Diver and underwater photographer, Hal Wells of Hollywood Divers has travelled the globe capturing images of sea creatures. Hal has literally trained thousands of people on how to dive, and he takes divers to some of the most amazing dive sites on the planet. Hal talks about one of his dive trips on a sunken U-Boat, surrounded by Tiger Sharks in North Carolina. An experienced dive master for TV commercials, music videos and films, Hal talks about his Blackmagic Pocket Camera and his shooting setup.

“With Hollywood Divers, we do diving tours all over the world, from the Cocos Island, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Galápagos Islands and Okinawa Japan. One year, I went back home to see my folks who live in North Carolina. Although I grew up there, I’d never actually been scuba diving there. The water around North Carolina is very shallow in comparison to California. 30 miles offshore in California you can be in 1,000’ of water, whereas it’s only 100’ in Carolina.”

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Manchester based DP and camera operator, Dima Kalenda talks about using the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K and Blackmagic RAW for the first time. Dima wanted to use the camera with only one light source, relying totally on practicals for his late night shots.

“When Blackmagic gave me this new camera to test, I wasn’t asked to use any specific features of the camera. I had total freedom to do what I wanted. My task was to play with the camera and try to push it to its limits. I thought with a project like this, it was better to show how a camera of this calibre and flexibility can be so forgiving to work with. Even though this was probably the only beta camera in Europe, I still decided to try it in all of these extreme conditions. To my surprise it had no errors at all.”

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Pulitzer Prize winning filmmaker and photographer, Vincent Laforet talks about capturing the extreme conditions of the Wyoming wilderness with the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K.

“What’s impressive about this package is the micro four thirds sensor. This sensor has an incredible roll off of highlights that I seldom see which really opens up your ability to capture an incredible dynamic range, from the deep shadows to extremely high highlights all the way to the sunlight”.

Joey Knox talks about using the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K. ‘Mountain Bike’ is Joey’s test of the camera’s high speed performance.

“I really wanted to mix my shots up as much as possible, because it can look pretty boring when you shoot mountain bikes all in slow mo. The direction I went with was to break up the slow motion tests with as much life as I could to juxtapose into the flow. I wanted it to look like I was running along with the rider with as much variety as possible.”

“I went into this camera test with an open mind. I had checked out the specs of the camera and thought it was pretty amazing to get all of that into something that small. But because of the price, it all seemed a little too good to be true. It was incredible to see all of these proper filmmaking features like false color, that I rely on with the bigger cameras also included. Having all of this in a package that small, was truly amazing. Also the ability to shoot a Log image and drop a LUT straight onto it in the camera, was super handy. You expect all of this from big cameras, but not something this small with that little of a price!”

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Peter Nearhos talks about using the new Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and the Laowa probe lens for the first time. ‘Bugs is a unique project where Peter could try out the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K in the world of macro filmmaking.

“This was the first time I had shot with the Laowa probe or the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K. The great thing about the probe is it will cover all of the 4K sensor. Larger 4K sensors tend to play havoc with your depth of field with this sort of work. So the smaller micro four thirds sized 4K sensor used by Blackmagic Design, is much better for this kind of shooting.”

“I have to say the 13 stops of latitude was also really great, because you can see into all of the dark spots. Which is very good when you are using hard lights, because you have detail well into the shadows under leaves and things. The other great thing about this camera is the really high native ISO. I tended to stay around ISO 2500 but you can go as high as 25,600. There are other cameras with insane ISO levels, but they become incredibly grainy which means a lot of work in post. I think Blackmagic have their ISO at a sensible level. Given that for most macro filming you will be using lights, the 25,600 ISO with this camera is all you’ll ever need.”

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John Brawley talks about the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K for the first time. ‘Models Walking in Daylight’ is his first camera test where he checked out the camera’s ability to handle different skin tones.

“The whole point to this daylight test was to see how the camera handled skin tones. We were shooting these scenes later in the afternoon, so I was at ISO1000 or 1250, so it was at the lower ISO for this camera. I understand this gives more in dynamic range, so you have a little bit more highlight-headroom there. When I look at those shots now, I am really impressed at how good the dynamic range is. It is great to see all of that detail I was seeing was actually captured in those shots.”

“I don’t think people realize how easy it is to make things look cinematic with micro four thirds! I know that there are a lot of people who like that 35mm full frame look, but it’s still very easy to get images with an out of focus background with the micro four thirds sensor. I found it a great 4K sensor and really good compromise for a small camera that still gets really, really good looking pictures.”

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John Brawley shares his experiences with the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K. ‘Models Walking at Night’ is his second camera test where he was checking out the camera’s higher dynamic range and color accuracy.

“What I wanted to achieve was to test the dynamic range, but to still come up with some really great looking images. Having that higher dynamic range and a high bit depth file, means you have a lot of wriggle-room to correct anything that needs to be balanced. This extra range lets you manage and massage the image to get you into a really nice place. You’re not fighting the codec or the dynamic range of the camera.”

“The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K gives you a ton of options. If you want to take it warmer, darker or cooler, you now have so much latitude in terms of dynamic range and depth of color. With this camera you just have so much extra choice, because you can take the image where ever you want. And that’s the truly great thing about have such a vibrant and high precision image!”

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Andreas Neumann talks about using the new Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K for the first time. ‘Balloons’ is Andreas’ extreme lighting test as he constantly shoots directly into the sun, wide open. ‘Balloons’ documents the camera’s performance from 5am in the morning into the height of the midday sun.

“I shot this test at Temecula in California, shooting from dawn until midday. This was a challenging environment for any camera, because I was constantly shooting into the light, or with the sun directly behind people’s faces. The detail I got was incredible. You can see everything reflecting in my wife’s Chanel glasses. You can actually see reflections off the ground, the balloon above, and the sky in the background. The camera really did capture everything I was seeing. I love shooting directly into the light wide open, and with this camera you could safely do that. I was totally amazed at what the micro four thirds sensor could handle. It seemed like the same quality as the URSA Mini Pro with the full sensor. I was also very surprised at how well the back-screen performed in bright sunlight, where I could truly see every detail.”

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John Brawley talks about the new Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K. ‘Models Close up at Night’ is his third camera test where he checked out the camera’s ability to handle different skin tones in very low light conditions.

“This camera test was about shooting different skin tones in different low light conditions, so we wanted to keep it simple using the least amount of artificial lighting. We had a hotel room in Atlanta where we shot from 3pm until 11pm and got through about 70-80 shots cycling through different lighting and skin conditions. When you can get really great pictures at ISO3200 and above, things suddenly get very interesting. In this test, we were shooting two hours after sunset and you can still see blue sky around the buildings in the background! This camera can really read a long way into the shadows, which was a big surprise.”

“I see this camera as continuing the evolution that Blackmagic started with the Pocket Cinema Camera by now making it 4K. Having something that we can work with in really low light like this, means you can still get really great results with any type of ambient light.”

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