Switching to Blackmagic Micro Studio 4K G2 Cameras from Sony

can I switch over to Blackmagic micro Studio camera 4K g2s in my studio that is the question that I've been trying to answer for myself as I've been really excited about a lot of the features and functionality of these cameras over the years but I've struggled to get away from my Sony cameras which I love I love my Sony cameras I have nothing bad to say about those cameras other than it's a little bit more of a challenge to use those in a studio environment it's easy because I can use those Sony cameras here and I could simply grab and go and shoot pretty much anywhere else they're very versatile in that way but in the sense of controlling them and having a hub for managing those cameras within a studio environment I spend a lot of my time walking around changing settings changing out storage doing all sorts of things which is just challenging so this video is going to be a bit unscripted and it's going to be more of a conversation about how I have used these cameras in my studio and attempted to use them out in the field a bit and whether or not there's something that I could use not necessarily to get rid of my Sony cameras and replace them all together but maybe I just don't need so many Sony cameras because the micro Studio 4ks are a little bit better of an option so there's two instances in which I've been using these cameras first of all we've got the camera right here that I'm pointing into that camera is a micro Studio 4K G2 and I'm using it as an alternate angle I'm looking into a screen that's right behind it and that screen and everything is connected to an ATM Mini extreme and that ATM mini extreme allows me to control the camera it allows me to switch between the different camera angles so that I could see everything without having to walk up to the little monitor that's on each and every Sony camera I have a Sony fx3 that I'm looking into my top down camera is a Sony fx30 and I love the picture and autofocus and they're just easy cameras to use they're easy to set up they're easy to hit record and go and on these two cameras I'm also recording into adamos ninja 5es because I want that footage to go straight to an SSD much faster for getting it onto my computer and working with it and then over here we have that micro Studio camera which is going HDMI out into the ADM mini extreme and then I also have an SSD plugged into the side of it and it's recording Blackmagic camera raw footage right into that SSD those are the three cameras that are operating here right now what I have is another one that I have kind of rigged up a little bit here with a handle a vmount battery and a SSD on the side of it and a monitor and an attempt to recreate what I would typically be doing if I was shooting with one of my Sony cameras like the fx3 I would have a vmount battery on it I would have a handle on it because it comes with one I would probably have some sort of a cinema lens or something similar to that on it that I can manually control and so it was really fun kind of rigging this out with stuff that I have I know that there is a cage that you can get for the micro but it is such a bulky C cage that I didn't want anything to do with it I thought well let's just put a nano rail on top mount the handle on top and then I can mount the monitor to the top of the handle small rig makes this really nice v-mount plate that also rotates down not that you need to really get to the back of this little camera for anything but you can slide this down and get access I guess to battery if you need to there but since I'm running a vmount I don't need to get access to that and so I've just slid this guy right up here and then tighten it into place and and then I've kind of rigged up an SSD on the on the side here not the best way to mount this SSD but nonetheless it's temporary and it's something for testing so this is very much a rig that I if I was going to do this long term this is not how I would rig this camera out but it's using stuff that I already had just so that I could see if this concept is actually going to work out I have to say once you get an understanding of the menu system the menu system is a little different to get through while I really like it because it's out of the way and it allows me to see what I'm looking at instead of the menu just taking everything over it does take a little getting used to but then you have the heads up display and the headsup display has all sorts of information that is there and you can easily access that and make changes to it and that's great I absolutely love that the only issue with the heads up display is if you're trying to record out from HDMI you're going to get that heads up display unless you switch over to a clean feed but then in order to get that heads up display back you have to go back into the menu and turn clean feed off and so it's a bit bit of a process I highly recommend just recording internally in the Blackmagic camera anyways that's how you're going to get the best quality footage what I did learn is that the feed that's coming out over HDMI is an HD feed it's not the same feed that you would get recording out to an SSD so you're probably only going to want to use the HDMI port for monitoring unless you're using this camera in a live streaming environment where HD is sufficient so first of all let's talk about this setup here and then we'll talk about me using it as an alternate camera angle in the studio first of all I I like this setup here because it's lightweight it's handheld and it doesn't really get in the way you know I'm I'm holding this camera by the handle and I'm also cradling it under the lens and I'm holding it close to me and shooting I've got the monitor kind of out here in front of me a little bit when I first set this up I thought oh my goodness the monitor is way out there in front but I actually really like that because I'm holding this nice and close to me resting the battery against my ch and shooting and getting nice stable shots because of using that additional point of contact and the monitor is in a good place and my hand is in a good place for not only stabilizing the camera but for manually focusing the lens as well and so in the few instances that I was out shooting handheld with this and the other instances where I was on a tripod it was a really nice experience this vmount battery will run this camera what feels like indefinitely this is the small rig VB 99 I believe and it has d tap out and then it also has some USBC outputs on the top being that I didn't want to rig this with an adapter for multiple daps I just put a battery on the back of the atomos for right now if I was going to do this longer term I would use a dummy battery DTaP dummy battery that would go into a breakout so that I can have everything powered off of the vmount battery just one place for for source of battery power and so that's all worked really good obviously the cable management isn't very pretty or any of that stuff right now but what I have to say is that the small body on this camera keeps it out of the way it's nothing it's it's barely there you don't even notice it I mean the battery the lens those are both larger than the actual body on this camera this is a micro 43s camera and I don't have a lot of experience shooting with micro 43s I've always kind of avoided it because perhaps maybe I've I've accidentally become a fullframe snob and every camera that I have with the exception of the fx30 has been fullframe and so all of my lenses are Sony Mount fullframe or with my cinema lenses I go with a PL Mount and I just don't have a PL to micro 43s Mount which is why I'm using this Miki lens which is a 25mm Miki cine lens it's inexpensive and actually is pretty darn great of a lens for the price point works really well on this camera so with this handheld setup here not only is it extremely lightweight the battery life is darn near infinite and the fact that you could plug in SS into the side of this and record for hours makes this a camera that is more powerful than what I could get out of my other cameras without really having to add a lot of additional equipment to it like I said on my Sony cameras I have to run an atos ninja 5 so that I can get an SSD for longer record times and the ease of just having everything record straight to an SSD that means that I have to have a clean feed coming out over HDMI and with a clean feed that means I have to rely on the small little monitor on the back back of the camera for camera settings and all of that stuff and so there's things that I'm just missing out on there because I don't necessarily want to record internally to SD cards I'd rather record to an SSD and that's definitely the case here but by nature of design of this camera setup your best recording option is going to be out to the SSD and your monitoring is going to be just fine because you're not actually recording and capturing what's being monitored I just have that HDMI out going to an adamos Shinobi which is a great monitoring system and definitely works great with this camera so as you can see over on this side I've got the HDMI running to the monitor I've got the USBC a SanDisk SSD over on this side and then of course we have the power which is just a daap to Barrel that is plugged in here and then of course runs up to the top of the vmount battery on the top of the camera is one qu 20 which is a little challenging mounting a nano rail or mounting anything to the top of it the bottom of the camera actually has three4 20s I wish that the top top of the camera also had three that way I can more firmly secure this Nano Rail and with this handle on top I wouldn't worry about it twisting or anything like that not a big deal I was able to get it tight enough and I just don't feel like that's much of a problem you can see I could start to turn it a little bit but I'd really have to crank on that in order to loosen it up and have an issue there would be great though if there were at least two or three quar 20s on the top of the camera on the other side of the camera we have a 3.5 mm microphone Jack so if I did want to run audio on this whether it be a lapel mic using like a road Wireless Pro or a road shotgun microphone I can easily run that into the side of the camera and then we have Micro SDI in and out on the side of the camera which I could be running out to an ADM mini extreme but I would typically only do that if I needed to run a longer cable I would rather run a long SDI than a long HDMI of course with one HDMI cable connected to this camera it's able to not only send a signal to the ADM mini extreme but also receive any c Cera controls from the ADM mini Extreme as well so HDMI for shorter cable runs definitely better than SDI because with SDI you'd have to run in and out and while yes that's two cables or sending and receiving that type of cabling is definitely much more forgiving than HDMI cables so I have enjoyed shooting handheld and on a tripod in outdoor situations in a lot of different environments with this camera and I think it's absolutely fantastic the main issue with this camera is that there's no way to trigger autofocus from the outside of the camera the only way to trigger autofocus is by using some sort of an device like the focus demand which has an autofocus button on it or perhaps the ATM mini extreme which has a focus button on it as well so if I wanted to be able to use this type of setup with an autofocus lens I would have to have some sort of a push button autofocus and utilize the black magic demand that would allow me to control focus and zoom on lenses that support Zoom so that aside let's talk a little bit about the camera as a studio camera obviously we've been looking at what the camera sees a little bit here that camera is set up just Bare Bones by itself on a magic arm connected to power HDMI running into the atum mini extreme ISO and it's also recording to an SSD on the camera is a Panasonic 14 to 42 mm zoom lens with autofocus so I can autofocus but it's very much a spot autofocus Center focus point that you can't move around and so your autofocus is going to be whatever the camera sees in the center and decides to focus on and so it's best just to use the autofocus button on the ATM mini extreme to get you close and then maybe fine-tune it in with manual autofocus there's no continuous autofocus there so it very much is a camera that you're going to set up and hopefully not really have to make any changes to what I do love about looking into my fx3 is that I have an autofocus box right on my face and as I move in and as I move back the autofocus will adjust adjust and I'm not falling in and out of focus and so I do really like that about the Sony fx3 so can you use a Blackmagic micro Studio 4K G2 camera out in the field and in a studio is it better than a Sony camera well it's really hard to say because it really depends on the type of shooter that you are if you are in a studio environment like I am sitting right now and you want full control over all of your cameras you want an easy way to do that you'd rather just run a few cables and mount those cameras and leave them mounted you're not planning on taking those cameras anywhere I think black magic is definitely the way to go it is a lot for me to mount an fx3 and an fx30 here and to leave them here all the time they're expensive cameras they're very capable cameras and using them in a studio environment just is not utilizing them to their potential they're designed to be in an environment where more things are taking place whereas these micro Studio cameras are absolutely great and are designed to be mounted and fixed and controlled remotely and that is where they are going to shine there is the possibility of rigging it out and using it in a situation like this where you could use it handheld but it's not really designed for that there's no built-in image stabilization there's obviously no autofocus that I would be able to control in this handheld situation here so everything is going to be fully manual and then the menu system is not really designed for being on the go and and needing to make changes in a fast-paced environment you really have to have a solid understanding of the camera and be quick on your feet and able to make changes and adjustments fast with this type of camera because it's not really designed for a fast-paced environment but boy is it really capable though it's capable of being used in that type of environment should you adapt it out properly and be patient enough to use the limited camera controls that are on the side of the camera so while these cameras aren't necessarily going to be replacing what I take out in the field it's more than likely that they will be replacing what I use here in the studio I would love a full-frame version of one of these cameras but they're so small and compact it makes it easy to set them up in an environment where you have limited space and you want tons of control without having to jump around to all of your cameras individually so it's likely that I didn't answer all of your questions definitely feel free to ask down in the comment section below check out the links in the description to not only the cameras but some of the accessories that I used to build this out and some of the things that I'm using in my studio here to produce videos like this and if you're interested in building out your own Studio setting it up and learning how to run it for live streaming or production of content like this make sure to check out my live streaming course because I cover everything from live streaming events to in studio content like this link is down in the description thanks for watching the video all the way through give it a thumbs up subscribe to the channel and we'll see you back in another one soon take care

Channel: Jerad Hill Photo (Ditch Auto)

Views: 2,834

Keywords: Blackmagic Micro Studio 4K G2, blackmagic micro cinema camera, micro 4k g2, blackmagic micro studio camera 4k g2, blackmagic design, bmpcc 4k, blackmagic micro, micro g2, blackmagic micro footage, blackmagic 4k g2, blackmagic micro g2, micro cinema camera, Blackmagic Micro Studio 4K G2 vs Sony

Id: W4utF7_elH0

Length: 14min 41sec (881 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2024