At BVE, Convergent Design were showing the Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K connected to their Apollo switcher/recorder using 6G-SDI. They just added 6G-SDI support in their latest firmware release and this was the first time I’d seen a working portable recording solution for these diminutive cameras. Other Blackmagic Design 6G-SDI equipped cameras should also work. With the setup you can record two 4K or four HD cameras side-by-side in perfect sync with matching timecode. For situations where you need multiple POV shots, say in the interior of a car, then this system is going to make life a lot easier.
The results from the Micro Studio Camera 4K were pretty convincing. Right now, my only hesitation with using these cameras set up in this way is down to Blackmagic not putting film gamma in the main menu of the camera. It comes by default with a video gamma with options to tweak the settings via a switcher. This should be fine for many TV applications, but less friendly for more filmic production. If Blackmagic update this via firmware in future then I could see quite a lot more uses for this setup. Other less expensive lightweight 4K camera options for the Apollo include the usual Sony and Panasonics. If you are happy with an HD image, then other options are the Blackmagic Micro cinema camera and Pocket Cinema Camera. Be aware that the Apollo is limited to one HDMI connection, so you will need a SDI convertor of some kind if you want to use multiple HDMI sources.
For more details visit the Convergent Design and Blackmagic Design websites.
