Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K – First Look

by Francesco AndreolaSeptember 15^th, 2023

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On our first day at IBC Show 2023, we couldn’t resist visiting Blackmagic Design’s booth to learn more about their newly-announced Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K, which is aimed at “high-end film productions”.

Yesterday, Blackmagic Design launched tons of new products, including 3 new cameras, a smartphone filmmaking app as well as new hardware control panels and a video router for live production and broadcast.

Although we have already covered these announcements in great detail, on the show floor at IBC 2023 my colleague Nino was eager to further investigate the design choices behind the Cinema Camera 6K. So let’s see what he learned when talking with Tim Siddons from BMD!

Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K – features

The new Cinema Camera is definitely the highlight of yesterday’s announcement, as it’s essentially a revamped, more modern version of the popular Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro.

It’s the first Blackmagic Camera to ever feature a full-frame 6K image sensor – which comes with a tailor-made OLPF and supports 3:2 Open Gate recording – and to record on CFexpress Type B media (USB-C recording to an external SSD is still supported).

The camera can record BRAW in 6K full-frame 3:2 at up to 36fps or 6K 2.4:1 at up to 60fps. You can also shoot slow-motion videos in FullHD cropped at up to 120fps, and even generate 1080p H.264 real-time proxy files next to the Blackmagic RAW originals. However, Blackmagic had to drop Apple ProRes for this camera model.

I’ve seen many people wondering about the rolling shutter performance of the new sensor. Tim talked about this topic, stating that rolling shutter should be around 25ms in 6K 3:2 Open Gate and drops to 8ms in Full HD cropped mode. These definitely aren’t the best results, so expect some jello effect in your footage.

Additionally, the company is finally moving away from the Canon EF mount to embrace the L-mount alliance. With a flange focal distance of 20mm, this mirrorless lens mount opens up access to a broader range of lenses via the use of adapters. The downside is that due to the shallow flange distance, the company couldn’t incorporate ND filters within the body.

The camera inherits a similar form factor to that of the BMPCC 6K Pro, and the slightly redesigned body is compatible with many existing accessories, such as most cages, as well as BMD’s Pro viewfinder and battery grip. However, this could be a little disappointing for some users who have long been asking Blackmagic for a compact, box-style cinema camera.

Price and availability

The new Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K is now available to pre-order from B&H and CVP. It retails for $2,595 (B&H /CVP).

For more information, please visit Blackmagic Design’s website here.

Are you a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera owner? Would you consider upgrading to this new full-frame model? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!