Blackmagic have just announced Camera Setup 6.1 that is claimed to improve the battery and auto focus performance of the BMPCC 4K.
While the BMPCC 4K produces nice imagery it has been plagued by battery problems which many owners have been complaining about. You can read all about these problems in our review.
It shuts off without warning (from our review)
A major flaw with the Pocket 4K is it will shut off while recording even when the battery indicator is showing 30% or 40%. The camera isn’t correctly estimating the actual amount of power left. When I put a full battery in the indicator will quickly show the battery depleting even before I start recording. This needs to be addressed in a firmware update stat! It might not be a camera software issue but more of a camera power consumption issue.
While I have had the camera shut down while recording several times the clips didn’t become corrupt or was deleted. This is some good news but like I said. It’s scary and I can’t imagine that clips eventually wouldn’t get corrupted with such abrupt shutdowns. Blackmagic Design said they will look into this issue further but stated the clips close every 10 frames, therefore, you could lose approximately 10 frames off the end of a clip.
I tested several batteries and I’m finding a big discrepancy with them and when the camera will shut down. With Canon OEM LP-E6N I was getting much better performance. The camera would drop to around 9% and then shut off. For now, I highly recommend the Canon OEM batteries and change them around 15% warning. I still got around 40-45 minutes with Canon OEM.
Finally a fix
It has taken Blackmagic a long time to address and address the battery flaw with the BMPCC 4K. According to Blackmagic, Camera Setup 6.1 has Improved power efficiency for improved battery life, fixed an issue where some batteries might shut off earlier than expected, and fixed an issue where low battery indicators are not displayed appropriately.
We don’t have a BMPCC4K so there is no way for us to independently test whether or not any of these problems have actually been fixed. If you own a BMPCC 4K let us know if Camera Setup 6.1 has solved these issues.
Better Auto Focus
Blackmagic also claims that the auto focus performance has been improved on the BMPCC 4K. There are no more details as to what has actually been improved. They do say that they fixed an issue where there were auto focusing issues when using the Lumix 20mm f1.7 lens.
New for BMPCC 4K
- Added support for pixel remapping in camera
- Added 2:1 monitoring frame guide
- Improved media formatting user interface
- Improved audio monitoring latency performance
- Improved auto focus performance
- Improved signal to noise ratio performance of camera internal microphone
- Improved power efficiency for improved battery life
- Improved 3.5mm audio input selection interface
- Improved AV sync performance
- Fixed an issue where time and date is not updated on camera when connected to the Blackmagic Camera Setup utility
- Fixed an issue where the 3.5mm audio input level is 6dB lower than expected
- Fixed an auto focusing issue with Lumix 20mm f/1.7 lens
- Fixed an issue where some USB-C external SSDs were not detected when connected before camera is powered up
- Fixed an issue where some batteries might shut off earlier than expected
- Fixed an issue where low battery indicator is not displayed appropriately
- Fixed an issue with camera not being detected by host computer when connected to certain USB ports
- Updated dynamic range and ISO chart in user manual
No new features in 6.1 for other camera models.
Minimum system requirements for updating using macOS
macOS Mojave 10.14 or better
macOS High Sierra 10.13 or better
A suitable USB 2.0 port
Thunderbolt port for UltraScope and Media Express when using Blackmagic Cinema Camera or Blackmagic Production Camera 4K
Minimum system requirements for updating using Windows
Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit
Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit
A suitable USB 2.0 port
A suitable Thunderbolt port when using Blackmagic Cinema Camera or Blackmagic Production Camera 4K
Things to be aware of
While installing Camera Update on URSA Mini and URSA Mini Pro you may notice a pause around the 10% mark in the install process, this is normal and will continue installing after around 20 seconds.
After loading the software on the Blackmagic Cinema Camera PL, EF or MFT, you may notice a slight flickering on the built-in LCD screen. This is normal and expected behavior. The flickering will go away after a few minutes of operation.
New Manual available to download
Blackmagic have also made an updated instruction manual for the BMPCC 4K available to download.
