RAW Recording For Blackmagic Pocket Camera Is Here!

The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera was supposed to have RAW recording capabilities when it began shipping at the end of the summer.
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera Stock Photo

In true Blackmagic fashion, the RAW was not ready and buyers were told it would be coming later in firmware. Well, the time has arrived and you can now shoot RAW on the BMPCC!

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You can read the full announcement on the Blackmagic site. Here are a few highlights:

“The new Blackmagic Camera 1.5 software update adds CinemaDNG RAW file recording so customers can now capture super wide dynamic range in a single file. Wide dynamic range RAW image recording allows users to capture the brightest highlights and the darkest shadows simultaneously, capturing more of the scene than is possible with a regular video camera. CinemaDNG RAW files give users incredible freedom to be able to adjust the exposure manually during color correction with Davinci Resolve allowing more flexibility for incredible feature film look color grading.

The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera uses the open standard lossless compressed version of CinemaDNG RAW. CinemaDNG RAW lossless compression works in a similar way as a ZIP file where the RAW files are compressed during recording without the loss of any part of the image, so all images retain the same quality when they are decompressed. That means customers get back the mathematically perfect high-quality RAW file image that they recorded.”

Remember, if you’re going to record RAW you’ll need a pretty fast SD card. Blackmagic is currently recommending that you use the Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB SD card. This should give you about 20 minutes of record time if shooting in 1080.

If you have a BMPCC and want to upgrade to the new 1.5 version of the firmware, it is available on the Blackmagic Support Page.

For more information on how to rent the latest Blackmagic Cinema Cameras, email [email protected], give us a call or stop in for a demo. We’d love to see you!