What Are Cinema Cameras, and Should You Buy One?

IF YOU BOUGHT a camera for video in the last several years, you might have reached for a still DSLR or mirrorless camera. As these have gotten better at recording video, their interchangeable lenses and high degree of control have been huge benefits to video shoots, versus traditional camcorders. But what if you want to upgrade from there? Then you’re probably looking at “cinema cameras,” which can cost several thousand dollars. What, exactly, makes those cameras worth it?

The term “cinema camera” is a bit nebulous, and its definition can vary depending on whom you ask. Many cinema cameras are also mirrorless cameras, but with a greater focus on video rather than still photos. I'm going to use the term here to refer to any class of camera that is designed primarily around shooting video first, with a high degree of control over the picture, and that can produce footage that looks like film. You can get that “cinematic” look from photography cameras, even on an iPhone, but some cameras are designed with video in mind.

More specifically, we’re going to compare two cameras that we tested in a real-world setting: a Nikon D7500–the mid-range DSLR camera I personally use for my own video productions–and the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro (BMPCC), which we were able to test for a few weeks. The Nikon retails for around $1,000, and the Blackmagic goes for around $2,500 (both without lenses.)

Both cameras have their place, and neither is fully representative of its category, but they give us a good baseline to look at the differences between mid-range photo cameras that happen to be good at video, and cinema cameras that can be more expensive but are designed to record video with an eye for film-like quality.

BLACKMAGIC DESIGN VIA ERIC RAVENSCRAFT

If there’s one advantage to cinema cameras that’s worth the upgrade, it’s working in RAW/Log formats. Photographers have been using RAW for ages due to its flexibility. Rather than processing and compressing images directly in the camera, RAW formats store all the data from your camera’s image sensor, allowing you to change things like exposure, white balance, and other color data after the fact, so you can focus on things like shot composition and framing.

Video cameras, on the other hand, have been slower to adopt RAW formats, largely because they require a lot more storage space than compressed formats. Some cameras struggle to record 4K video even in compressed formats—my Nikon D7500, for example, overheats after recording in 4K for too long. To get around this, most higher-end video cameras shoot in Log formats—which, to oversimplify, is a way of encoding video data on a logarithmic scale that makes the video look very flat, but provides a much more flexible tool kit to change the look of your footage in post.

The difference between RAW and Log footage can be confusing. Technically, RAW footage is not an actual video format but a stream of uncompressed data. But to keep you on your toes, both Blackmagic RAW and Apple's ProRes RAW, despite their names, use some form of compression—which by definition makes them not actually RAW footage.

Don't get too hung up on the difference just yet, though. What matters here is that if you're shooting video that looks great right out of the camera, then it's probably already compressed and processed. And switching to a RAW/Log workflow, while adding extra steps, will also give you a lot more creative control.

One of the most popular editors to work with RAW/Log footage (outside of professional studio environments anyway) is DaVinci Resolve. Even the free version of this video editor lets you bring in Blackmagic RAW formats and adjust your color grade with an array of tools and scopes that might look somewhat familiar if you’ve ever adjusted a photo in Lightroom.

This is also where you can apply color lookup tables (LUTs), which are tools that contain preset color grades that you can apply quickly to your footage. While you can’t rely on a single LUT to provide correct color grading for every kind of shot, they can be a quick way to get a baseline color grade or to quickly apply color to shots you use regularly—for example if you shoot the same subject on the same set every day.

Shooting in RAW/Log can also (sometimes) help if you do any green-screen work. Having more control over your color grade also means having more flexibility to fix the problems that can crop up when keying out a screen. But for baked-in color grades, you get what you get. For example, I used the BMPCC to shoot the green-screen elements in the opening shots of this video, which made integrating it into the rest of the effects much easier, despite the less-than-ideal lighting on the screen itself. Using the D7500 I shot the rest of the video with, however, would’ve been more of a challenge.

Most cameras that shoot video usually have options to select different resolutions. My D7500, for example, can shoot in 720p, 1080p, and 4K at various frame rates. If you don’t want to do a ton of editing in post for your videos, this is fine. However, filmmakers who want to get more serious about their compositions might want higher or more flexible resolution options.

This brings us to why Blackmagic’s camera is 6K instead of 4K or 8K. There aren’t any 6K TVs, so what’s the point of shooting in 6K? The answer is found in the editing room. By shooting in 6K, you can stabilize shaky footage, zoom in to get closer versions of the same shot, or pan around between different areas of the shot, all without losing resolution. This is a technique that studio directors often use to get exactly the right shot they need in post. If you were to zoom in on 4K footage that you also planned to distribute in 4K, however, you’d lose detail.

This technique works anytime you shoot in a resolution higher than you plan to export in. For example, I shoot my videos in 4K but distribute in 1080p so I can have this flexibility. However, with my D7500—and many cameras that aren’t designed primarily for video—there’s no option to shoot in any higher resolution than 4K. If I wanted to distribute videos in 4K, I couldn't use these same editing tricks.

Blackmagic’s camera, on the other hand, has recording options ranging from 2.8K—which is slightly higher than 1080p and gives you plenty of room to crop or stabilize without having to deal with full 4K file sizes—all the way up to 6K, which provides that same flexibility even if you plan to distribute 4K video. Until technology reaches a point where 8K video distribution becomes more normalized, chances are good you’ll have more than you need for a long time to come.