Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k Basic Settings

This week Bryan walks us through his personal settings that he loves to use on the Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K while in the studio. He’ll be going over the very basic settings and functions of the camera as well as how to get started out if you’re new to video.

Here are Bryan’s basic, non-menu settings to get started with the Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k.

FPS (Frames Per Second):

We’ll start in the upper left with frames per second. I recommend having this set to 23.98 for standard shooting. You can adjust this if you’re shooting B roll or slow motion to 60 frames per second.

Shutter Angle:

Next up we have our shutter angle. I prefer the shutter angle system over the shutter speed. You can set your shutter angle to 180° degrees unless you’re doing something creative and need to adjust it otherwise.

Aperture (Iris):

Next, we have our aperture which today is set at 4.0 because we have a talk show set and have more things we need to be in focus, but typically it will be at the lowest setting for better depth of field. On my current lens that is 1.4. If you have a zoom lens that might be more towards 2.8. This also depends on the lighting in your environment as the aperture is how much lighting is let into the camera.

ISO:

Next up we have our ISO. This camera has a dual native ISO of 400 or 3200. I always have mine set to 400.

White Balance (WB):

I have this set to 3200K, but this depends on your lighting. If your studio lights are at 5600K, then this should be at 5600K. If you are outside this could be any number, depending on what time of day and how bright it is. Adjust your white balance until it looks right.

Tint:

Last but not least we have our tint. You can add a warmer or cooler look depending on what you’re going for. I typically have this at 0, but I might drop down to -10 or go up to +10.

There you have your ultra basic guide to getting started with the Black Magic Pocket Cinema 4k Camera! We hope it was helpful!

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