“I shot this test in NYC on an L-mount Sigma Art 24-70mm f2.8 and 135mm f1.8 prime. NYC has a myriad of color temperatures, so shooting in the subway or Times Square makes the perfect camera test. It’s all about finding interesting light you can play with! To keep my images clean of noise, I like to use only the native ISOs: 400 and 3200. And because bigger sensor cameras naturally have shallower depth of field, I usually stop down a little to feel the middle ground in the shots. So most of the time, I was shooting at 4 stops, and added NDs to control my exposure in some shots when the light was hot. Shooting in low light is all about creating contrast using the different light sources around you. By shooting something flat and underexposing the image, then trying to lift it in the grade will immediately build noise! So low light is all about modeling, you can’t just rely on the camera. I approach exposure much the way I approached film using the old adage, ‘expose for the shadows and print for the highlights‘ Obviously this is not a rigid approach but a really good place to start.”

New York based Mark Mann, is one of America’s most beloved portrait and celebrity photographers. Mark talks about using the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K with his favorite Leica Elmarit SL, vintage Leica M and Sigma lenses. “I have a few lenses that I know and I love. And because I choose to shoot with them most of the time, I know exactly where I should be standing for the best field of view. Shooting with the Blackmagic full frame camera really helps me to compose my video more like I do for my still images. Although I've been learning about lenses that work with S.35, I’ve never really felt comfortable the way they change a lens’ field of view. The first thing I noticed with this new camera, is a 24 to 90mm lens is exactly that. It’s 24 to 90mm! For this test I was also able to use one my all-time favorite lenses, a vintage 90mm Leica M lens with a simple M-L mount adapter!”

“I had so much fun shooting with this camera, because it opened up doors for me in terms of lenses. I can now use lenses that I probably wouldn't have thought of using, or they would have been too hard to use on a job. Having an L mount camera actually gives me more choices as a cinematographer, because I can now enjoy experimenting with all of these different lens possibilities. The Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K is really a multi format camera being able to shoot 3:2 6048 x 4032 in 6K, 6:5 Anamorphic 4838 x 4032 and regular S.35 4:3 4096 x 3072. If you're going for a certain look, then having that larger image circle of 43.18mm means that it works with so many lenses that are out there. Especially anamorphic lenses with the 6.5 option. With a higher sensor top and bottom it’s also better for S.35 4:3, meaning you can frame for both anamorphic, Cinemascope 2:35:1 and Widescreen 1.85:1.”

“There’s no other Blackmagic camera I’ve owned that can get this sort of depth of field from my lenses! I have shot on the URSA G2, the URSA 12K and all of Blackmagic’s pocket cameras. But this camera is very, very different. It made me feel like I was using different glass. The emotional effect was like having a more immersive image of places that I have seen and shot countless times before. It’s all about the footage and what a massive 43.18mm image circle sensor does to a lens. It’s all about the relationship between the sensor and the glass. And you don’t truly understand that until you bring your footage into DaVinci Resolve. The possibilities that this camera gives your cinematography is massive. This camera makes me want to take out all of my lenses and shoot again, just to see what my lenses are really like. To see them in a way I have never seen them before!”

“This camera test was all about seeing what my Sirui 24mm T2 Full-frame Macro cine lens could do on a large sensor. Although this is an incredibly affordable cine-style lens it does comes with a massive 44mm image circle. So it is a big lens. Every time I had shot with this lens, I was using a much smaller sensor and so it would crop narrowing the apparent field of view I could get. So this test was all about seeing what 24mm really looked like. When reading the specs for the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K, I could see that in Open Gate 3:2 mode (6048 x 4032) it has a big sensor image circle of 43.18mm. So almost the same size as Sirui 24mm at 44mm image circle, so I figured I could see some vignetting around the edges. Every other time I had shot on this lens it was always being cropped, so I have never properly seen what this lens was like on the edges.”

“This was the perfect camera to use my Great Joy 50mm T2.9 1.8x anamorphic lens, because the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K can also shoot 4:3. The great thing about 4:3 is that it produces a 2.4:1 image without vignetting or cropping into the image. I have always loved S.35 and for many years it has been my thing. But I have to admit, you always feel you’re not really getting what you should from your lenses. Although the Great Joy can shoot at T2.9, every time I had used it wide open it was too soft. In order to focus this lens I had always stopped down just to get more detail. But this was not so with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K, which had more resolution and the correct aspect ratio for this lens. So I could now easily shoot at T2.9 and still get plenty of detail to my shots. I have this lens in an EF mount and was using a Sigma MC21 adapter for the L mount.”

“I have a set of color matched vintage Leica Summicron and Elmarit lenses that I genuinely love the look of. Although they are vintage lenses, you can change the vintage character of these Leicas depending on the aperture you shoot at. So they are a really versatile lens. They are just a great all-round classic set of lenses. I’ve use these lenses on my Blackmagic URSA 12K and the BMPCC 6K. But I’ve only ever seen these lenses on a full frame sensor once before, so I was completely shocked at how good they looked on the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K’s much larger full frame sensor. The first thing that blew me away using my Leicas on this camera, was the 3:2 aspect ratio. Having so much more sensor at the top and bottom that ever before, showed me what these lenses are really capable of shooting. It’s fascinating to see what my lenses look like with a completely different sensor.”