The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Review

A revolutionary digital film camera that fits in your pocket — literally.

As a filmmaker, I’ve used Blackmagic cameras before my years at Moment. I deeply appreciate their innovative approach to creating a pocket-sized version for vloggers and filmmaker enthusiasts. I throw on a wide lens and have filmed myself in numerous locations, paying special attention to the clean colors and crisp detail. I’ve always loved the Blackmagic brand, and I can confidently say that you will not beat their quality at this price point.

The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K is better than a simple video camera because it has professional features allowing you to create the same "look" as Hollywood feature films. The combination of high dynamic range, great low light performance, and Blackmagic RAW gives you stunning images with precise skin tones and gorgeous organic colors. Imagine getting film quality on independent films, music videos, weddings, corporate videos, documentaries, and more. With professional, high-quality audio recording built-in, you'll never have to carry around a separate sound recorder again. Both Blackmagic Pocket, and Cinema Camera models feature a mini XLR input with 48 volts of phantom power for connecting professional microphones, such as lapel mics and booms.

One major feature to point out are the four built-in microphones; while they do have an extremely low noise floor and are shock and wind-resistant, allowing you to capture great sound in any location — I wouldn’t consider them to be the best on the market. There’s also a 3.5mm audio input for connecting video camera-style microphones, a built-in speaker for playback, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Cameras have an incredible 13 stops of dynamic range, which means they preserve more detail in the lightest and darkest areas of an image than simple video cameras can. This allows you to set the exposure for an indoor scene and retain the details of bright outdoor light coming through a window. If you're positioning the camera on the end of a boom or in another hard-to-reach location, you can get full control via Bluetooth from up to 30 feet away. Download the Blackmagic Camera Control app for your iPad or use third-party apps such as Bluetooth or tRigger on your iOS and Android devices.

Oh, but don’t count on the battery life to be great. Personally, it takes about 5-6 LP-E6 batteries for a full-day shoot’s worth of vlogging content. Though, there are multiple options for recovering battery life like a V-mount battery to counterbalance the weight on a shoulder rig. Other Youtubers use a display with a chunky Sony-style battery that also includes an output to charge your camera. Trust me when I say that the Pros certainly outweigh the cons. Don't let the poor default battery life feature hold you back from purchasing this camera.

• Active Canon EF Lens Mount
• Super 35-size sensor, 13 stops of dynamic range, and a dual native ISO up to 25,600
• 1920 x 1080 touchscreen 5" LCD
• Capture in Blackmagic Raw or ProRes 422
• Record internally to CFast 2.0 or SD/UHS-II card slots, or capture longer clips using the USB-C output to an external drive.
• Professional audio support includes a mini XLR input with phantom +48V power and four built-in mics.
• Made with a carbon fiber polycarbonate composite that is both lightweight and durable.

In Detail:

One starting feature I love is the neck strap holsters; it makes for on-the-go filmmaking that much easier. Comparing this camera to other cinema-based cameras, the built-in screen is incredibly helpful for easy navigation. The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera features built-in CFast and SD UHS‑II card recorders and a USB‑C expansion port for recording directly to an external media disk. You can use regular SD cards for HD or higher performance UHS‑II and CFast cards for native 6K when using Blackmagic RAW. Video formats such as H.264 are highly compressed plus add noise and artifacts, causing original sensor detail to be lost forever. Blackmagic RAW eliminates this problem and gives you stunning images with incredible detail and color throughout the production pipeline from camera to edit, color, and mastering. It also saves camera settings as metadata so you can set ISO, white balance, and exposure in the camera or override them later while editing, all without any loss of quality.

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