not prone to any tilting. It helps to know the camera doesn't disappear while faffing with BO cylinders too

I have had the pleasure of working with four different professional underwater cameramen who shoot with housed (SubSpace, Nauticam, Gates) 4 – 8K Red systems. One is Didier Noirot in France, who is a good friend of mine; another is Tim Fitz, who is basically a neighbor of mine Palm Beach Florida. The difference your professional friend is talking about between rigs built around Red, Ari, even a Canon C200 to mirrorless systems is mass in terms of displacement in water. The greater the mass displacing water – think small boat vs. a 150-foot yacht in cruising in 5-foot seas – the greater the stability of the platform. The boat will of course bounce, where as the yacht hardly falters. The same thing can be demonstrated by shooting two GoPros side by side with one mount it on a scuba tank with some handles fasten to it, the other handheld by itself. The footage from the camera mounted on the tank will show almost no shake at all, where as the handheld GoPro will be all over the place.

 

Bottom-line, for camera system stability underwater, the bigger the better. Of course, one must nut forget the role the elongated nature (due to housing’s design to accommodate the camera body, optics and battery system) play a significant role in the system’s hydrodynamics – torpedo vs. block. When properly weight and balanced the system is often times not only completely neutral underwater, it will sit completely level with zero tendency tilt, pitch or role, even you should push it with your finger.

 

Looking at the images of Nauticam’s new housing for the BMPCC 4K, I would have preferred for it to have a 120N mount instead of the smaller 85N port mount. But, since the camera has a very nice size monitor built in, it precludes the need for an external monitor on top, which might make it at least easier to balance underwater.

 

Thank you very much Walt ! What a nice answer !

I'll try Red in a pool next week - Maybe I can feel the things you wrote.

So Small and Light is not always vitrue

Thank you again.

Definitely the mass of the whole rig and the trim of it is crucial to steady footage. I think Walt explained it nicely.

One thing to keep in mind though is that the Nauticam housing for the C200 is actually not very long. It's quite compact and squat, which might negate a lot of the mass and stability benefits you see with a large heavy housing like the GATES housings for the REDs/Alexa for example. The C200 housing also ends up significantly negative by itself (just like the GH5 housing) so you need to add external floats of some sort if you want it to be neutrally buoyant. I dunno how much this impacts the whole stability and handling of the rig, but I certainly do wish the housing itself had a bit more internal volume and buoyancy. It's easier to start with a buoyant housing and add trim weights than to start with a negative housing and add floats, imo.

I suspect the BMPCC4K housing is going to be fairly negative out of the box and will require large external floats to render neutral.

The housing is shipping but isnt expensive at $3,950.00 USD?

https://www.nauticam.com/products/na-bmpccii-housing-for-blackmagic-pocket-cinema-camera-4k

Blackmagic released today a firmware update allowing Blackmagic raw recording internally. Lets hope will see some underwater footage soon.

Ouch. Thats one expensive housing.

Looking forward to someone getting one underwater, will be interesting to see if its worth it. Odd that Nauticam went with the older M18 port for HDMI.

Its shame that the image quality isnt a massive jump from the GH series as I would be tempted - always fancied a RAW capable video camera.

Hears hoping the GH6 gets ProResRAW...

Ouch. Thats one expensive housing.

 

Looking forward to someone getting one underwater, will be interesting to see if its worth it. Odd that Nauticam went with the older M18 port for HDMI.

 

Its shame that the image quality isnt a massive jump from the GH series as I would be tempted - always fancied a RAW capable video camera.

 

Hears hoping the GH6 gets ProResRAW...

I think the first time they uploaded the picture of the housing to nauticam website it was the sample model. Seem like they already removed all the picture and right now added picture which show M24 port for HDMI for the housing. Wonder if that 12bit raw file will be much improvement underwater.

Nice spot! Thats different - and a welcome update!

I know that HDMI 2.0 isnt really needed - as I believe its limited to 1080 on the BMPCC4K - but makes it easier to use the upcoming monitor options which I presume will all be M24 going forward.

Looks like a 3month wait for new orders on BMPCC4Ks - must be very popular

Awesome! And now we have BMRAW internally, so the combination with the 5" monitor seriously reduces the need for an external monitor/recorder.

The housing is more expensive than I'd like, but I believe it comes in at the same price point as the old Black Magic housings Nauticam made and very similar to their DSLR housings, so part of that may be the size of the thing.

$3900 for the housing. + $1300 for the camera = $5200. A GH5 would be $1450 for the body + $2850 for the housing, so around $4300. Not such a huge difference in the end. Certainly cheaper than getting a GH5 + housing + Ninja 5 + housing (if that ever becomes available) or a Nikon Z7 + external recorder to get ProresRaw.

Looking forward to samples of what it can do underwater. I'm sorely tempted to buy one. And BMRAW integration into FCPX.

Here is a small underwater clip I found on Vimeo

https://vimeo.com/322461702?fbclid=IwAR1f8Cg0hgbNXwut67Aql-g-QD3nPZXPPIXJIssUgr0ys5Qz7W0UxhaeApQ

Great find!

Taking nothing away from his cinematography - as it’s a great little piece. Love the inquisitive fish!

But I’m not sure what to think, perhaps I’m expecting more from it. Perhaps Im expecting too much.

Colours remind me of GH4 tbh - which is a bit of a surprise. [emoji20]

I think the dynamic range looks good- no harsh roll off, and it has a lovely organic feel to it.

But not sure....would I spend $3.5k ($5.5k on new kit, $2k back from the GH5) on moving from my GH5 / Atomos combo. You can defo see the lack of IBIS and OIS with the camera and 7-14mm lens.

I really *really* want to love it, and I really fancy trying RAW, 4K and 12Bit (I have a body on preorder) and for me, it’s a much smaller package for travel - but that video hasn’t sold me...

Great to know they are out there in the wild, await more footage.

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Same clip with a different grade

Like Richard not convinced. True its only 1 clip and in bad conditions but still i was expecting something different.

Looks very much like the GH4

I am not sure a bigger screen negates the need for a monitor that in certain situations is required

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My main take-away from that sample is that at depth, without lights, you're not going to get great results regardless of whether you do a custom white balance in situ or shoot raw and do a custom white balance after. This footage appears to be shot below 10 meters, so we can't really expect amazing colors. The water clarity may also account for the desaturated overall look (or it could be a conscious decision made in the post-processing).

I agree though that this particular clip doesn't showcase anything that couldn't be achieved on a GH5 already. Stability looks decent (at least there's no distracting micro-jitters). Highlight rolloff looks quite organic. Having the option to set white balance in post adds a lot of flexibility, even if it doesn't necessarily allow you to achieve anything you couldn't already do with a GH5 if you properly set custom white balance when shooting.

The purple water column (e.g. at 0:22) is concerning though and does remind me of the GH4 results as well. Interested to see what the camera can do in clear tropical waters..

White balance in great conditions works to 20 meters however this means shooting with ambient light

For close shots below 10 meters and for anything below 20 lights are dominant and if you have enough power auto white balance works just fine

When am taking stills and I have enough power and no hot spots I never white balance raw files plus the white balance of the scene as a whole is set and will shift altogether so even with raw files you need light

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Hard to tell without knowing the depth each individual shot in the little clip. I’m reserving judgement until more footage comes out. Good to see the camera is out there tho!

The guy posted the settings used:

“31-66ft, Braw Q0, set WB to 8000k”

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Oh. Well then I’d say it looks pretty good color wise, especially for poor conditions! Excited to see more!