Body and handling

The original Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera could feasibly slide into your pocket, but despite sharing the name, the 4K version definitely can't. It's larger and a bit heavier than its predecessor, not to mention Sony's A7 III and other full-frame mirrorless cameras. The polycarbonate and carbon-fiber composite build keeps the weight down, but it doesn't feel as nice to me as, say, Canon's magnesium-alloy EOS R.

That said, it's the smallest camera in the world -- by far -- that can record RAW Cinema 4K video. In that sense, its rivals aren't consumer cameras but the RED Raven and Sony FS5 II, both of which are far heavier (and more expensive).

I'm so used to shooting mirrorless now that I found its camera-like profile preferable. It has a decent-sized handle that gives you plenty of grip and stability, particularly with larger lenses. The extra heft also makes it more stable for hand-held work, yet it's still light enough to fit on stabilizers designed for DSLR and mirrorless cameras, like DJI's Ronin-S.

The BMPCC 4K has an all-new 5-inch touchscreen, and you can control every function of the camera from there. For instance, tapping on the frame rate, shutter speed, iris, ISO or white balance opens up mini-menus to change those settings with slider controls. Touching the hamburger menu button on the right lets you adjust record, monitor, audio, setup, presets and color LUTs.

The new display is bright and has responsive touch controls, so you can use it outside in bright sunlight and quickly change functions and settings. The menu system is probably the most intuitive I've ever used, which makes me wonder why much larger companies (ahem, Sony and Nikon) can't do better. Perhaps Blackmagic Design's small size is an advantage here, as there are fewer managers that need to sign off.

The display is fixed in place and doesn't flip around, unfortunately, so the BMPCC 4K won't be ideal for YouTubers. It also draws significant power, but battery life is not amazing, giving you from 40 minutes to an hour, depending on the screen brightness and video resolution.

Luckily, the BMPCC 4K takes standard Canon LP-E6 batteries (I happened to have four for my Canon 7D). You can find knock-off versions cheaply on Amazon and carry a bunch, but remember to get a charger. Blackmagic doesn't include one, so the only way to juice up is via the camera.

I preferred to control everything with the touchscreen, but rest assured there are manual controls as well. There are six buttons on the back for menu, focus, exposure, HDR, zoom and playback, plus three customizable ones on top, along with dedicated buttons for ISO, shutter and white balance.

A front dial normally controls aperture, but you can also use it to change the ISO, shutter and white balance by hitting those buttons first. There's a video-record button where you'd normally find the shutter release (with a still photo button to the right), and another video-record button on the front for vloggers.

The layout doesn't feel like a complex high-end pro video camera, and that's a good thing. Rather, it's much like you'd see on a regular DSLR or mirrorless camera, with simple manual controls, so it should be more familiar to the novices who are likely to use it. At the same time, if you need more detailed settings, you can dive into the menus to get them.

Connectors and storage

The connection side is where the BMPCC 4K beats any mirrorless camera. It's got 3.5mm microphone and headphone jacks, as you'd expect, as well as a more professional mini-XLR locking connector for high-quality mics. You can even mix and match the mini-XLR (which is mono only) and the stereo 3.5mm jack. And the built-in stereo microphone offers excellent quality, so you can use it as a true backup.

Even the 12V power connector locks, so if you're doing studio or event work, there's less chance it'll get pulled out. You also get USB Type-C and a full-sized HDMI connector.

The BMPCC 4K really beats regular cameras for recording options: There's a pair of slots on the right side for SD UHS-II and CFast 2.0, the latter of which supports speeds up to 525 MB/s. And you can connect an SSD drive via the USB-C port.

There are two recording formats: ProRes 422 HQ at up to 118 MB/s or CinemaDNG RAW at 272 MB/s maximum -- the second one is a bit of a pain because it produces huge individual files for each frame. However, Blackmagic has promised that the BMPCC 4K will support its simpler, more versatile RAW video format in a future firmware update.

With no limitations on recording length, you could feasibly connect a large SSD and the power connector to capture weddings or long speeches. Weirdly, I wasn't able to record uncompressed RAW 4K video at 60 fps because none of the options (CFast 2.0, UHS-II SD or SSD via USB Type-C) appear to be fast enough to keep up. I could, however, record Cinema 60 fps 4K at 3:1 compression with no noticeable quality loss.

Though there are three recording options, you can only choose from two at a time. If you plug in an SSD drive, for instance, you'll lose the SD UHS-II option. And unfortunately, there's no way to record to two cards, like SD and CFast 2.0 cards, at once. That will leave wedding and other videographers without a backup.

Performance and video quality

Blackmagic Cinema Camera footage shot at 4K 3,840 x 2,160 RAW

The BMPCC 4K has a Four Thirds (not Micro Four Thirds) sensor; though with an effective 18.96 x 10mm size, it's both wider and shorter than either format. That's done to accommodate the wider DCI 4K aspect ratio of 4,096 x 2,160. When shooting regular, narrower Ultra HD (3,840 x 2,160) video, the effective sensor size is even smaller than on Micro Four Thirds cameras like Panasonic's GH5s.

In fact, it seems that Blackmagic might be using a similar sensor to the GH5s (both are likely manufactured by Sony). It has the same Dual ISO system, with native ISOs at both 400 and 3,200 and an ISO range of 100-25,600.

As with the GH5s, the benefit of Dual ISO is good-quality video in low light. I was able to get usable shots at up to 6,400, and quality was decent, though a bit noisy, at ISO 12,800. (ISO 25,600 is even possibly usable if you want a grainy effect.) That's pretty impressive for a camera with a relatively small sensor and will give shooters a lot of lighting options.