So, funny story... due to switching modes and settings so much for these tests, I accidentally shot the talking head of this video in ProRes! Bahaha. Oh, the irony! But luckily, I shot at ISO 800, so it didn't have those lowered clipping points and produced a good image. I can say, however, that it was also much choppier to edit than Blackmagic RAW. 🤦‍♂️🤣🤓

Hi, a few things to add clarity: • the dynamic range chart you showed is the old incorrect chart - we updated/corrected this in the latest manuals so please refer to that. • The exposure tools in our cameras scale relative to the ISO, so middle grey will always show as green in false colour etc, yellow = 80% zebras, red = 95% zebras - for any ISO. You don't have to consider where middle grey is or the clipping points for example when using false colour as the camera takes care of it. • Highlight recovery is rebuilding clipped channel information from the channels not clipped. It would be more accurate to name it “Highlight Rebuild” but that ship has long sailed. When you WB a camera you clip all channels to keep highlights neutral/white for your CCT, with ProRes this happens in camera so the channels that may not have clipped get clipped off before encoding as ProRes (otherwise you have coloured highlights). In RAW codecs, the channels are clipped during decode so the non clipped channels are used to rebuild the clipped ones with highlight recovery but the clipping still happens at the same luminance. This is why for the higher ISOs the rebuilt highlights exist past the normal video level clipping point and you have to reduce the exposure to see it. So it’s not really that with ProRes you lose this dynamic range, its that with RAW you can actually GENERATE some more in some situations. But it’s situational as the colour temperature of your light source and the WB set on camera/RAW will determine what channels clip when, and therefore how much you may be able to rebuild (if any). Also worth noting that “recovered” (rebuilt) highlights will always be neutral/colourless as once a channel is clipped we don’t know what colour it should have been so you keep it neutral for the set WB. This can sometimes cause oddness in an image if a strong coloured highlight suddenly clips and you use highlight recovery and it has to transition quickly to “neutral” - in those occasions it may be more desirable to not use highlight recovery. • FYI in Resolve the RAW decode output is NOT clipped, so you can actually use curves or the gain wheel etc to lower highlights and see the information from highlight recovery return the same as using the RAW exposure slider. Not sure if this is the case in Premiere but just people know who may use Resolve. • The banding you see when you turn on highlight recovery at the higher ISO looks odd, can you reproduce this issue in Resolve? Can you send me the clip to investigate? Thanks!

I'm so glad you have a Pocket 4K. This is the kind of information that I want to know!

You're like a level 3 deep dream of content here on KZfaq. Amazing work Gerald!!!

Hands down the best KZfaq channel in its domain...

Just bought the black magic 4k. I greatly appreciate your technical analysis regarding this camera. Keep up the good work man. It doesn't go unnoticed!

To say that this was helpful would be an understatement. Great job breaking down complex concepts into an easily digestible tutorial 👍🏼

amazingly useful video as always, Gerald. Keep up the good work mate!

super helpful video!! one of the youtubers out here that actually knows what you are talking about

Long time subscriber, first time commenter. I looovvee your channel Gerald! Thanks for sharing your wealth of information with us!

Gerald you are my homie! Always making content that is super useful! Thanks bro.

Incredibly great explanation of information. Some stuff I was aware some stuff was new to me. Thanks for sharing with the community.

Yaas I've been asking for this kind of video since buying my Ursa. SO glad you got the Pocket.

I don't have a BMPCC4K...probably never will. However I literally watch every single one of your videos because I always learn something useful whether it's a compositional idea, editing approach, b-roll integration, or lighting. I'm thankful for your content. Cheers sir.

Great video! In depth and straight to the point, learned a lot by watching this.

What did I just watch!! What a gift Professor Gee. This has to be the best info yet on the Bmpcc 4k. Black magic owes you some money. Much thanks truly unbelievable gem.

again you prove yourself to be one of the most informative youtubers in improving your shooting skills!

Listening to you voice with my headset on. It is like you are right here. Right right here. Your level of detail is insane and sets a new bar for the style of video.

Another great job. I am running out words, but all I can say is that you are the best presenter I watch. You explanations are clear and examples spot on to the subject matter. Always look froward to the next video. As a side note, as soon as I saw the ColorChecker Video card at the beginning, I went over to B&H to order one for myself. Don't know why I did not get it earlier, but is something I feel will help. Thanks again.

This is why I love the pocket4k. With the GH5, I (and many others) would get random magenta drift and noise when exposing to 50% gray. Sometimes the image would be great, sometimes not, but either way, there was no way to easily fix or recover the image in post. Pocket4k is the best camera I've owned.

thank you so much for the rundown! it would be great to see those tests on site, while recording images like landscapes.

Good insights. However I still think shooting prores is a great option. I shoot 99% of my content with the BMPCC4K in Prores and never had any issues. Used it in a lot of situations and whilst Raw is certainly very powerful and useful, Prores, on mac especially, is so easy to edit with and doesn't need transcoding and use less processing power. A lot of people using this camera aren't full time pros and Prores is better than most codecs out there. Thanks for the video :). Cheers

loved this video! These tips are gonna be so useful!! Thanks bro!

Thank you Gerald for this info. Every time I shoot with my pocket I try to make sure I’m learning how this camera operates and treats exposures and images in general. It’s stressful but I would rather know step up and learn than just mess up my images and then scratching my head in post wondering why my exposures don’t help achieve the look I want. Thank you for the great info on this camera.

70k subs already.... Not surprised, your content and information is Awesome... Congrats..!

Great info. Just got my Pocket 4K yesterday. A lot to learn with a cinema cam vs the old Mirrorless and camcorders

Awesome stuff! I'm going to share this in my LUT group as it's spot on for everything 👍 I'm going to adjust my BMPCC4K guide to recommend ISO 400 and 4000 instead of 400 and 3200 to squeeze that last 2% of DR out of the high ISO range. Cheers!

Let’s get undone! Well explained info. Looking forward to the next one 🤓

Hey Gerald. Thanks for doing some videos on the pocket cam. I'm a DP and use the pocket for most jobs and am working on a passion project KZfaq channel (non film related). I tend to shoot a bunch for clients where I turn in footage over to them so ProRes is definitely the codec of choice for workflow and ease of editing. That said I have my f3 button on the cam set to false color and I constantly toggle that on and off as I adjust isos throughout the shooting day based on lighting and frame rate and exposure needs. I think mentioning false color as a simple way to ensure exposure regardless of iso settings is a good way to help new pocket shooters utilize that feature to ensure they are exposing properly on the fly. It's become my favorite exposure tool on the camera and has ensured I have happy clients over and again. Love the channel and all you do. Thanks again!

Yourself and Tony Dae are unraveling so much good information for pocket 4k users. Absolute legends!

Great video. Thank you so much for taking the time!

OMG, it’s vids like this where your value shines. What a 🦄 !

Helpful information. Thanks ❤️

Thanks, Brother. Looks good. Just got a 6k Pro and am working to learn the ins and outs vs Sony Cams.

Amazing how, on a philosophical basis, this reminds me so much about Ansel Adams and his 'Zone System.' He applied his system to large format B&W film photography -- but he faced the same problem... recording information in a way where he could fully express his artistic vision during post.

Wow, this was valuable info. I just ordered the Pocket 4K and will make a note of these "best" ISO's to use. Some of my shooting involves extraordinarily difficult, high dynamic range material (and in low light). Even good DSLR's had issues. I realized I really needed to jump to a proper "pro" solution, but could only afford so much. When I discovered the Pocket 4K and the ability to shoot in RAW, I knew that was my best bet. But getting the initial exposure correct is all-important. Since I really need all the dynamic range I can get, this info is really valuable.

Thanks man your videos are so valuable

A legend as always, truly brilliant stuff.

Great info! Thanks so much!!!

Wow. I never knew what highlight recovery did and I always wantered when to use them and when to leave them off. Thanks for sharing.

Can't remember if I've commented before but just wanted to again. Thank you. About to go into a shoot that needs a fast turn around and need to shoot Pro Res as my computers on the older side- so again and again thank you!

Very useful and good video! Thanks and congrats, Man! :)

Awesome info! Thanks!

Great video, Gerald. I personally agree to shoot in BRAW with this camera (as opposed to ProRes) and I also try to use ETTR as I learn more about this camera. I started with the Pocket "Classic" and always used ETTR with that camera (that sensor was starving for light). While I still agree that Blackmagic sensors need as much light as you can provide (without overexposing), the dual native ISO of the Pocket 4K camera is very interesting and gives us the ability to allocate more of the available dynamic range to the shadow detail - or more of the available dynamic range to the highlight detail. If you look at the Dynamic Range chart in the manual, there are 13.1 stops of dynamic range for every ISO in the lower ISO circuit (100 to 1000). I used to think that I could just shoot in Raw at ISO 400 and make subtle exposure changes in post (thinking that ISO was just metadata in Raw) but now I know this is not completely accurate for this camera. Each ISO in the lower ISO circuit has the exact same amount of dynamic range (13.1 stops) but the important thing to gain from this is that each ISO allocates this information differently. If shooting in the lower ISO circuit and shadow detail is the most important goal for the shot, then you would choose ISO 100 (allocating 9.6 stops UNDER middle grey thus providing a LOT of shadow detail). If protecting your highlights is crucial in this lower ISO circuit, you would choose ISO 1000 (the absolute most stops OVER middle grey - 6.8 stops). There are gives and takes with ISO and dynamic range with this camera. All of the ISOs in the lower circuit offer the same amount of dynamic range (13.1 stops) but it's a sliding scale for protecting the part of the image that is most important to your shot. If you choose 100, you will preserve the most shadow detail information (in the lower ISO circuit) but you don't have much information left for highlights and can easily clip. If you choose ISO 1000, you will be able to protect your highlights better than any other ISO in the camera (either circuit) but you may pay for it with some grain in your shadows. The upper ISO circuit (1250 - 6400) offers a little less total dynamic range (12.3 stops) but also offer a sliding scale to protect either shadows or highlights. 1250 will provide the cleanest shadow detail of this upper circuit (allocating 8.5 stops UNDER middle grey). Then the "extended range" ISOs between 8000 and 25,600 operate slightly differently. I definitely recommend Tony Dae's two-part video on this topic if you haven't seen it (even though he is using the older dynamic range charts). Also, Justin Phillip just released a great video on this topic. I certainly don't profess to know everything about the Pocket 4K or dual native ISOs but I wanted to let you know about these two other videos because they were eye openers to me! Thanks again for the excellent content! I will keep learning and I'm thankful there are guys like you who really dig in to the details to help us all.

I freaking love you Gerald, thank you

Great work man!

Great video. All good points. If you use false color, and get exposure correct in the first place, then prores is all you need.

Thanks for the super helpful video!

I was watching the reveal of the BMPCC6K Pro and thinking it was interesting but not a meaningful leap. After watching this video, it makes much more sense why those built in ND filters would be so important. It's more than just a clever little accessory. If the goal is to keep those ISOs at 400 and 4000, the ND filters truly are a pro tool for users who know their camera well. Thanks for posting this breakdown!

Amazing content. Thank you

Super super helpful. I literally only just found out this was a thing. I always thought "clipping" just meant overexposed :)

thanks for the info. this is gold!

Man you explain this so well I get it now. Thanks man makes so much sense now..... kool

I love your videos, bro!!! Would it be possible to do a video exposing on the Blackmagic URSA Pro camera?

Great info! Unfortunately I can never shoot BRAW as I work together with a lot of other editors and I've had lots of issues witht the braw for premiere plugin. I will stick to native iso values definitely

Hello! Very helpful videos! Thanks! Do you think this camera is reliable enough to shoot full length movie for theaters?

This is brilliant - explains why my highlights have looked too white even though I've exposed "correctly" in Pro Res - what you see isn't what you get - If the Zebra's clipping point is based on ISO 400, even if you're on ISO's of 1250 and above - thanks for making this video!

Thank you Gerald. I have access to this camera and I have used it for some hours now. I recently started looking into the ISO chart and twisting my brain from shoot as low as possible to this where you account for stops with the ISO is new. When it comes to this chart and the stops, I noticed that SO 800 has a more even stops bar considering you get almost as many stops below as above. How does this matter/not matter? Should you stay at 400 at all times if you can or should you consider a higher ISO to get it more even in certain conditions? Thanks for explaining the highlight recovery so brilliantly!

So helpful! Couldn’t understand why my image looked overexposed on the screen but zebras weren’t kicking in. I kept lowering my zebra percentage.

That's great tips. Usually I just keep the histogram in the middle and that works pretty good, also FALSE COLOR. Yes please!

Love all of your output. A proper education. One question - the BMPCC4K dynamic range chart you reference appeared to be the older one. Before they corrected the in accuracies. Does this make any difference?

Great video! working on something with a little overlap but could be a nice addendum

Great video!

Was just talking to a friend about how much we like your vids the other day

Thanks Mr. Undone. Super technical for me but well done. I use final cut with Pro Rez at the moment. I plan to learn and use DaVinci soon, another big hurdle to pounce on. I have a shoot tomorrow and again will use iso 400 And was happy to hear your advice on this topic. FCPX does not currently support the Braw so I shoot in Pro Rez still. Keep up the good work. Always enjoy your videos.

Just as a note- exposing to the right sounds like a good idea in practice in terms of information recovery, especially for photography- but if you're shooting something like narrative or doc in video and going to color, the huge variety of specular highlights per shot or scenes will lead you to be spending a lot of time matching exposure. I think it can also give someone the wrong idea that they should be exposing to the right to the extent that they might be changing aperture and shutter angle to compensate for it within the same scene, which isn't really an appropriate way of shooting film/video, as those settings do a lot more to affect the image than just exposure. From a colorist's perspective, consistency in exposure and certain settings is sometimes a lot more important than making sure you have the "maximum" information. This is definitely an amazing video, and breaks down the technical aspects of highlight clipping at low ISOs in the BMPCC amazingly (something I had no idea about), but I think I'd consider it as more of a tool in the toolbox, than a methodology of consistently overexposing to the top of the histogram. If you're shooting at the correct settings (film with a LUT overtop), you should just about never be even close to either the low end or high end of the histogram anyways (in the actual encoded footage. the LUT will probably be expanded in a way that it's touching those limits sometimes). Professionally shot footage usually comes in the near center range of the histogram, with an absolute ton of room to expand it upwards and downwards. The exception is when you're intentionally underexposing or overexposing footage, or when you're really pushing the camera in a night scene.

Thank you for posting.. I found the same thing a year ago. To be honest most of the cameras in log I find usually like ISO 800. And so I find just having all cameras at ISO 800 with mixed brands to be a happy spot.. Though it seems BMPCC4K likes 400 with a little less noise. But yes my other cameras have built in ND filters so it’s easy to add 2/4/6 stops of ND. The BMPCC4K needs thread on ND filters OR some of these new MFT to Canon/Nikon adapters with built in throttling ND filters.. that I don’t trust.... But yes.. absolutely QT. Shoot ISO 400 or 800 and have a good ND filter pack to thread on to your lens to keep your aperture in the happy T4 or 5.6 :)

Great video! I thought that the highlight recovery is just bringing back channels that are not clipped. I think that is doing that for sure in cinema DNG files since you can find that in the instruction manual. are you sure that it's connected to the iso setting maybe it's just a consequence not a reason? Did you conclude that or did you ask black magic or find it in some documentation?

thank you for great tutorial! I feel like I attend filmmakers school here. thumbs up twice!

Incredible Video!

I wonder something everyone will legitly find ridiculous: where could we find the native ISOs of smartphones? So that we get the best clipping point % & least noise eventually, even though most of the time it seems just better to get it at the lowest value (ISO 50 most of the time)... [Galaxy S10e (me)] & [LG V40 or G8 or V50 (I could switch for bc of manual video mode Samsung removed, & better audio] Very informative as always, you provide the "above" quality we hardly find out there, & the confidence we can have in your work is priceless :)

When shooting on the pocket 4K, can you shoot with a flat profile; with the image all grayed out? My Panny HVX200 has settings where I can gray out the image, so in post I can add more contrast. This helps with noise and allows the dark areas to be made darker for night shooting.

Great video Gerald. Question: have you tested the clipping point on different ISOs on the Sony A7III?. Another great way of exposing is by using false color on your monitor, i got the idea from Shane Hurlbut and it's pretty useful as a guide (besides obviously, using your trusty light meter). All the best from Chile

Sooooooooooo helpful. Just subscribed.

Hi Gerald! great video! one simple question: does this mean that in order to get the max dynamic range of the bmpcc, I should ettr like you said at ISO100, and then use highlight recovery, instead of shooting and exposing for ISO 400? thanks

Excellent video Gerald! What are your thoughts on using false colour for exposing?

sometimes ill pop on some Gerald undone to just absorb a little knowledge despite how relevant it is to my video work. always informative and enjoyable

Hey Gerald, love your channel dude. Quick question. If you had to choose between the xt3 and the bmpcc 4K for video work. What would u choose?

Thank you!

Hey Gerald, so if a grey card and exposing for middle grey is not the best way to work with the Pocket 4K, I’m guessing a 90% white card, zebras and ETTR is the best method? I’m always shooting RAW FYI. Thanks for making such helpful videos mate 👍🏼

Thank you, legend.

Thanks for this video! It was my understanding that ISO 1250 looked the cleanest, as far as noise; has that been the case in your tests?

I don't have a BMPCC4k, but am curious if the same strategy for determining proper exposure should be applied to other cameras? For instance, I have a GH5s and didn't consider that my dynamic range could change so drastically across ISO. To your knowledge, has someone presented similar data for the GH5s?

Sounds like the best plan is to always reference ( at your subject ) your 90% white card with 95% zebras. Of course taking in consideration what you’re willing to throw away for hot spots or spectral highlights. Using this approach with BRAW, it doesn’t matter what your ISO is set to in the ISO400 bracket when recording. Maybe set to IS0 100 or 200 so your monitored video won’t look so washed out since we’re trying to capture as much dynamic range as possible. Is this correct?

Congrats for 69k subs Tech Jesus.

GU - I think you need to do a MasterClass on the BMPCC4K How to properly select ISO in RAW.

Hi, great vids, really like your content. I follow the logic of what you're saying, and notwithstanding the updates to the info from the BM employee below, im not 100% sure what the 'real world' upshot is. This camera shoots 4:2:2 at 10 bits. that's more than nearly any DSLR (even the Sony's) and a lot more than the much vaunted Sony A7III. Wont that extra bit rate provide a lot more quality data/latitude for adjusting in post, capture a far greater dynamic range and provide enough data to 'paper over' any cracks in ProRes? If you're using Final Cut, ProRes is a great option after all. Also, whilst the high ISO you mention has a good Dynamic Range based on your tests, won't it be full of noise in the shadows?

Hello! Is there a way to tell exactly what the values are in the BMPCC4K's false color? I'm currently exposing skin tones between green and pink.

So if you shoot raw and use highlight recovery when needed it's like having a maximum highlight range of 100% on all iso levels? Also, if you shoot in one native ISO are you able to access all iso in post or just that one? like if I shoot at 400ISO can I bump it up to say 3200 in post?

I have a question about your statement that zebras are "immune" to the artificial clipping points of the camera. Can I assume that this would only apply to the zebras on the camera's display? If I used the zebras on my monitor's display, then they would not be immune, correct? Because they would be reading exposure from the HDMI feed. The only option then is to pass on the camera's OSD zebras to the monitor.

After all these new cameras in 2020, I keep coming back to the BMPCC4K

Great video! One question though, you mentioned "exposing to the right" a lot. What do you mean by that?

LOVE the Video! Is this ProRes problem the same on the A73?

You say middle gray but I also see the false colors looking stuff on the screen. Is it different? if so, why not use false colors? Seen a few videos now talking about it being great for exposing and stuff along the way. I came from Sony using ettr with leeming but now I'm shooting this I'm trying to find the best way. Any updates or thoughts a year later since this video?

Top gun,,, ok you got a new subscriber !!!

Very good

1:13 nice touch 😙🎶

I wonder if the false color middle gray matches the middle gray for each ISO. That would make sense. Thanks for the zebra tip.

Yaasss. Life is complete

I might be wrong but I don't approach it this way been working with the camera for 6 months, I only use BRAW. Like you said the camera has two ISOs which are analogue, the rest is just digital metadata. I know if I protect my highlights at f8 for example in first ISO band it doesn't matter which ISO I choose in that band, my highlights will never clip unless I change my aperture or move into the next ISO band. I'm not very good at explaining myself but when I light a scene with this camera i choose which ISO band I need to be in depending on what aperture I want for the scene, and always try to use ISO 100 as that's where you get the best color rendition. I basically protect my highlights or let clip what I don't mind clipping and then select an ISO which I want to expose to, for me the ISO is a preview. Depending on the scene I expose to middle grey or 1 to 2 stops under. The ISO within a band doesn't effect clipping it just moves the curve and where middle grey is. I can't explain this exactly how I want but how I do it works for me. But I know what you are saying is also right because to have the same exposure at 100 ISO as to that of 1000 ISO you would need to change the aperture (unless you can adjust lighting) which would clip the highlights but that's because you opened up the aperture. Lol hope you understand what I'm trying to say?